So what else is new?
Well, the biggest thing (photographically speaking) going on for me right now is a shoot I'll be doing in the next few weeks in Death Valley. I will attempt to re-create some of the scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy at their original locations (with a little creative license, of course)! While this in itself isn't a new concept, the "twist" is that we will be doing it using the "Artoo" and "Three-pio" swimsuits from Black Milk Clothing!
I came up with this idea at the end last year/beginning of this year when I first saw a picture of the suits on a tech blog. Coincidentally, this was around the same time that I saw the trip report on the Death Valley Star Wars locations on Steve Hall's website. Inspired by the possibilities & intrigued by the challenges that this type of shoot would pose, I contacted Black Milk for their thoughts...and possible backing.
As it turns out, however, they ran into a tiny little licensing issue, stopped production of the suits, and had sold out months prior. This meant that the only way to get a hold of them were through channels like eBay, where they would fetch hundreds of dollars...if you could find them. I even considered doing one-off custom designed suits, but that option, too, was cost prohibitive. My dream, it seemed, ground to a halt as quickly as it began.
Fast forward to a few months later. A quick blurb in an article mentioned that Black Milk was back at it and, this time, with a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm. My plan (much like this blog) had come back to life! A quick email to my original point of contact and I was put in touch with someone that was as excited about the project as I was and was in a position to help it along! A couple of short months later, the suits were in my possession and I was off & running.
After almost a year and a relatively quick, though certainly not painless, model hunt and here we are: the suits in hand, the models are on-board, and the locations have been plotted. All that's left now is to have the location not be as hot as Hades.
So, to tease, I present the lovely starlets of this little endeavor: Shelby as Artoo and Sophia as Three-pio!
As they say on Newsroom, "more on this story as it develops".
