Driving from Tucson along I10 headed east you will see a large, flat white area just before you reach Wilcox, Az. This is the Wilcox Playa and it’s fascinated me for years as I’ve driven by it. I was always too busy to stop and try and explore it. Then a friend of mine showed me a picture they had taken on the playa itself and I realized that I really wanted (needed) to do a photo shoot there. The landscape was just stunning: stark, big, beautiful and clean but I felt it would need certain wardrobe to really make the most of it.
Enter Estéban Osuna. I had been collaborating with Estéban on another shoot and he mentioned he was getting ready to show his new collection. Unlike the previous year which featured black heavily, the new collection had a lot of flowing dresses in earth tone colors like copper, white, tan and blue and I realized that this collection would be a good fit for this outdoor location.
We were all set to go and then in the two weeks leading up to the shoot we started getting a lot of rain (at least a lot for Southern Arizona) and I started to get worried about how that lake bed would hold up with all of the vehicles and gear.
So the night before the shoot I found myself driving down to scout the location one last time and fortunately, even though the ground was a little soft it was firm enough for the truck and the 5th wheel to go out there along with the other cars to drive out onto it.
On the day of the shoot it was beautiful. Once we got on location I and the crew got setup the pictures just flowed. It was great time – I really enjoyed working with the team and the models looked amazing in the dresses.
Bianca, Elizabeth and Carli made the shoot easy for me as a photographer. It was also my first time out on location shooting tethered using Capture One Pro and Think Tank Photo’s Pixel Sunscreen laptop shade. Both of these worked far better on location than I had hoped and it gave the team a better way to see what we were creating while we were doing it so this is definitely something I’ll doing more of in the future.
Team Credits:
Models: Bianca Brotherton, Elizabeth Lane (both with Arizona Model Management) and Carli Shepherd
Designer: Estéban
MUAH: Kristopher Osuna of Perfection Artistry
Wardrobe Assist: Manny Manriquez
Photo Assist: Daniel Ford
