Sunnyland Studio’s inaugural photoshoot was a great fucking success! Holy crap! Look at these awesome images! My goal going into the shoot was to get 20 internet-worthy images and we ended up with 39! I totally expected to fuck everything up and only get 5 images that I’d have to save in post, so the fact we got almost double our goal on our first time out is fucking fantastic to me! Maybe I *am* good at this after all!
Ashley had messaged me the 1st week of January, saying we should collaborate again. I’d been trying to get together with her to shoot again since our 1st shoot in August 2021, and I felt more prepared this time, so I immediately looked at my calendar and chose a date for 3 weeks – or 2 weekends – later, so she couldn’t back out and say she was busy. So many people over the years have proven to be nothing but time wasters or chain yankers, who say they want to do a creative thing, like a commission, I get excited and start dreaming & planning, and the person backs out. Ashley’s not like that, I don’t think, but I don’t know her super well, so I essentially called her bluff – whether it was one or not – by giving a date, and she said yes! I actually chose 2 dates in case we got snowed out for the 1st one, being midwinter, cuz I’m smart like that.
Here’s a couple of pics from the 1st shoot I did with Ashley in August 2021. The one with the white fabric is one of her most loved images on Fet!
I knew I wanted to keep my pink tree up after Christmas and decorate it for Valentine’s Day, so using it in the shoot somehow seemed too good of an idea to waste, and a Valentine’s shoot seemed like a no brainer. I already had the tree partly decorated with heart garlands and glittery styrofoam heart ornaments I made using stuff from the dollar store, so I snapped a photo of it and proposed a cheesy Valentine’s shoot to Ashley. She texted back “OMG yes!!!” so I told her to start gathering wardrobe and thinking about makeup, and I’d handle the rest.
We’re only in Sunnyland/Elmvale 3 days out of the week, and the rest of the time at Harold’s in downtown Barrie because Harold has physio appointments and band practice, we have Tuesday night Fet coffee, and we go to the gym, so I had to give myself enough time to procure photo props *and* get the studio ready for the shoot. Three weeks seemed like plenty of time for that, but I also had to do a billion test shots in between because I’d never actually taken photos in the studio yet!
At first I couldn’t find decorations that were appropriate for a Valentine’s tree, so I made some pretty pathetic ones out of salt dough, using the million heart-shaped cookie cutters I have for whatever reason. Then I found nice glass ones at Michael’s so I threw my sad, handmade ones in the garbage. I did take pics of them to show you how terrible they were though. Y’know, for posterity.
My mom said they looked like cookies, which made sense considering how I made them! Here’s what the tree looked like in the end, with my pink, fluffy duvet on the blue fainting couch. We weren’t using the burlap wall for the shoot, but I thought the “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY garland was too cute not to put up.
I also made these little fairy light jars to use in the shoot, under the tree, but “under the tree” wasn’t really visible in the pics, so I never bothered to turn them on. I think they’re super cute though, and they keep the love-drunk Valentine’s gnomes from falling over.
I got this awesome light-up “LOVE” sign at Michael’s and we didn’t even have time to really utilize it during the shoot! *sad trombone*
I had to switch my black backdrop to a white backdrop during the 1st prep weekend, which meant I had to iron my white backdrop because I’d never used it before. I hate seeing people on Fet posting otherwise good photos, but their backdrops are full of visible wrinkles and shadows, it’s just so easy to fix and makes a world of difference! Personal pet peeve I seem to have developed an eye for since joining Fet. 🤷🏼♀️
After we put up the white backdrop and I did some test shots, I had a bit of a meltdown because my backdrop so obviously looked like a cloth backdrop and I didn’t know how to make it look any better. Harold assured me that we would solve this problem, and he suggested we get some secondhand sheers from Value Village to hang in front of it to give it more texture because he’s a genius. My meltdown was quelled until we could go to Value Village the next day. Then later that night, that brilliant motherfucking Daddy of mine sends me a photo from someone else’s shoot where they’ve put dangling fairy lights between the backdrop and the sheers to make a cool bokeh effect, so the next day’s trip into Barrie now involved going to Canadian Tire for lights. Here’s what it looked like when it was all assembled (with safety pins!).
Also at Canadian Tire, in the “teen decor” aisle, I found this cool heart-shaped neon sign that Ashley and I ended up using for an x-rated vagina photo that I obviously can’t post here but is my favourite of the bunch.
So that’s what we accomplished during our first of two weekends before the shoot. It was so much fun seeing progress happen like that between the two of us. I love working with Harold because we make cool shit happen!
After the backdrop was assembled and the tree decorated, it was time to head to Barrie for the week, where I’d be picking up balloons for the rest of the set.
Balloons. I hate balloons. I hate the feel of them, the squeak of them, I hate when they pop, and most of them aren’t biodegradable, so they’re terrible for the environment. That said, they make excellent photo props because they’re relatively inexpensive, colourful, they come in every colour, and they automatically invoke a celebratory or party feeling when people see them. They’re archetypal that way. So that’s why I used them. What I did not anticipate was having to blow them all up and TIE them. FML! Blowing them up was fine as long as I paced myself, but tying them sucked so bad! I have a big, painful blister on my finger from doing it! Ugh! But it looked fucking great in the end!
We/I finished the set the Monday night of the 2nd weekend (I have most Mondays off) and turned the key before leaving for Barrie for the week. The studio was completely prepped, my lights were in place, my batteries were charged, I’d done my test shots, figured out the new remote on my new camera, put out the chocolate, made the playlist, finalized the shot list, swept the floor, fluffed the pillows…all I had to do was show up the night of the shoot and start taking pics.
I had the timing pretty much down to the minute. We had to pick up Ashley, who was also so fucking stoked to do this after 3 weeks of texting photos back and forth of props and wardrobe, then we had to stop off at a Loblaw’s grocery store to buy roses on our way up to Sunnyland.
The only impressive place to eat in Elmvale is the new sushi place, Hanabi Sushi, so that’s where Harold, Ashley & I had dinner before the shoot. Not only is sushi delicious, and Elmvale sushi particularly delicious, but it’s also relatively light and non-bloating, so I figured Ashley would still feel up to being sexy after dinner, unlike if we ate tacos or poutine. As Harold would say, my “genius switch” was stuck in the “on” position!
We got to the studio around 7pm, signed model release forms, and laid out Ashley’s wardrobe. After choosing her 1st outfit, we started shooting, and didn’t stop until 10:30pm! We actually ran out of time to shoot all our ideas! But we got the important ones in, and we had a tonne of fun!
After the shoot, I started downloading images from my camera to my laptop to see what we got while Ashley got dressed and ready to leave. I was so excited by what we shot, that after we got back to Barrie at around 11pm, I stayed up another extra 5 hours editing the photos. I had all 39 images edited and delivered to Ashley within 2 days of the shoot. I can’t promise that kind of expediency for all my shoots, but this one was just as fun to edit as it was to shoot!
Now that the photos are being posted on the internet, I have all kinds of people wanting to shoot with me! I even have my next 2 shoots lined up with dates, 2 in the planning stages, and 1 where we’re just waiting until it’s a lot warmer and wetter to do it outdoors. I even have a new camgirl coming to my house tomorrow to do her very 1st streaming cam show! I’m so excited! Things are happening!
