FLAPPER GIRL
Inspiration comes from the maze of daily life, and hits you, sometimes, in the most unexpected of places.
A better part of a year ago, Amy and I were out to dinner at one of Charlottetown’s tastiest restaurants, Slaymaker & Nichols. As we were enjoying one of their innovative courses, a photograph on the walls caught Amy’s eye. Slaymaker is decorated in a variety of art deco, but it has a strong 20s vibe, and there was a portrait of a 1920s flapper girl close to where we were sitting. “Wow”, Amy exclaimed, “that looks so much like Hali.”
With that statement, an idea was born. Hali is Hali Rosborough, a very talented Halifax-based photographer (highly recommend her if you’re looking for portraits or weddings in Nova Scotia!), and she undoubtedly has a “20s vibe” to her. Like, uncannily so. Amy has photographed her numerous times before, and when she suggested over our meal that I “should set up a flapper girl shoot with Hali”, I knew we had to make it happen.
Well, time being time, it has a tendency to get away from you. It took almost a year for all the calendars to coordinate, but we finally set a date, and Hali came to stay with us here in PEI for a weekend. Amy and Hali would work their magic from a stylistic perspective,e and my only job was to not screw up the lighting and the actual photography.
My set for this one was my garage studio, which was in the middle of chaos because it had sort of been transformed into a logging/sawmill operation over the summer and fall (we lost 3 acres of forest in Hurricane Fiona and we’re reclaiming some of the downed trees, milling lumber from it, and hoping to turn it into a new shed this coming spring. When I say “we,” I mainly mean Russ - Amy’s 92-year old father - who refuses to sit and rest away his years and instead works tirelessly outdoors and is hellbent on this shed happening. A total inspiration.
Our garage has a giant white wall, and I’ve got a few backgrounds set up. I decided to underexpose the heck out of my ambient light and just make a simple black background for most of the images, and I loved the simple 20s vibe it gave.
After 3/4 of the shoot had happened, though, we decided to up the creativity a notch and crack out the fog machine to give Hali a hazy vibe. After nearly choking us all out (my fault), it finally diffused enough to give a beautifully cinematic vibe, which was great because it hid all the chaos of my garage. Amazing what a little fog can do, along with some lighting.
This shoot, however, was all about the model and the styling. Amy and Hali rocked it and came up with a perfect look. A great way to end 2025, creatively.
