Cape Cod was the first real test of The Journey - our 7,500 mile photography project across the United States.
We spent two nights there, but we arrived after dark the first night. We ate lobster rolls, went to bed, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that we had driven our giant chartreuse photo set hundreds of miles without ever actually testing it.
Because we had been so behind schedule finishing the build and moving out of our house, we never had a chance to figure out the lighting before we left Richmond. We hadn't done a test shoot. We hadn't put someone inside the finished set and photographed it through the truck. We didn't really know if the reversed forced perspective would read correctly once there was an actual landscape behind it.
We had spent months designing and building this thing based on drawings, measurements, mockups and a lot of theories.
Now we were in Cape Cod and about to find out if any of those theories were right.
Figuring Out the Lighting
That morning, David started figuring out how we were actually going to light me inside the set.
We brought three Flashpoint strobes for the shoot from Adorama : one XPLOR 600 Pro and two XPLOR 300 Pros. David mounted the lights to the roof rack using baby pins so the lighting could essentially travel as part of the truck setup.
The sides of the set have openings that allow us to light the interior without putting stands or equipment inside the actual photograph. We covered those openings with corrugated plastic to diffuse the light coming through them.
Normally when we create a set in the studio, we can move lights around, add modifiers, change angles and keep adjusting until everything works. This time the set was attached to a 2006 Toyota Tacoma and our studio was wherever we happened to park it.
Once we had everything set up, we headed out to find a location for our first shoot.
Finding Our First Location
Our first stop was in South Chatham.
The view was beautiful, but almost immediately we realized it wasn't going to work. There were too many people around, and more importantly, there was a guardrail between the truck and the landscape.
That sounds like a pretty minor problem until your entire project depends on being able to park a truck directly in front of a view.
So we kept looking.
David found another beach and we drove over to check it out. This one was almost empty. There were no guardrails blocking the view, and we could position the truck exactly where we needed it.
We parked, got everything ready and finally it was time to find out if this whole thing actually worked.
Our First Journey Photoshoot
This shoot also came with another major change for us.
Usually David handles most of the lighting and I photograph. We've worked that way together for years. For The Journey, I'm inside the set, which means David is now doing the lighting and taking the photographs, while I'm on the other side of the camera.
There is definitely a learning curve for both of us in figuring out how to work together this way.
Being in front of the camera feels strange to me, so I decided early on that I didn't really want to look like myself in these photographs. I wanted to create a character, something louder and more exaggerated that would make being photographed feel a little less personal.
For Cape Cod, that meant a huge blonde wig, a bright green Aureta Studio dress with an exaggerated silhouette, colorful Charlotte Stone shoes and three very fun Min & Mon purses.
If I was going to stand inside a chartreuse reversed forced-perspective set in the back of a Toyota Tacoma on a beach in Cape Cod, subtle probably wasn't the direction to go.
The camera shoots through the rear window opening of the truck and straight down the center of the set. Each box gets progressively smaller, creating the reversed forced perspective that leads to me standing at the very end, with the real landscape continuing behind me.
David got behind the camera and we started shooting.
And it worked. Like, actually worked.
The perspective worked. The lighting worked. The landscape lined up behind the set. David's lighting looked great. The bright green dress, giant blonde hair, colorful accessories and chartreuse set all came together against the Cape Cod landscape the way we had imagined they would.
Thank God.
After months of designing this thing, weeks of building it and several very late nights trying to finish it before leaving Richmond, we finally had proof that the idea actually translated into a photograph.
Then We Climbed on the Roof
Once we knew the main setup worked, we started experimenting with another part of the design.
The roof of the set was built to be strong enough for us to climb on, and the nested boxes create a staircase shape from the outside. So we both climbed onto the set and started photographing from up there too.
It gave us another way to use the set and let us incorporate even more of the landscape into the photographs. Instead of looking through the tunnel toward one small piece of the view, we could see Cape Cod stretching out around the entire truck.
For months, this project had existed as sketches, lumber, paint, measurements, emails, route maps and a truck sitting in our driveway. Now we were standing on top of the finished set in Cape Cod looking at the first photographs we had made with it.
Seeing the set, the location, the styling and the photographs finally come together felt completely surreal.
Mostly, though, we were just really, really relieved.
It worked.
And now we have an entire country to photograph.
If you want to follow along and help support this project, sign up for the Journey Journal. Every night I write a joural entry about everything that happened that day and share some pretty intimate details about this project. Signing up helps us afford the crazy amount of gas we are using on this trip!
There are also opportunities to become a producer on the documentary we are making from this project and get your name in the photobook!
Follow along on this crazy ride!
