Carrie Hampton Photography / shop talk & image collection: American Graffiti

I've been photographing more and more pin-up, and one thing led to another with this one. The purpose of this shoot was to produce images for submission to Kat Club Retro Lovely Magazine and Delicious Dolls Magazine. What started as planning for a retro/vintage pin-up backdrop wound up into Burlesque meets Grease meets American Graffiti, in the freezing cold, but surrounded by so many great attitudes. And somehow Sid & Nancy and Bonnie & Clyde came channeling through, too!
I found myself setting up a group concept shoot at two locations, one being an antique store with the coolest managers, the other being an old drive in-down the street. Both of these new locations (to me anyway) were brought to my attention by my friend and hair & make-up artist, Lindsay Sheets, who is just faaaabulous.
I opened a model casting call two weeks prior and got pretty selective, then lucked out with a vixen brunette, a rockabilly bombshell, a Marilyn-like blonde, and a sultry red head. We rendezvoused at my house where all the wardrobe was laid out (much thanks to my wardrobe guru Amilie Turner!), and got started on the day with lemon drop martinis and hair and make-up styling, while everyone tried on ensembles as we went, to see who fit what and which look would be for which location.
In a small caravan, we left to Location 1 and pretty much made ourselves at home. Amilie came along as my secondary shooter and we swapped girls as we went, corsets, stockings, feather fans and all. The space to get any type of shots in the store was incredibly small, I used my 70-200mm at 70 almost the whole time, and pieced together a lot of the images. For light I used my Speedlight on camera, with small beauty dish attached. The store was quite busy and the girls basically had an audience the entire time, but remained oblivious. I really cannot thank the store manager Charlie enough because he gave us carte blanche in there; props and everything, and I could swear he had promoted the shoot and people had shown up to see it. So yeah, we love Charlie ;)
We departed about an hour or so later to the drive-in, a rustic and authentic looking 50's feel place. Candis had arranged for a friend of hers to meet us there with his classic car, and another subject met us there as well, male model James Nash. He showed up completely looking the part; worn jeans, boots, white shirt, black jacket, with Danny Zucho hair, meeting my requests to a T! Veronica Marie arrived as well, dressed in head to toe black like 'dirty Sandy' at the end of Grease, it was all an exciting sight. Too cool for school in full effect.
Aside from husbands, grooms, fathers, etc that I shoot when I do weddings and family sessions, I haven't worked with many male subjects, not many catch my eye to be honest. I don't see a lot that have the specific look I want to fulfill a project I'm working on or concepts I'm in the process of putting together (which sometimes take MONTHS). So needless to say I was glad to have James there to add to the mood of the shoot, a different perspective on the outcome, instead of just a bunch of hot chicks posing in era-correct dresses.
After we all hung out for a bit, ate a little and talked story, we started from there. Everyone had ideas and threw them in the ring, the girls were switching in and out of my car between shots to keep warm, and you can see the results below. The bummer was that there was a huge white tent set up in front of the drive in so I was unable to get that frontal shot, with the name in lights. So I see a summer shoot of the same style at the same location in the future! GOTTA get that sign lit up, so probably a dusk shoot. omgosh, fun.
I have several different levels of satisfaction/dissatisfaction when it comes to the final result of shoots: that turned out exactly the way I pictured it in my head, that turned out kind of like shit and I have a lot to learn, and, that turned out better than I'd hoped. This shoot would fall into the latter.
I plan on doing more casting calls in the future for various shoots, publications or not, and I did learn a few things with this one; 1) YOU NEED SPACE. For wardrobe look through and categorizing, AND shooting. The store was not easy. 2) Charging your subjects/models SOMEthing is imperative, which I did. Not only to handle MUAH (make-up and hair), but taking on a shoot of this size with piles of wardrobe and how much time is takes, not only to shoot, but to itemize and edit after the fact... those long hours are no joke. Sometimes it takes me 3 hours just to edit one image the way it needs to be done. I think many people don't keep in mind the after-the-fact time photographers put in to producing great images. They don't just come out of the camera like that. 3) It will take a day. You need a day. Give yourself plenty of time. I made the call-time 10:30am and we weren't on the road until 1pm. We didn't wrap until 5:30pm. No way could this have been pulled off in like 2 hours, on a rush. 4) Don't overload your cast. I had originally planned for 6 girls to be there. As it turned out, 2 couldn't make it, and in retrospect that may have been a good thing because I think Amilie and myself would have been rushing even more, and that's not fair to present models. I need to be able to devote full time and attention to who I'm shooting at that moment, not having the others in the back of my mind and trying to hurry up. Quality over quantity is a true phrase I am a fan of the older I get.
5) You gotta be a little bit of a drill sergeant. I bark out instructions on any shoot as it is because I know exactly what I want, but with a group this big and everyone meandering around and swapping stories and wardrobe, you have to make sure you pump up the volume! "Hey, Riff Raff! Riiifff Raaafff! Can she lay on the hood with her feet in the air?" (<~~~~~ an actual sentence I yelled)
hahahahaaa. ...and finally 6) Listen to your models! They have great ideas for a shot, too, and know when they are or aren't feeling something. One of my favorite things to do is just let them goooooo and do what they do, where they want and how they want, and I am there just to snap it up.
Anyway, love, light, and rock & roll, everyone. Enjoy the American Graffiti series. As always, comments and questions welcome.

MODELS: Ashley Rae Erickson, Candis Standridge, Glenna Watson, James Nash, Veronica Marie.
MUAH's: Lindsay Sheets, Amanda Woods, Jade Nassen

Gear used: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon Speedlite 580 EX II,

beauty dish, 70-200mm 2.8 IS, 85mm 1.8, 50mm 2.8

ALL IMAGES © CARRIE HAMPTON PHOTOGRAPHY