Meet Aubrey. During the day she is an Arborist (Lumberjack), at night she transforms into a beautiful model making inroads into the industry. I first met Aubrey after an evening out with Cody Belter (Shutterbug), they started talking mountain bikes and biking in general so I tuned out and dismissed the meeting. Last week I got a sneak peek at Belter’s “gas mask” series he posted on Model Mayhem (featuring Aubrey) and was quite impressed – no only with the work – but the model and her ink as well. It seems Aubrey is accustomed to “standing in” for models on shoots with Belter and local Rod Leland. One of my favourite subjects are tattooed girls and subjects dealing with alternate beauty and self image – so I was excited to hear she was modelling and open to shooting. Once Aubrey’s looks and ink were placed into the hands of the always-capable Bonnie Ferguson (Makeup Artist), I knew good things would come of it. Bonnie applied some funky feathered lashes for Aubrey’s look and we mixed it up from higher fashion looks to rockabilly-inspired rocker chic.

In the West end of Lethbridge, there lies an old mine and a train tunnel – the last of which is the usual shooting domain of my friend (and sometimes shooting partner), Tanya Plonka. If you check out Tanya‘s work, you’ll see she uses the location often for weddings with great success. Tanya’s just updated her website and blog too – so if you like what you see, leave a comment or two for her.

Last night / early this morning, my crew were actively involved in a combination studio / location photo shoot when we ran into a bit of a glitch. The weather we all enjoyed in the day turned bitterly cold, and kicked up a bit of a wind (but a light breeze by Lethbridge standards). Fearing a broken studio light, or crushed gear – I called off our first location for the safety of the model and my team and sat in the van trying to think of a plan “B”. We explored the architecture of the new high school going up in the West End, it has a nice glass facade – but lots of security gates and unfinished construction mess (and the wind still blows), so as a last ditch effort – we treaded over to Tanya’s train bridge (TTB).

As soon as we arrived a train came rushing through, good thing we didn’t have lights and battery packs setup on the tracks – it would have been a little more devastating than the wind. We waited for it to pass an got quickly to work on two compositions. One, looking straight down the train tunnel with a bare studio light to emulate a train approaching and two, a side shot playing with the linear parallel grooves of the currogated steel walls.

Special thanks to Aubrey,Bonnie,Brien,Kaylee and Kellie Lou for making this such a successful shoot. I’ve posted my select frames here:

A work-in-progress frame, need to remove my gear from this photo.

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