Give A Shit.

I can't remember where the idea came from, but it had been brewing in my mind for some time. I knew I wanted a strong beautiful feminist to pose for it, and I could think of no one better than director, actress, and model, Amanda Nicole Reyes. She's one of my favorite people to collaborate with on any project, because of her enthusiasm, her creativity, and her thoughtfulness. Here is the board I made to explain the shoot to those involved.

The only problem was that Amanda lives in New York now, so we had to time everything just right to do the shoot while she was back in town for Thanksgiving. First I ordered the dress from Free People. Then I bought supplies for the sign from Home Depot, and enlisted the help of Nika Canlas from Copperline Ink with making the sign. She stained the sign, and painted the beautiful calligraphy based on a design we went back & forth on (since I don't read cursive well I wanted it to be as legible as possible).

Once I got the sign back to my studio, I stained the pole to match, screwed the sign onto it and we were ready to go just a few hours before Amanda arrived for the shoot. We walked around my neighborhood, starting with Main Street, working our way to the Post Office, and around to a few abandoned buildings nearby. By far the strongest pose was one based on statues of Athena holding her spear, so we frequently stuck with that pose while changing the lighting, composition, and effects. Here are the main photos from our shoot.

We ended our shoot by sneaking into the remains of the Rainbow Lounge, an infamous gay bar that had been burnt down for months. The very next day when I was driving by, they were knocking down the walls and scooping up all the rumble, so this is quite possibly the last photo taken inside of the Rainbow Lounge.