Day 21 - Project 365

...and I thought they'd hate each other -

My head is pounding and I lost my underwear. Last night I wasn't in any condition to provide an adequate, accurate and correctly spelled entry, as I was busy testing the quality of 8 beers and capturing day 22 - multitasking! So I find myself sitting here this morning furiously pounding away at the keys. Once again, getting carried away as the words just spew from head to my fingers. I have a problem, I know it.

Tonight nearly didn't happen as the first call I received was to inform me that I had lost one person in today's shoot. I accepted it and went about my planning. About 1 hour later I lost the second person and at that point I called the shoot off. I was just mad that people backed out. I understand that with 344 days left it's bound to happen again. However, it still puts me in a crappy mood. Shortly after the second drop out I decided why let 2 people ruin my theme. I adjusted the idea and main players a bit and continued on the plan to shoot out at Kayla's barn. We arrived and the fun started with fake blood creation. Now this was interesting as I've never made fake blood. Over the years I've had plenty of run-ins with the real thing but never fake stuff. Corn Starch, Corn Syrup, Water, Red Food Coloring and Instant Coffee. It called for Coco Powder but I didn't have any. The instant coffee was dark and just needed a little smashing as it was in clumps it was those clumps that would make me gag later! I had my very own tiny helper for this recipe. Standing just over 3 feet tall with a head full of the most blond hair you've ever seen. Kaylas daughter Dani Lynn was primed and ready for some good 'ole blood making. First step was to mix the Corn Starch or ground bats bone as I told Dani Lynn it was. We mixed the ingredients and soon after we had the most gooey, sweet and staining, coffee flavored fake blood. I wasn't looking forward to putting that in my mouth. (that's what she said! that's for Brian)

Putting the fake blood aside we moved to step two, setting up. Erika, Shawn and I gathered up as much as we could carry and made our way out to the barn. Its about a 100 yard walk with no lights. The nearly full moon was the only thing illuminating our path. That is until Shawn turned the light on from his iPhone 4 (he thinks he's all superior with his new fangled phone). Although, I must say that the LED light on the new iPhone is crazy bright! After unlatching the gate that we made sure to re latch this time, we set all our gear down, turned on the lights and noticed that there was a shortage of horses. Well, lets just say we made sure the gate was really closed this time as we didn't have time to find horses in the dark let alone try to convince them that its better inside the fence.

Setup was simple as I had shot Day 14 here. A boomed beauty dish and a soft box should suffice. Kayla joined us and we had a party. Shawn and Erika got distracted by the veal… or calf as Kayla calls it. I had never pet a calf before so I took the opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. He didn't really feel any different then a full sized cow except for the minor size difference. We got our fill of baby cow and "oooh look" a full sized one was in the stall directly across! Now of course Shawn had to pet this one. He tried to coax it to stick its head out and thats when we noticed just how nasty and wet and snotty Mr. Big cows nose was…. Nasty! It is pretty funny watching Shawn try to pet this cows head and dodge its big wet nose. I did manage to get some of it on video.

We got right into the shoot by having Shawn stand in as my body double (a slightly less attractive and less muscular version of me) I had Erika hold his arms and tried to coach Kayla to fake punch. After that show I'd hope that If she ever needed to defend herself she use her feet! We practiced for about 10 min, I set the focus and camera position and was ready to get dirty. Now, the dirt you see in the picture is more like sirt as Kayla tells me. A mixture of Sand and Dirt. However, as a natural bi-product of animals you get poop! thats right the sirt was now more like shirt. yes that a mix of shit, sand and dirt. I wasn't very enthusiastic about getting all down and dirty but hell, its for art! I turn the spray bottle over to shawn and with a grin from ear to ear he promptly starts spraying me - and every one and thing else, Loose canon that boy is! After I'm adequately moistened I grab the fake blood and after a few failed attempts at tasting it, I manage to get a mouthful with out gagging. It wasn't the flavor as it was actually pretty good tasting. It was the texture, full and thick with small chunks of intense coffee flavor. I get in position and we start snapping shots. Shortly after the first few series of shots I decide that it would be a good idea for Erika to pull my hair. This would add some much needed realism. Well, she pulled my hair alright! The face you see is pretty damn real! Between the hair and Kayla digging her nails into my arm, I'd say that they got into the role perfectly. So much pent up hostility, where could that have come from… I wonder!

Once again the last shot taken was the winner, it was now 9:54 and I still had to edit. Shawn and Erika started breaking down while Kayla helped me with the hose as I needed to remove the mess of dirt, sand, horse shit and fake blood from my face, hands and chest. I did however manage to not get any fake blood on my pants, which I was happy about. We disposed of the ripped up shirt that I had found in the good will box at home. Contrary to Shawn's belief it wasn't his Perry Ellis shirt so stop crying! I didn't waste any time in loading the pictures, we all hopped in the car and made our way down Kayla's long drive way. I had the pictures loaded before we got off her property. The picture was adjusted in Lightroom before we had gotten off the tiny one laned road that leads to Kayla's. This was due party to the ridiculous retard that decided to drive 2mph down this road coming at us. Shawn pulled off to the side of the road first chance he could as this road doesn't have many areas to pull over at. About 3 minutes later is when the Mustang finally passed us, I know its dark and I know its a one laned road and I even know theres alot of wild boar in that area, but for the love of God please drive faster than 2 miles an hour! We made it back to Erika's, edited the photo, brainstormed a title and was ready to upload it at around 11: 15pm. Erika doesn't have internet so I had to walk outside with my laptop until I found an unlocked internet connection something that I love doing. However, more and more are people getting smart and locking their internet. Luckily I knew that Lia's neighbor didn't lock there's, so I made my way across the street and up her steps. I figured she wasn't home but I knocked on her door anyways just to make it look less strange that there was a shirtless guy with a laptop standing outside her door. Day 21 was up for the world to see… Hello day 22!

Lighting:

AB800 Beauty Dish Boomed overhead tilted slightly down. 1/4 power
AB800 Med Soft Box Approx. 8:00 Set at about 5 feet high. 1/8th power.