If I don’t shoot photos every few days, a restless feeling starts to creep in on me. This usually leads to mini solo shoots during sunrise or sunset. This feeling hit a few days ago; but, as I was walking from my car to my house I saw a bush with unique flowers and petals and was inspired. About an hour before sunset, I called my friend, Emilia Perry to see if she wanted to come hang out while I was shooting the flowers in shallow water (6’ apart, let’s not get crazy here). 

What I didn’t know at the time was what Emilia did to her hair earlier that day. Concerned she was becoming boring, she nipped-that-notion-in-the-bud and gave Rainbow Brite a run for her money.  The resulting spectrum of jewel-toned follicles was enough to make any unicorn, or even Starlite, jealous (do they get jealous?). This, dear readers, is the obvious reaction to feeling like you are becoming blasé.

Upon seeing her, I realized a crucial decision lay before me.  Take photos of inanimate flowers or unicorn hair or both? Both. Always both. Walking down the street en route to the flower shoot location (that’s what I was set up for), we passed a couple of kids and a Dad. Seeing Emilia, one little girl gasped and Emilia responded in a way any parent would approve, “You know how I got my hair to look like this? Vegetables. You should have seen the piles of vegetables I had to eat to get the colors perfect. If I didn’t eat enough, it would look all wrong.” 

With hair like Emilia’s and Emilia like Emilia (if you know her, you know “boring” is not a term anyone would ever use to describe her (even if it was the only word they knew)), this shoot was destined for greatness.  We laughed at her ridiculously uncomfortable poses on the rocks, then tried to shake out a sarong so it would blow in the wind when there was no wind, and committed to hair flips in 5 inches of water. Based on my camera settings (set for the flowers) and our laughing, I had zero clue if I had gotten anything.

Not to be forgotten, I shot the flowers. Tried to shoot them. The shallow section had too much water movement resulting in drowned florals. Emilia plucked them up and put them in the tidepool, success! Teamwork and an hour well spent. I love what I do.

Be a Funking Unicorn!

Dear Reader, that catchy closing line is under construction as not everyone has the hair to support the colors required to achieve this look or it may endure the test of time, stay tuned, dun dun dun