(ec) essential connection magazine: An inside look at an ec cover shoot

This month, we thought it would be fun to show our readers a little bit about what happened behind the scenes at the December 2010 ec photo shoot.

Before the shoot:
Last summer, the ec team had a meeting to flesh out the December issue. Our editor Mandy led us in a discussion to decide what kinds of stories we'd put in the issue, and where. We also decided which story would be the lead (and therefore tie in with the cover). Mandy ordered the story from one of our writers, and I went to work on the image with ec's cover photographer, Scott.

A few weeks before the shoot, we chose a model from a local modeling agency. We picked out a couple of model choices from comp cards. A comp card is more or less a postcard with photos of the model in different setups so we get an idea of how he looks on camera. We like to pick teens that look all-American for ec covers, and we chose Dylan as our December model. We also chose a date for the shoot, and hired Christin to do makeup and hair.

Next, we started discussing concepts. We thought it would be great fun this time if we made a set look like the sky with a lot of fake snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, so Photographer Scott and I piled into the car and went searching for snowflake ornaments—in August. That's harder than you might think! Most stores don't sell Christmas items till September. We ended up at Hobby Lobby, where they had a massive collection of snowflake ornaments in every size, color, and shape:

and Photographer Scott went to work in his photo studio painting a wall blue and hanging dozens of ornaments on fishing wire, then suspending them from light stands all over the room. (Photographer Scott does a tremendous amount of work on these photo shoots besides painting and making things with fishing wire. He also decides on lighting, sets up the studio, comes up with ideas, and solves a lot of problems before the shoot ever even starts...and then he takes all the pictures.)

The day before the shoot, we did a walk-through, which is where I go to the studio, we shoot some test shots to see how the lighting and set work. This helps us get a better idea of whether or not our idea is going to work, what we might need to change, and what we can expect once the shoot starts.

At the photo shoot:
A photo shoot is a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work. And for everyone else working on the shoot—models, assistants, the model's mom, the makeup artist—it's also a lot of waiting.

When everyone arrives, we have some introductions, and then the team makes wardrobe decisions. For this cover we chose a brown sweater from Urban Outfitters with a red t-shirt to add a little bit more color, along with a couple other wardrobe setups that ended up not looking quite as good.

Next, the model gets makeup. Even the boys. Everybody needs makeup at a photo shoot. The reason for this is to smooth out the model's skin and add some opacity to it so it can reflect light evenly. Most of our models also get a haircut or some hair styling done. Once makeup and hair are done and the model is in the first outfit, we can start.

Start means taking a couple of shots to check the makeup. The makeup artist needs to see the makeup in action to make sure it's even and does what she wants it to do. And we need to see the model in the set to make sure everything looks the way we thought it would. And now that we've prepared and checked and tested and made up, it's time to shoot. Here's what the makeup test looks like:

We shoot lots and lots of pictures. For this shoot, we shot 400 pictures just for the cover. Out of the 400, we got about 10 potential covers, we got a lot where the wardrobe or framing didn't work, and we got a few like this:

Because even models close their eyes in pictures sometimes.

From the 10, we narrowed it down to one. We liked the action the snowball added, but felt like we could use a different crop and a few more snowflakes in the picture: