Feb 2010

Mansion Mayhem with Cap’n Tony

By now many of you have seen these images from posts on Facebook.

I just wanted to take time in the blog to elaborate and publicly thank

everyone involved who made it so much fun.

I first thought about using this house for a concept shoot last summer

when we shot there for a wedding. I fell in love with the place immediately.

I approached the owner,Tony about using his home for a model shoot and he

seemed reasonably receptive to the idea, so I pursued it.

Tony is an amazing man with great vision for the building.

One Hundred years ago the Mansion was a Brothel, so I decided to go with that theme

and run with it. I wanted authentic period costumes but had no good leads to find them.

Then I remembered that our close friend Peter Bisuito from “The Wedding Producers”

video studio http://www.theweddingproducer.com/ is active in local theater productions.

He contacted Kim Hicks from the Aurora Players theater http://www.auroraplayers.org/

She was so kind to hook us up with the beautiful costumes you see on the models.

Thank you so much to Peter and Kim for making the shoot so special with such a

striking wardrobe.

Next came securing models for the day. I have a very successful history working with

Elizabeth Ann, so asking her was a no brainer. Liz is so easy to work with. She is the

most intuitive model I’ve ever worked with. We often times share the same brain, with Liz

transitioning into a pose before I even ask.

Snjezana gets credit for choosing Kelly as our second model. She worked with her on our

Swimsuit shoot in the Bahamas last year with the Buffalo Jills Cheerleaders. She fell in love with her then and thought she would be a perfect fit with Liz.

Kelly is one of those girls that goes through a complete metamorphosis as soon as she steps in front of the camera. The camera has a true love affair with her. Kelly, like Liz is always one step

ahead, which allows the shoot to flow effortlessly. You can physically feel the energy level in the

room rise working with these two.

Thanks Ladies, you are true superstars in our world!

A project like this isn’t possible without assistants.

For this we turned to good friends and biggest fans, James and Rachel Fry.

Actually Rachel volunteered their services as she so often does. 🙂

They were a huge help with lighting, as Jimmy carried studio lights from room to room

and held diffuser panels and reflectors in place.

Rachel kept us laughing with her often unintentional sense of humor.

We love you so much Rachel. You are truly our biggest fan!

Tony was a very accommodating and gracious host. He let us come in and literally take over his

house for five hours and even bought us pizza!