Specialty

A few weeks ago we were instructed to photograph a piece of paper. The only requirements were it had to be at least one 8.5x11 piece of paper and it had to be shoot in the studio. I immediately had lots of scattered thoughts running through my mind. I knew I wanted to use a model and make it all about the paper. I looked at ever so talented designer, Zoe Bradley, for inspiration. She is known for creating garments, abstract headpieces, and window displays using only specialty paper. Her finished pieces are one of a kind.



Creation-
I knew that the one week we had to complete this project was not going to be enough time to attempt to make a garment. So I searched around for a headpiece and found one that I believed was realistic for me to recreate. Amanda Sccot is a talented hair stylist in the Pittsburgh area, who helped me build a base to attach the paper onto. After problem solving (and super gluing my fingers together) I finally caught on to the way the paper was folding and attaching to the base. The boys laughed and looked at me like I was crazy when I showed them the progress. They were watching the Pens game, chowing down on Cestone's Pizza. I always love to hear what guys things about fashion, they come up with some great analogies. Josh said it looked like a giant marshmallow or a big white loofah that you would use in the shower. It took me about an hour and a half to complete the headpiece once I got rolling.

It was necessary for me to have my model topless (although, I had never done it before) simply because I wanted it to be all about this abstract head piece and clothing was only going to get in the way. I didn't want to have an abundance color in the final piece so I just decided to go with a neon lip, which I later de-saturated a little. Shana Lohn was the make up artist who helped bring my vision alive. The original lighting setup that I had in mind had to be tweeked a little because it ended up being so big it was hard to get light up under it and eliminate the shadows it created. Elizabeth Delgros was the model I found on Model Mayhem. For those who do not know, it is a networking site for photographers, models, make up artists, hair stylist, etc. Liz surpassed my expectations considering she was very limited to movement because we were shooting from the waist up.

Enough rambling. Here was the original inspiration piece and one of my images.



Turns out a couple of days later Japanese hair and make up artist Katsuya Kamo blew everyone away with his elaborate paper headpieces for the Chanel Couture Spring 2009 in Paris.




It's funny, after this whole thing was said and done I learned that you can create anything with a little bit of imagination. All it took was computer paper, tape, and a stapler.