Solar Flare Inspired Photo Shoot with Donica Burton

I had the pleasure of working with the beautiful Donica Burton this afternoon in Cullman, AL.  The weather was unforgiving: hot and humid and sunny.  It brought about great dynamic lighting for the electric shoot, but it was so uncomfortable to work in.  She was quite the trooper though, you couldn't even tell by her body language that we were baking in the heat.

We used two different locations for today's shoot, and five wardrobe changes.  Our first location was a gravel lot with a valley out beyond it with the sun creeping over the trees (around 5:30 PM).  This location stuck out most to me because surrounding this place of natural beauty was old run down/abandoned human creations (industrial looking buildings/trailers/an old machine of some sort).  I love mixing the natural world with man made places/objects, it's such a harsh relation, but somehow they work together so well.  Our second location was nearly right across the street from the first! It was on the creepy side, but the mint color of the building was incredible and I couldn't resist.  I'm not exactly sure what this place used to be, but now it looks like it could be an abandoned motel.  Windows are broken, doors hanging open, and there's still the remains of an american flag hanging in front of one of the windows.  This has got to be one of my favorite places I've ever shot.  There was just something about the atmosphere of the place that made everything work together so incredibly.

My idea for today's shoot was inspired by Nastygal's January lookbook "Pop Rocks" http://www.nastygal.com/Lookbooks_January-Lookbook-Pop-Rocks.  I wanted to work with bold prints and bright colors, and I wanted to create an air of sophistication in the images.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think!