Kim @ the Factory

Thursday January 14, 2010

I first met Kim in the fall of 2008 at a friend of a friend’s wedding that George and I were shooting. Her spunk and ability to have a great time on the dance floor caught my attention pretty quickly. I’ll admit that the fun people tend to have their picture taken more often at weddings than the guests who seem determined never to leave their seat in fear that their table, floral centerpiece and favor may vanish into thin air if they do. I promise, if you go out and dance, your table won’t disappear. Cross my heart. Hope to die. I’ll even hold your favor for you if you want.

The other thing that caught my attention with Kim was the fact that she had a camera glued to her hand and seemed to be competing with me as to who could take the most pictures. Honestly, no one I know takes more pictures than I do at a wedding. Just ask George or Alana. They’ll be happy to tell you what a pain it is to go through all those photos I take. And I’m sure they’ll tell you that I’m not competitive AT ALL. Okay, well maybe a little. But I digress…

The next month when that friend got married, Kim was at that wedding as well, armed with her camera and shooting almost as fast as me. Almost.

After the second wedding, I received an email a short time later from Kim. She mentioned that she had a real interest in photography (not a shocker) and would like to meet up to talk shop. So we did. I think we were at Panera for about three hours. We compared photography notes. We compared pictures. Kim told me how she loves architecture and design and how she used to draw pictures of bathroom vanities as a kid. Her creativity really showed in her photos. We parted ways, promised to keep in touch and hoped to shoot together in the future.

In January, 2009, Kim contacted me about doing some headshots for her for some upcoming job prospects. She showed up with about eight different outfits and about 100 ideas. It’s one thing to take pictures. It’s another to have someone that offers creative direction and shares in the creative process. The session was a blast and Kim was pleased with the results.

Fast forward to this past December. I organized a field trip for my camera club to an abandoned factory. I knew I wanted to have a model for the group to shoot, but knew I had to find just the right person. Kim was the one. I contacted her to let her know what was going on and where we were heading. She was more than excited to join in the fun.

When she got to my house, I showed her a few photos of the place we were heading and introduced her to the participants. I went out and helped her get her wardrobe from her car to my truck. Off we went. Moments later, we walked into a freezing cold, falling apart, dirty, abandoned factory. Guess what Kim did. Yup…she pulled out her camera and started taking pictures before I could blink an eye. She got the place. Sweet.

We started the shoot with her in one of my favorite spots in the factory – the green wall. Although it is a brick wall, it is literally green due to the exposure to the elements. It is so unique and makes an amazing backdrop to a photo. The fur coat Kim had with her offset the wall perfectly! Before she changed, we took some more portraits by the sliding door (at least it used to slide) just next to the green wall. Then she changed into her "rocker" outfit and we went back to the green wall. I decided to do some experimentation with off-camera flash and put one behind her so it bounced right off the wall. Loved the results!

Once we finished there, we went over to one of the darkest spots in the building. There was only a small hole (about 2 inches in diameter) in the roof where a beam of light came in. I took one shot. It was a four second exposure. I chuckled with excitement at the results.

"Let me see! Let me see!" came the call from Kim.

She climbed up on the ladder to have a look. She couldn’t believe it. All of a sudden, she started listing off all the different poses she wanted to do here. We did them all. It was awesome!

The last stop for the session (in spite of the many hand-warmers we had with us – our extremities were beyond numb) was the cool teal window wall. We tried a few of the rocker look and then decided to have some fun (and try to keep Kim a little warmer) with the great hat she brought along. I told her to just be silly and see how many different expressions she could come up with. She did an amazing job and I was really impressed with the variety of emotion she could express.

We packed up as quick as we could and jumped in the truck with the heat on full blast. We knew we’d thaw eventually. We were both pumped and couldn’t wait to see the final results.

A huge thanks to Kim for being about the only person I know who could tolerate the physical environment as well as the frigid temperatures for so long and still smile. You rock!

A shot from Kim’s session last January – just a little different than her most recent session.