My favorite way to shoot is in a candid fashion and try to capture moment. Posed portraits are great, and performances are chaotic in some of the best ways but being able to capture the world around you in your own personal vision allows for some of the most striking visuals. Thankfully The Desert Darlings Belly Dance gave me the opportunity to do some Behind The Scenes Shots of them getting ready before their big Nightmare Before Christmas Show in Santa Fe.
Candid Photo journalistic work is my jam, it’s more of what my background is and I feel like the photos just come out better when I take them in a much more natural setting.
Portraiture, though, has a much bigger market and people enjoy being part of that process a lot more. So in my great big reunion with my friend Tara we came up with idea for her to get temporary corset piercings done by Scott Self of Evolution Body Piercing out in Albuquerque New Mexico.
What was so impressive about Scott was how professional he was about what he does and making sure he used a sanitary work environment. We even had a brief conversation about the States broken licencing practices and the issues he has seen with it. Needless to say if I ever decided to get a piercing one day I now know who to go to.
Tara of course being true to form was an absolute trooper and a joy to work with. She got through the piercing process in no time at all and with no complaints what so ever. You also have to appreciate that she had just gone through lasik eye surgery the day before, which was something I was concerned about going in and it turned out to be a complete non issue.
The resulting photos came out amazingly and the photos from the actual portrait shoot are some of my new favorite images in a long time. Stay tuned for those. 
A few months ago when I was in the middle of a portrait shoot I got a call from my lady friend saying that the short film she was doing makeup work for wanted a photographer to do production stills and of course I said I was game.
Being put in a behind the scenes had me right in my element while at the same time brought it’s own set of challenges. The biggest of these challenges was that I had to avoid getting in the way. That seems like that would be fairly standard for shooting stills on set but when you what was so unique about The Understudy was that it was shot all on steadycam in one take following a central charter through the intricate inner workings of theater (and everything that can go wrong on opening night.) This meant I had to work quickly on the fly and well out of the way.
After the first couple of runs I got a clear sense of where I could and couldn’t be for all of my shots, what were the best vantage points and where the most visually interesting element were going to take place. What turned out to be most special aspect of the set was just how much was going on that the video camera wasn’t capturing. Makeup, costuming, line rehersals, vocal warm up, set dressing and the built tension that you feel before curtain opens were all happening as the single camera was rolling for a straight 8 minutes.
Great photos always come out of great challenges and shooting behind the scenes of the Understudy provided just that.
TCK-Media 
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