Here are some BTS photos from the Call of the Familiar Halloween Poster project. You can see all of the work that Kris and Christine put into help transform Hillary into the beautiful witch. Agnieszka Osipa was the costume designer and her clothing really helped make the photos unique and the BTS photos give you a glimpse of what’s to come.

Every shoot has it’s unexpected challenges. For this shoot,  I suddenly started having problems with my trusty laptop crashing while tethered to Capture One Pro. This has been a bulletproof combination in the past. So solid in fact that I never anticipated this being a problem. During the shoot, the laptop would shut down at random intervals and often require a reboot to make it work. This totally interrupted the flow of things as we were going along.  

It became so unreliable that I finally just shut it down and reverted to shooting with a CF card and looking at the photos off the back of the camera. While that process worked, it  made me realize how much I’ve come to love working tethered. Later, I would learn that the video card was going bad in the laptop and it was not a software problem at all. Still it was incredibly frustrating at the time.

Looking at Hillary’s features and the outfit that we had I wanted to shoot some portraits in a little bit harder light than I would normally use. To do this, we went with a 22” silver beauty dish. At some point we switched it up and I began shooting for the composite image I would build later in Photoshop. To do this I used a 48″ Octa as a primary light and a strip box behind her to give a little rim light. 

We’ve worked together before as a team and so that made this shoot even a little more fun. Everybody knew what to expect and it just made things that much more comfortable for all of us. 

The final poster will be released at midnight on Oct. 31.

Credits:

Model: Hillary Grey Ingalls
MUAH: Kristopher Osuna of Perfection Artistry
Dress, headpiece and glove Designer: Agnieszka Osipa
Wardrobe & Styling: Christine Bartfai
Photo Assistant: Daniel Ford