Wooden Heart Begins!

I am finally back from New York and ready to begin my project "Wooden Heart" the story of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. I am so excited about this series, and it is going to take quite a long time to create, but hopefully it will be worth it. I am pretty nervous about the project because I have built these images up so much in my mind, i just hope they actually happen. I would be so disappointed if it were anything less than what I am dreaming of.

My friend Lauren and I have been discussing this project for some time. She is as well beginning a huge project, but I will et her tell you about that! She inspired the creation of a project, and we began, planning and constantly racking our brains about all we want to create.

In the project I am going to hand create all the sets and props, hopefully some costumes as well! I feel as if a certain magic is lost in the digital age, and i am going to try my best and bring back the hand made quality to my work. I have just as much fun making these props as actually doing the shoot!

Tim Walker once spoke about how it is the photographer's job to create a dream world, and at the shoot, not only take a picture, but bring back a souvenir from that trip to another world, and there is your photo. I found that incredibly inspiring and that is what i am going to try and do with this project.

The first image is of a character i created called the Pleasure island Mistress. I created this character for my friend Shien! Shien is an incredible event planner and creator of Dances Of Vice in New York. She is successful at such a young age, and is such a kind friend. She has quite the collection of vintage costumes, and wonderful outfits, so as soon as she said we could do a shoot i instantly began planning a way to make her a part of this project. I thought she would work perfectly as a character I created that stands at the shore on Pleasure Island and welcomes the young boys with popcorn and instructs them to partake in all the activities they have dreamed of! She was so very excited! To represent the excess of the island, I made 2 trash bags full of popcorn to sprinkle upon the beach and have her laying on to of it!

Laila, my new friend from internship agreed to assist me for the day and i couldn't have done it without her! She came early and helped me carry all the popcorn and the giant rubber balls on the subway... needless to say we had many looks. We were headed to Coney Island.... the lighting is perfect at sunset, magical. It was however FREEZING! We were all so cold, but we knew it would be totally worth it.

Here is Laila looking beautiful in the light from the sunset.


Shien and I had been in conversation about her costume and I was totally blown away when she showed up in her costume... it was perfect, exactly what i had been hoping for. I could tell she gets it. She understood what dream land we were trying to bring to life. While photographing her, she became an actress, and the character just as I had hoped.

As soon as the popcorn was spilled out, the birds came.... I mean hundreds! HUNDREDS! They were going crazy over the corn and I was afraid for Shien! Laila was at least trying to get the birds to flee, but I looked at the image, and then I realized, they had created this frame all around her. It was beautiful. It was almost like they were dancing for us. In the final image i chose the one where the birds made this amazing swoop over her head. I didn't put those birds there.... they were all actually there. It was at this moment I had realized we had our image. It was exactly what I had hoped for and it had only been a short time in the freezing cold. I immediately wrapped the shoot, and had some hot tea waiting for Shien.

Here are the crazy birds...



We all had such a great time creating this, and with this being the first image, I am actually proud of it! That is a first for me, I struggle so much with that, but I love what we created. Stay tuned for more!