UNWELL
Valentines Day; This concept started brewing in my head about a week before Valentine’s Day. I was sitting on my porch drinking reheated coffee and scrolling through an Instagram feed of the same red hearted fucking Shein lingerie, mildly frustrated and heavily uninspired. As an influencer, it’s easy to want to follow the masses in what ‘sells’ — candy hearts and bright red lipstick and starkly alive floral arrangements. But the artist in me was itching for something with more substance; a story that would sell a different side of the same coin.
THE IDEA:
When I first wrote the idea down, it was, “Bride left at the altar goes to get a face tat.” I had no idea how I was going to execute the vision — who in the world would pretend to give me a face tattoo? How would I sell as a bride? I wasn’t hopeful that it would be an idea that flourished into a full-fledged project, but I like to dream big. The idea lived in my notes app for a day or so before I pitched it to Nijah over the phone on the way back from the gym, a week before the holiday. Instead of shooting me down, he immediately hopped on board, and the art had officially begun.
THE OUTFIT:
I swear by thrift stores for all of my photoshoot props — not only do you find unique shit, you also tend to find cool stuff you weren’t even looking for. I thrifted this stained wedding dress from a local Goodwill for $50. The puffy shoulders and beaded chest sold an older look that I really liked. It was technically too small, so the morning of the shoot we threaded a ribbon we found around Nijah’s house through the back to lace it up. The veil didn’t technically come with it, but the kind (and heavily confused) woman gave it to me for free! I was stoked. It was a huge score to find an intricately beaded lace veil at no cost.
I knew my shoes wouldn’t be visible in the shots we were framing, so thankfully I didn’t have to budget for any. The flowers were pulled from my kitchen trash — recently tossed after two weeks of dying in a vase on the kitchen table. I felt like the wilted look sold the story even more, rather than buying fresh flowers from the store. The wine bottle was the cheapest red I could find at my local corner store. The earrings are vintage pearl clip-ons from my mother’s jewelry drawer.
THE STYLING:
My makeup was intentionally imperfect (it was so much harder to do my makeup poorly rather than to do it well) to really sell the distraught energy of the bride-left-at-the-altar. A dark red lip still brought in the classic Valentine’s Day color, and the hair was a tousled low-bun beneath the thick veil.
‘UNWELL’ was stenciled above my right eyebrow in the first font I fell in love with. We didn’t actually know what word we were going to use until we were in the shop the next morning! I thought it was going to be something more along the lines of a dagger or a teardrop (very intense, I know). We left this in the traditional purple stencil color, nothing added to it.
THE SHOT:
The morning of the shoot, Nijah and I walked across Central Avenue in DTSP to meet Nick at the shop. When we arrived, we deliberated on what word to put above my eyebrow; I insisted that it had to be a face tattoo, mostly for my own personal pleasure. Having a face tat for a morning was fucking fun.
Nick used an older tattoo gun to bring in more life and texture to the tattoo artist character. We kept the colors pretty dark to still contrast the light and love-y energy of traditional Valentine’s Day pieces. I knew I wanted a portrait shot to sell the character, and a wider shot to sell the scene. This wasn’t supposed to be a huge set that had multiple supporting shots, so we really had to hone in on getting the framing exactly right for the final product.
By shooting from the doorway, Nijah was able to center and frame Nick and I on the tattoo table in the midground of the shot. The ringlight, a native to a tattoo studio, added a cool artificial light, while a skylight directly above us illuminated the rest of the space. We didn’t clean up the space before shooting so that it maintained it’s very ‘lived-in’ look. The wood floors and the starchy fabric of the dress added texture to both the character and the studio.
The final result? A more cinematic take on Valentine’s Day, sans the same overused, over-commercialized energy. We got the shot in less than an hour, and the total cost to make this ran me about $100 out of pocket. All in all, this piece is still one of my personal favorites to-date. I’m so in love with how it turned out, and I had so much fun making it.
What piece do you want me to deconstruct next? Let me know!
