Right after my annual retreat Colorpop wrapped, the wildflowers were blooming at Albion Basin. This is one of my favorite places in the whole world (Mason proposed to me in this area!) and it only blooms with these lovely flowers for a couple weeks each year, usually towards the end of the summer. I knew this would be my only chance to shoot here, so I went up with model Willow Corner for sunrise one morning. 

A few months ago I purchased a roll of reflective mylar paper to use in a photo shoot, and I’m so happy with how this passion project finally turned out! Our silver chrome dream came to life, and after some struggles with managing the reflections from the material, we got into a groove for these editorial portraits.

Last year, many of our Colorpop attendees told us that one of their favorite shoots was our close up beauty editorial, so we wanted to make that a priority for this year’s event. For this concept, we wanted the main focus be colorful makeup and florals. Our makeup artists did a variation of ombre and rainbow looks on the models, and we opted for emerald green wardrobe styling for each of them. Ultraviolet Backdrops provided us with the most gorgeous hand-painted backdrops in green in purple shades, which really made the styling pop.

For this women’s editorial shoot, our theme was fringe. We chose a red, pink, and black color palette for wardrobe styling, and added our own fringe with a hot glue gun (and a prayer). Our talented models swayed back and forth, flung their arms, did big kicks, and kept moving the whole time to make the fringe sing. It was bold and dramatic, and everything we’d hoped it would be!

For this concept, we were inspired by iridescence. The rainbow array of colors you see when you blow bubbles – cool colors like purples, pinks, blues. This is what we kept in mind when styling wardrobe, but we knew we wanted to also incorporate actual bubbles too. Our assistants stood on the sidelines with bubble wands creating them (though the wind did pose a challenge) while the models posed behind the shapes. Meanwhile, we had a few other tricks up our sleeve – an iridescent shower curtain made of a cellophane-type material that reflected the sunlight perfectly, and …. a plexiglass table we had made. Photographers climbed under the table and directed the models, who stood on top and did some edgy poses. It was a an iridescent DREAM!