Shooting For British Elle Today....You Gotta Come with Me

Remember this young lady from last month?
When Elle told me they wanted to cast some non-models, I immediately thought of this young lady.
Of course shooting "non-models" is tricky because they still have to fit the clothes but I love the fact that a girl I just ran into on the street one day ,and thought was cool, will now have her style celebrated in a major fashion magazine.

I called Kelly yesterday and told her about the project and asked if she could pop down for a quick shot that I could show Stacey from Elle. As usual (without any prior warning) Kelly showed up looking stunning - love the hat, the sophistication, the charm - she seems to have a very mature way about her considering she is 23 years old.


Someone mentioned in one of the comments yesterday that the girls looked like typical model "androids"
That will be my challenge to get them to drop the "modelishness" and shoot them exactly the same way I shoot any girl.
During the casting I kept asking goofy questions (who is your favorite baseball player) just to get them to relax and show some (any?) personality. We are using around 8 girls so we really tried to find a good mix of types

I remember when I got the email to do this shoot my first instinct was to go and get some lighting, and rent a big camera, find an assistant- but really they are hiring me to just do what I do.
"Do what you do" can be a little nerve racking sometimes. The big difference is I work alone and feel like what i do is under the radar in a lot of ways. Today I will have alot of people around so I will just have to keep centered and focused. Luckily the weather is good today so I don't think we will need a lot of people standing around doing touch-up makeup and such.
It is really a compliment that they are giving me such freedom and so much say in the styling, models, location - especially the styling part.
This is an accessories story for them but they wanted to capture that quirky Hi-Lo mix I like so we have pieces from Chloe to H&M.

If everything goes well this story will look like a series of cool girls not a bunch of models.
I guess we will have to revisit this in October

I will try to post today around the same schedule as yesterday but I will also probably do a late post as a wrap-up.