fall photoshoot

Today I headed slightly out of Asheville to do a photoshoot. The original plan was to go out on the Blue Ridge Parkway and capture some of the leaves changing colors (which incidentally, match my hair color right now) but sadly most of the Parkway was closed. We did end up in the NC Arboretum though.

I was wearing a formal red gown in black high heels, but the old people there were looking at me like this was my normal everyday arboretum attire and the photographer needed that giant fancy camera just to take pictures of the trees. Yes some people DO use a fancy camera to shoot trees, but when walking alongside a girl who's all made up like a Hollywood glamour star, one would think the connection would be made. One volunteer tour guide in the Bonsai section even followed us around "giving a tour" of the grounds, until the photographer took a random picture of a tree just to make her leave us alone. (She wasn't trying to interfere with us shooting, I think she was just lonely and bored and it didn't occur to her that we walked by her without wanting to know the history of the bonsai tree.)

Since today was the first nice day we've had in a while (which was fabulous for photos), the arboretum and Parkway were pretty crowded. We got several good shots in the red dress, then we moved on down the parkway and I changed my outfit because walking around the woods in heels is not the smartest idea I've ever had. We found a few spots right off the road to shoot, but there were still a lot of people. In fact, we were doing some artful nudes (I was covered in leaves) when some joggers ran by. There was some very hurried throwing on of clothes by me and blocking me from view by the photographer and Jay. The joggers (2 men) lingered for a minute, but they didn't get the full show they were hoping for. A female jogger also ran by with her dog, but she didn't even bat an eyelash. However I'm pretty sure that if I had indicated that I was in distress, her dog woulda been a'biting.

Sadly most of the day was spent driving around looking for locations, and we only did about an hour of actual shooting. He did buy us McDonald's breakfast (just a parfait for me, thanks) and offered to buy McD lunch too, as we had met up there. The pictures looked great and I can't wait to share them. We will most likely shoot again, but this time with a better plan for locations that includes backup scenarios.