imagining & Planning
We wanted to shoot the Garden of the Gods in a unique and creative way. We had the idea of shooting a cowgirl riding a horse through the Garden to try to capture the feeling of being there in 1886. We created a mood board for the photoshoot. We located a wonderful cowgirl, Elle Billerbeck, and made arrangements for a horse to be available. We created a budget for the shoot and went to the Garden early one morning to recon the shooting locations, angles, and lighting. We worked with Elle to finalize the clothing for the shoot, checked to make sure horses could ride on the trails we wanted to use, figured out the best place for parking, and calculated the time we needed to meet early in the morning to get the light right. Then we created a Photoshoot Plan and made sure everyone was on the same page.
PHotoshoot day
Then came the day for the photoshoot. Rachel Franklin and I met our model about the time the sun was rising. She executed the model release and got ready for the shoot. The horse owner rode the horse to the prearranged location, and we headed to the first shooting location. Rachel handled the lighting as we worked through the progression of our shot list. We actually had a ball working together! Elle simply crushed it during the photoshoot.
We took the images from the photoshoot and began the process of selecting and processing the keepers, We debated whether to go with color or black & white processing, but at the end of day, we agreed that the black & white images provided more of the 1886 American West feel we wanted to achieve.
