[HIPSTER] SHAKESPEARE

So let me tell you how this one came about... 

Some of the folks over at MSSU have worked hard to create the Missouri Shakespeare Festival. Currently, they produce one play annually (this years' is Romeo & Juliet) and are hoping to expand that even further. Of course, this gets expensive- few of us have Shakespearean set pieces and costumes just sitting around our living room- so they put on a fundraiser & silent auction to raise some funds. 

When they asked if I'd like to contribute a piece to the auction, it sounded super fun and I said yes. I'm at a point in both the year and in my career at large, where I need some creative challenges to round out my portfolio with more conceptual work. The scarier the challenge, the better..

It was scary, as it always is when you've agreed to create something you don't know yet how you're doing to pull off. I had a tight deadline and the problem was, I said ‘yes’ with no ideas on which Shakespeare play to work off of. After about a week of tossing ideas around, none of which felt right, it suddenly hit me.

I wasn’t going to shoot a photo of a Shakespeare story.  I was going to shoot the man himself.

The image popped into my head with little explanation, but it was very clear; hipster Shakespeare, dramatically poised with a super 8 camera. Now I just had to find my actor.

I love the community here in Joplin MO… my facebook & twitter friends have gotten used to my bizarre requests and respond quickly when I need a specific model, prop, or location. This time it was my friend Tara who jumped in, sending a pic of her husband.

My response: DAMN he looks like Shakespeare. And he played the part beautifully. 

Dena puts in some finishing touches on the hair color to blend it in w/ the extensions; Ryan prepare himself for the role while I set up lights

to selfie or not to selfie

the final 2 images used in the art auction

that t-shirt made us all cringe. $5 at wall mart goes a long way for a tongue-in-cheek touch of irony on the set...

Many, many thanks to:

• Rachel, who thought of me and first challenged me to do this
• my wife, whose art teacher instincts kicked in when I needed to create the classic Shakespearean collar
• Tara, who suggested the perfect model and helped me brainstorm (working ‘2B’ in somewhere was her suggestion)
• Ryan, who agreed to model against his better judgement, and patiently sat in the Missouri jungle for 3 hours while we glued hair extensions to his head and drew on him with sharpie…
• Dena DeMint, my hair/makeup expert who came to my rescue yet again (she also contributed a great deal to last year’s project “the Joplin Undercurrent”)… she even contributed our tatoo!
• Cleo from “Cleo’s picture framing”, a friend who often contributes to our local art culture in awesome ways, and graciously agreed to mat the final prints for the art auction

A great team means everything. Thanks guys!