Melanie Gaffney's Dress Shoot
When Sandi threw her wedding dress on for a photo shoot while we were in Maine a few months back, it was for three reasons...experience, practice, and advertising. It was an awesome opportunity for Sandi to get a first hand feel for the modeling end of a shoot like this, while also getting some great shots for the website. We ended up getting some awesome shots, and I definitely put Sandi through the ringer while getting the shots we wanted. We quickly found out that a shoot like this, while trying to be creative and different, isnt easy with a 20lb dress on that is also 6 feet longer than she is. We woke up at 4am a couple mornings to get the early morning fog, we battled the bugs, and she even went for a swim with the dress on.
For our 2nd shoot, the model was my sister Lindsay. Lindsay wanted a completely different look than what I did with Sandi. This couldn't have been better timing, since it gave me more practice shooting a model that I'm comfortable with, and also gave me the chance to do some different things that I didn't get to do on Sandi's shoot. Lindsay's shoot also gave Sandi the opportunity to not only help her out on the modeling end, but also watch everything that I did on the shooting end. Lindsay has done a lot of work with makeup and since she also knows a good amount about modeling, we wanted to start bringing her in on shoots like this to work with the model, giving Sandi the opportunity to spend more behind the camera.
For our 3rd shoot, everything came together perfectly, and Melanie Gaffney was a perfect fit for our first real Cass Imaging Dress Shoot. When I say first real Dress Shoot, I mean that it was the first shoot that got shot the way the rest of the Dress Shoots will be shot. Lindsay was in charge of makeup and helping Melanie with her posing, while Sandi helped the two of them out when they needed it and had her camera in her hand the rest of the time shooting with me. Melanie definitely felt more comfortable working with both of them knowing that they had both been in her shoes and knew what she was feeling. We were definitely hit with some challenges along the way, turning one day of shooting into two, but we all worked through it and ended up with some awesome shots to give Melanie at the end.
Melanie had mentioned to me that she liked Lindsay's Dress Shoot while she was working on the new Cass Imaging logo, so we swapped. My payment to her for the new logo was this shoot, and we had a blast shooting it. It was cold, windy, and almost completely dark out the first night during some of the shooting, but she looked like a rock star, and braved through the cold even putting her legs in the water at one piont. It looked like the set of a movie at a couple points with her in a big comfy robe, waiting off to the side discussing different looks with Lindsay, while Sandi and I prepped for the next shot.
I hope everyone enjoys this set, Mel looks awesome, and did an awesome job modeling. If your interested in doing a post wedding dress shoot like this, or considering it please ask us about it and we can personalize one any way you like. The rest of the shoot can be seen in the Client Galleries, I recommend checking out the rest, they are all great!
Enjoy!
