College Times Swimwear Cover & Fashion Shoot

I shot this cover last week in downtown Phoenix outside the historic Hotel San Carlos. The hotel was actually kind enough to give us access to their lobby and restrooms for makeup and wardrobe changes.
We do a lot of water-themed covers during the summer so I wanted to get away from that notion and put models in the city. Sort of a fish-out-of-water shoot.... It got a little crazy. You would think people had never seen women in bikinis before. Anybody in a vehicle felt the urge to check their horns and people on the street were cat calling or standing over my shoulder asking to have their photo taken with the models... It was fun.

First Friday Flash Mob Freeze

A local performance art group called Improv Arizona organized their first ever flash mob freeze during First Friday in downtown Phoenix on May 1. Volunteers gathered at a predetermined area where a concentration of art-goers would be and "froze" in place for five full minutes. The release of helium balloons by organizers signaled the freeze and an air horn let participants know when the five minutes had passed. Then everyone "unfroze" and spread out into the crowd like nothing had happened.

I knew that taking a "normal" photo wouldn't really illustrate this story because photographs in general will freeze anything in the frame. I figured I would set up my camera on a tripod and shoot at an extremely slow shutter speed so that anyone that wasn't part of the flash mob freeze would be blurred as they moved around.