I recently paired up with makeup artist and nightlife performer Katy Ramirez for several creative shoots, and these images of Pixel Witch are from our first collaboration.
For this shoot, Katy and I had initially planned two different looks that we wanted to experiment with. (I'll be sharing more from the second half of this shoot in the future.) When we realized that one of the looks wasn't going to be ready in time for the shoot, Katy showed up with a roll of cellophane for us to play with. We didn't have a specific plan for the cellophane. We tried wrapping it in various ways but weren't quite satisfied with the results. We tried holding it in front of Pixel's face, and at first it didn't look like much. I adjusted the position of the light, and suddenly, MAGIC. This last shot of Pixel was one of the first that captured the beautiful play of light on the cellophane.
All of the light effects in these images were present in camera; nothing was added in Photoshop. Below are the unedited versions. I loved the expressiveness of Pixel's face and hands, so when I was editing these, I really wanted to play up the mood and the haunting quality of the light.
The light patterns were hard to predict from image to image and changed with every movement of the material, but that was what made this shoot so exciting. It's a great reminder that although it might be comforting to have control, sometimes you have to relinquish some control in favor of a bit of chaos.