Mosquito Sacrifice, I Volunteered as Tribute
July 23, 2020That title makes it out to sound like it was a terrible shoot. What does it even have to do with the photos below? We will get to that; but first, we have to talk about gardens. Plants and flowers growing, little gardens, big ones, I’m a fan. When I was staying with my Mom while my Dad battled cancer, we found ourselves wanting to watch something on Netflix that wasn’t doom, gloom, shoot ‘em up, the world is a bad, bad place. Enter, Big Dreams Small Spaces, a British TV show where legendary gardener Monty Don helps transform small backyards into fantastic oasis’s. The show felt like a comfortable blanket, exactly what we needed. Seeing something grow, that positive connotation when everything else is a bit dark, is why I love any garden.
What does a British TV show have to do with a Sonny Ching jewelry shoot? When I found out Akemi (remember her from the Keep Wild Blog?) wanted to shoot at a botanical garden on Oahu, I played it cool but inwardly I was over the moon. Take photos in a massive Hawaiian garden, you don’t have to ask me twice. Sonny Ching takes a modern approach to traditional Hawaiian designs when he creates each of his pieces. The garden was idyllic for his jewelry as the pieces were going to be showcased in the settings that inspired them; that sounds like a recipe for success. Outfits from his clothing line, Ho‘ololi, complimented the jewelry perfectly. We took those ingredients and ventured around the garden to find areas that highlighted each of the pieces.
Before we went to the last location for the end of the shoot, Akemi looked down at my shorts, “Holy shit Christa! Look at your legs!” When I get into Christa-photo-mode, I tend to stop noticing little things that are going on around me. I looked down and it wasn’t only my legs, it was any piece of uncovered skin. The signature raised red bumps - look, a black thing feasting on my life force, another, and another. I’m 103% sure I was the reason the rest of the group wasn’t getting bitten. Which honestly was a good thing (I mean as long as they didn’t give me West Nile or Bird Flu or SARS or Chicken Pox) because that meant they weren’t attacking the models. Why would I be concerned about them attacking the models? It’s simple, less photoshopping for me. No one wants to see the evidence that there were heaps of mosquitos around. Wow what a beautiful earring, that red lump on her neck really accentuates the design…said no one ever.
All fat happy mosquitos full on my O- blood aside, I still was dancing on the inside while shooting Sonny’s designs. Jewelry matched to clothing matched to models matched to location. That’s a photographic layer cake of joy.
Let them eat Funk!
Dear Reader, that catchy closing line is under construction as it sounds cannibalistic - I don’t want to be eaten or it may endure the test of time, stay tuned, dun dun dun!
