I have a friend who is a professional photographer. A few weeks ago she posted on facebook that she was looking for models to increase her portfolio. The models would get one shot (photographer's choice) to keep. I volunteered, but wasn't sure what I would do with that one shot. I don't need any head shots for work or business cards. I offered to dress up in my clown costume but she declined - I guess clown photos don't increase a portfolio. ;)
Then I got this crazy idea. I've always wanted to do a "Trash the Dress" (aka TTD) - you wear your wedding dress in situations where most would never wear it. If you google "trash the dress" you'll find images of women in gorgeous dresses with paint on them, in the woods, on train tracks, and (the most popular) in a body of water. As fun as this sounds, I could never take my beautiful wedding dress and ruin it. For the record, I plan on wearing my wedding dress every Leap Day - our anniversary.
So what if I found an old wedding dress at a Good Will store? I could definitely trash that dress and not worry about it. Also, a trashed wedding dress can double as a zombie costume (for Fairborn's zombie walk), or some other Halloween costume. So the search for a fancy dress at second-hand stores began.
I hit the jackpot at the 2nd Good Will store I went to (on 725 in Centerville). I actually tried on three different dresses and found on a dress that was very similar to my wedding dress, but in ivory. They seemed to be try-on dresses from a bridal store - there were no sizes inside and they had never been bustled. These dresses were originally marked $79, but were marked down to $39. After thinking about it a couple of days I went back and bought the dress I picked.
We then picked last Saturday to go out into the woods. It was going to be a beautiful, warm, fall day. We ran into the problem of where to go. All the Five-River metro parks in Dayton prohibit getting into the water. Also, Kerrie would have to get a permit to take photos in the parks. We teased that a good TTD usually ends with running from the police (or so I've heard), but we decided to look elsewhere. Caesar's Creek Lake turned out to be the perfect place. No permits are needed to get in the water or to take photographs.
Kerrie met at my house at 9:00 am (original plans were for 8:00 but I ended up having a late night). It took longer than I thought to get ready but we finally left the house at 9:30. I had the cheap wedding dress, blue-with-pink-hearts clown socks, old running shoes, and false eye lashes on. I had done some glamour makeup (courtesy of my days with Mary Kay) and I straightened my hair - the better to get messed up.
We got to Caesar's Creek close to 10:30 am. We drove around Waynesville for a bit trying to get a good idea of what we wanted to do and when. Lighting was very important and it was late in the day to get good shots at the beach. So we found some trails, a field, a couple of wooden bridges, and some rocks to do the photography against. I sat against some trees, in the roots, and across a fallen log. I had the best time doing some model poses and trying not to laugh. (I actually got better at it as we went along.)
(If you're familiar with planking, I saw a picnic table and had to plank on it. Completely ridiculous but somehow necessary with a wedding dress, clown socks, and running shoes on. Google "planking" if you don't know what it is.)
The last thing we did was head out to the beach. It was time to (finally) get in the water and ruin the dress. There were seagulls along the water's edge and no one else was on the beach. So of course the first thing I did was run along the beach to scare off all the seagulls. (I did this again at the end of our shoot.) I have no idea if the pictures turned out since this was my crazy idea and not really part of TTD.
So in I went. It took forever to wade into the cold, disgusting water. I don't think it was dirty, people swim in that water all the time. However, even in 4 inches of water, you couldn't see the bottom. Yuck. Perfect I guess for a TTD.
Most of the people at the beach were watching us. I'm sure I wasn't the first person to do a TTD at this location, but it was probably the first time people have seen something like that. A group of little girls came over to watch and I think they were actually upset that I was ruining the dress like I was. I waved at them and they half-heartedly waved back and then walked to the other end of the beach.
Kerrie had me stick my head in the water and flip my hair a few times, I can't wait to see if those show up. I then floated on the water for awhile which was actually quite relaxing and the easiest part of the whole day. Then I was up on the sand with Kerrie putting more sand on my arms, neck, back and all over the dress. The dress was already covered with algae, mud, and who knows what else. I ended up getting back in the water to try to wash most of the sand off. (And then there was that one last run at the seagulls.)
People wouldn't ask what we were doing, but you could definitely tell they thought we were crazy. So we'd try to explain it was a "Trash the Dress" session and we were doing it for Kerrie's portfolio. I was already (happily) married and it was a dress I got at Good Will. Sometimes when I was passing people I'd just say "I'm not getting married today" and they'd laugh.
Thankfully the bathrooms were still open, though the only shower was outside of this. I rinsed off as much as possible while still wearing the wedding dress (and Kerrie got a few more shots). I finally changed into some normal clothes and took everything I was wearing in the lake and stuffed it into large bag. (The bag the Good Will people stuffed the dress into after I bought it - basically a large blue trash bag.)
I got home and took a long hot shower. I think I still have sand in my hair though. I ended up washing the dress outside in a storage tote with Tide and it's almost clean again. At least it won't stink for the next time I wear it. I had to take a few photos of the dress when I took it out of the bag. They don't do the mess justice, but you'll at least get an idea of what the poor dress went through. (Click on each photo to see it larger.)
 |
| This is the front of the dress (the dress is folded in half) |
 |
| This is the back of the dress with the train. |
 |
| The end of the train. You wouldn't believe the muddy water pouring out of this when I put it on the patio table. |
Kerrie is currently working on editing the photos from two weddings. Once those are done, I believe she'll start working on the TTD photos. She took over 500 pictures (!!!) so it'll take her awhile to sort through them. She'll most likely blog her favorites, which I'll definitely share with you. And dear parents, you probably know what you're getting from me for Christmas. Can you stand another goofy picture of me? ;)
Update... here's the link to Kerrie's blog: http://kerriecelaphotography.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment