lima and fashion : the sean john section at the local macy's

i've been recently fascinated by these behind-the-scenes peeks at fashion shoots that have been posted by newspaper photographers i admire. they include tales of planning meetings, model castings, studios and software and other fancy things that can come from collaborative creativity. all so interesting especially considering my only brush with fashion shoots for the paper was one that was thrown at me half an hour into my shift and limited to an hour of shooting at the macy's at the mall.

the assignment was to shoot something for a feature on men's basics. john the model was a very nice boy who worked in a the men's department at macy's and volunteered his lunch hour to pose for us in some merchandise the store's manager had selected.


no location scouting, no stylists, two lights, a chair snagged from the dressing room and reporter/hottie kate the great to hold a reflector for me every once in a while.

i picked the sean john section because it had this goofy looking fence and i thought it would be easier to hide the fact that we were shooting this at the mall like a bunch of goobers. i was kind of happy with the way it turned out given the circumstances, but at the same time i don't know if i was trying too hard.



this was a while ago, since then, blog surfing has shown me the light.
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erik lunsford posted an audio slideshow on his blog describing all the really cool work the staff at the st. louis post-dispatch did to produce LUXE. its great to see the people within the bureaucratic-ish system at a huge paper like that really value each other's contributions -- time and talent -- and employ teamwork to really work a concept.

yoon byun has also been providing really great examples of these kinds of efforts on his blog that only emphasize how great things can be when the newspaper you work for uses their resources properly. he has got this great, clean style and it is showcased well in work like what he contributed to the globe's 25 most stylish bostonians.

their efforts are especially impressive to me because it totally breaks the very simpleminded perception ive had of underestimating the potential for incorporating techniques and efforts typical in glossy high-end fashion, something i thought was a world apart, and translating that on to medium like newspapers, a medium whose that ink rubs off on your fingers.
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im pretty sure this kind of stuff isn't really my thing. i would much rather photograph overweight old ladies in moomoos petting cats on their porches than gorgeous women in expensive clothes. but seeing the creative and conceptual development in these examples is really inspiring and while i've been mostly embarrassed with my attempt, it was kind of fun.