Before you ask... Yes. They are real rubber duckies. All 150 of them. We're almost certain that these shipped out of some shady Ukrainian warehouse that also houses crates of old AK-47s and matryoshka dolls. We would love to spend the next 2 hours explaining the thinking that went into crafting the background of this photograph (which at one point included pools of french's mustard... yuck!). But instead, we're going to focus more on the hair and the makeup, which are fantastic!
Now... we're going to try to explain this as accurately as we can, but before we do, we need to tell you, that this color was the only one out of the set that we had to shoot twice, due to us having to correct a production mistake.
Now... Rachelle is amazing at what she does. Most people think of hair stylists as service providers; someone you pay to get your hair done.
This notion is so far removed from reality of what happens on a daily basis at XOXO, that we often find ourselves speechless. XOXO employs ARTISTs. Watching Rachelle craft this bow, was like witnessing a surgeon. Unbelievable.
The style she's achieved is not only incredible to look at on its own, but it completely and harmoniously compliments the theme of the photograph in ways we couldn't even attempt to imagine.
So far, we've only gotten the pleasure of working with Jacki a couple of times. But in the short time that we've known her, we immediately noticed that she's very in-tune with each and every detail of what happens on a subject's face. She understands what needs to take place to compliment any face, and any theme.
We as photographers can only assume how difficult it must have been for her to work with the color yellow. It is very light in hue, and could easily get lost in the subject's skin tone. To learn that she can 'blend' multiple hues of yellow to achieve a gradient effect that grabs the attention of our lens, was a hard one to digest.
At SyMobius, we get to meet and work with some of the finest creative professionals every time we go out to shoot. We are lucky to have that opportunity, and more specifically, grateful that Rachelle, Jacki, and Micayla showed up to do this shoot (which takes hours) twice.
Micayla... She's a jokester. We actually have more images of her making funny faces and sticking a finger up her nose, than the images that we've actually published (this is true). Shooting Micayla is like showing up to work, laughing our asses off for 3 hours, then going home. And when we wake up the next morning there's photographic gold sitting in our server.
But in all seriousness, Micayla is precisely who we think of, when we visualize the word, 'model'. Great big eyes, flowing blonde hair, and very acute features. Not only beautiful, but also very professional. Despite all the bloopers that we get (we love 'em), she has a very high yield for any model.
During our first attempt at this image, it took roughly two hours to do her hair and makeup. We then positioned her head on top of a dripping wet pool of mustard, populated by 150 rubber duckies. Then, after we realized that we had to shoot this image again, she had to repeat everything once more, sans mustard.
It takes a special kind of talent and dedication to go through that and be laughing throughout the duration of the shoot. Twice.
Rachelle Moya - Style
