A weekend in St. Louis...

I spent the past weekend shooting at Webster's University in St. Louis. I shot a total of 14 actors 12 of which are graduating from Webster's this year with their degrees from the conservatory. This was my second time shooting the graduating class there and hopefully it will become a yearly adventure.

For you photographers out there let me just say that shooting fourteen people in two days has its challenges. How do you give fourteen people unique images when you are shooting in the same place with limited time? How do you connect with fourteen people with different needs and personalities so they feel comfortable enough with you to take their picture and again on limited time? Well you just do...

Here are some highlights:

I started with Robert from Memphis. Robert and I got to watch the sunrise together at 6:30 a.m. and he even took me on a bit of a field trip to start his shoot but I thought it was cool that he had put some thought into his shots and brought ideas to the table:

Next up was Brian he had me from the moment he started quoting Anchorman:


Spot #3 went to Miriam who had a great confidence to her on camera. Her mom is a photo assistant in the making working the reflector for me (you know if that whole lawyer thing doesn't work out for her):

I worked with Ian next. Ian is from Santa Fe and seriously might be the nicest person in the world or at the minimum in the top 1 percent of the nicest people in the world.


Gabe was my next victim. Gabe is from Baldwin City, Kansas which earned him some bonus points. He also got the award for the most dramatic difference between his first and second look. Who would think shaving a beard would make such a difference?

Gabe sans beard:


Next I shot Jef who is a faculty member at Webster. Jef still does some acting and directing in addition to teaching at the conservatory. You could tell by his interaction with the students that they not only respect him but enjoy him as a teacher (despite the fact he is a communist):


Shayla was victim number seven of day one. She is from Booneville, Indiana and gets my "best smirk" award for the weekend and I have to say there wasn't even a close second in the category:


Liz was my second to last person of Day one and provided me with my "small world" moment of the weekend. Liz is from Phoenix and I have shot pretty much all her actor friends during my time in the valley. Strange that she and I would meet in St. Louis but I am glad we did.

Day One finished with Adam who has one of the most genuine smiles I have ever shot. Just don't ask him to wear a tie.


Day Two thankfully didn't start quite as early...although we did have to call campus police to open the makeup room for us. Cesar was up first and despite the fact he is a big UT fan (he is from Texas so I forgave him) we got along just fine:


Corley was another Texas native although we talked music and not football. Corley gets two awards from me. One for the coolest name of the weekend and the second for my favorite outfit choice. She rocked the red sweater:

And then there is Abby. I am a little biased because Abby was the student coordinator who helped me pull together all the plans for the weekend, hotel, scheduling, etc...but she is a beautiful person inside and out. Just want to go on record as being a big fan of Abby. Not to mention her mom is dangerous with a hair pick so she has that going for her as well:

Heather was my partner in crime for the weekend, doing hair/makeup for those that needed it. She is an actor first and one of my new favorite people. She made me laugh, she brought me tasty turkey sandwiches from Einstein Bagels. All I can say is "How you doin' Heather?"

And the shoot came to a close with Dan Ford. Dan was very easy to shoot and we were blessed with some great end of the day light which resulted in some of my favorite images from the entire weekend.

Thanks to all the Webster folks I enjoyed meeting and shooting with all of you.