Shoot Date: June 18, 2010

What a talented and motivated young man! Still a minor, and Ian Alexander is already entering the modeling biz to see the industry from all sides, since his heading is Fashion Design at FIDM next year. Not only is he already building momentum towards his career, he’s already started it, by launching two independent tshirt labels! Impressive!

Ian came down from San Bernardino to shoot with me, and I’m glad he did! His love for couture fashion pulled me into a new mindset while shooting, which was really fun to explore.

One of the first things I noticed about Ian, other than his beautiful bone structure and intense eyes, was the gorgeous smattering of freckles across his face:

I asked him to go urban style for me, which seemed to work well: I noticed his shirt is one from his personal line!

Since he’s big into fashion couture, we made some interesting urban/fashion fusions:

Ian has a gorgeous smile, but it took a while before he’d flash it in front of the camera:

He was also awesome with taking direction and going with my ideas. He even stared in a ridiculously bright, sunny direction to get this shot I really wanted. I love the intensity of color the bright light gave us:

I learned a lot on this shoot about going with the flow when things don’t work out how you were planning. We were warned off from one location I had planned on using by a loiterer who claimed he’d seen photographers get $2,000 fines for trespassing. The loiterer himself was also camped out in another location I had planned on using, and insisted I not get him in any shots. Hrm. Then later, I was looking forward to this gate that fenced in a bunch of trucks and a beautiful guard dog, which I had found when doing a test shoot in the location with my friend and model, Artos the Bear. I was looking forward to a really tough-looking image of Ian and the dog… but the dog was MIA on the night Ian and I shot. I even meowed a bit to see if I could entice him out of hiding, but no luck.  So, I took a different angle on the location:

Since I really love natural light and urban locations, I think it’s essential to develop a go-with-the-flow mentality and the ability to take what you’re given and rock it. This is also a philosophy I struggle to embrace in life, so bring on the training! In fact, I’m finding photography is helping me with a lot of life skills… :)

I asked Ian to play with some cards in one of the last locations, and neither of us much knew what to do with them, so in a couple photos he’s holding about 20 cards in a splay in his hand!! *palmface* It’s one of those things (that happens pretty often with photographers, at least at the beginning) that you just don’t see until you’re editing, because when you’re in the moment you get so caught up in the photo and the excitement! Note to self: must pay more attention to details. :P Nevertheless, the card-playing setup produced one of my favorite images from the shoot:

My best friend Brian, who had come along as a sort of chaperone/escort/witness (because working with minors can be a big deal), gave me an excellent compliment when this shoot had ended and we were reviewing some of the pictures together. He remarked on being less than impressed after arriving at the locations I had chosen… until he saw the photos. He said, “I was looking at it thinking… it’s a fence. So what? Anyone would have just passed the location by, thinking it was nothing. But then the way you caught the light through it… it’s actually a really awesome location. You just see things differently than other people.” I was (though I’m not a fan of the expression, there is no better to describe it:) tickled pink.

To see more images (and full-screen sizes) from this shoot, view the slideshow: