Credits

Photographer: Matt Dunn
Wardrobe Stylist: Obe Santos
Hair/Makeup Artist: June Ellis
Models: Dominika for Elite Miami, and Wyatt for Click NY
All apparel designed by Joey Rolon for Funky Sexy Couture
High heel shoes on Dominika by Sergio Zelcer

Comments from Obe and Matt follow the images. Click on any image to see it larger.

Styling comments from fashion and wardrobe stylist Obe Santos:

Matt Dunn and I came across one another through local industry friends. I was connected with him through a makeup artist friend of mine who has worked on one of his past shoots.

To prepare for the shoot, Matt gave a description of the location and spoke about the feel he wanted as far as wardrobe. So with that, I followed my idea of having a sort of story to go with it, which was that of a ‘boot camp’ feel. He also showed images of the location beforehand, which gave more of a clear vision of what he wanted and what wardrobe to work with. I wanted to keep within the ranges of neutrals in order to be able to balance wardrobe with such a ‘POP’ color background.

The heat and humidity that day was an EXTREME CHALLENGE! Hair was difficult due to humidity, as well as makeup. And as far as wardrobe, let’s just say I had to have all wardrobe dry cleaned after!

But for such a harsh and humid day, everyone was very relaxed. The crew had good vibes overall. I personally feel things could always be better in a shoot and if I could go back, I’d change tons of mistakes I made to make it all the better. But I’m still very happy with the result!

Photographic comments from fashion photographer Matt Dunn:

I shot this on spec for V Magazine. I haven’t worked with the magazine before, but hope to become a regular contributor. For the shoot, I found this location called The Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale Florida. I thought it was amazingly campy; the perfect place for a shoot involving casually sexy fashion with sexy models. Many of my ideas start with the location and then evolve.

I have worked many times with June [hair/makeup] before, but this was my first time working with Obe [the wardrobe stylist]. We spoke about concept/colors/possibilities before the shoot. Yellow is such a strong element in this story, so the clothes had to stand out against it. The competing hues just wouldn’t survive if I hadn’t conveyed this message. I told Obe that I wanted this to be a couples story, with sweat and grit but sexy jeanswear type clothes.

This shoot was strange, because the female model I originally had booked took another job the night before the shoot. Our shoot day was a Monday since the traffic at the location would be minimal. So when the female model dropped out, it made things quite dificult since it was Sunday night.  I hit up a new beautiful model named Dominika from my Facebook page, who is with Elite Model Management. She was amazing, stepping up to the last-minute challenge in the manner that she did.

I chose Dominika since she had the body and face to carry a sexy shoot and the experience to lead the male model. Wyatt, my male model, had the rock-star look I wanted in the shoot.  Bruce Weber has used him 3 times for Paris Vogue, Italian Vogue, etc. I discovered him several years ago and he is signed with Click in New York.

I shot this using a Nikon D3 and D300, with Nikkor 35-70 f/2.8 and 17-35 f/2.8 lenses. Lighting was primarily natural light, with some fill from Profoto strobes and on-camera SB28 small strobes.

As usual there are all kinds of issues on a shoot, from models getting booked at the last minute and you having to replace them, to hotel reservations getting screwed up, to the location manager telling us we didn’t have permission to shoot at the location. All of these types of things happen and as the photographer you have to come up with the solutions. This is why my cell phone and agendas have so many names and numbers in them. I believe anything is possible to fix as long as I have time and motivation to correct them.

The shoot took us about 2 hours of prep at my house and then 6 hours on location. All of the models and crew did an amazing job. We had no air conditioning and it was about 100 degrees, and very humid, the whole day. I would have liked to do more shots and closer shots, ie beauty, but the weather had everyone sweating so much that we couldn’t apply makeup fast enough to keep up. Very tough day indeed; I have had easier shoots on the beach with 30 people to direct!

I do the retouching on the images as I am the only one, in the end, who knows what I am looking for. Everything I do has personal meaning to me, which makes every shoot “personal work”. I touch everything as much as I can. I taught myself retouching and Photoshop years ago, because I find doing it myself is easier than trying to convey to someone else what I want. I know what I want when i see it!

And some behind-the-scenes images:

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