I've had a lot of dreams over the course of my photographic career. 

At the top of them was the desire to someday photograph Dave Mehrens. 

Dave is the humblest, most unassuming guy you've ever met. He's an elder at my church and a local architect. He's soft spoken and kind. He takes the time to shake the hand of each and every person in a section of the building every sunday. (it takes him the length of the entire sermon to do it). You feel a little better about yourself when you shake Dave's hand and look into his eye. 

Here's the thing. HE LOOKS LIKE A WIZARD. He could easily stand his own in a lineup featuring Ian McKellan and Michael Gambon. And it turns out he's a born model... 

I finally got my chance to work with Dave when my co-conspirator Lancelot Schaubert asked me to do the album artwork for an album he's secretly been crafting over the past year. As of TODAY Lance is officially in kickstarter mode; raising support via the crowdfunding platform to finish work on his album.  

The album is from the perspective of Mearcstapa, a character in Lance's epic and diverse literary universe (a term authors use to describe the landscape in which their stories and characters live). It combines poetry with folk ballads in a unique blend of storytelling referred to as a "symphonic novella"; it promises to be unlike quite anything you've heard. Dave Mehrens was the perfect choice to play a more travelled version of the title character.

I'm excited about the project for several reasons. First, I'm always excited for Lance's projects bc you just never know what's going to come out of the endless imagination he wields. Second, third, and fourth reasons are all well, selfish. The album and kickstarter page feature my photographs, the booklet that accompanies the final album features my work from this epic shoot, the promo features my first ever video footage (so judge sparingly), and the kickstarter includes rewards that give folks the opportunity to hire Lance & I to craft a personalized photonovel for anyone who wants to support both the album and our work. 

Here's the kickstarter link (the brilliant Robbie Klein put the video together, melding my footage with his own video & audio footage of Lance. He also produced the upcoming album). The music in the video is directly from Lance and is a tiny peek at the musical undertones of the album. 

And here's some images from the project release, starting with the countdown images released in days up to today.