Summer Sunflower

This one was from mine and Jack's last studio shoot, at Studio 52 in Middletown (the one with no climate control... 😬 We did 4 hours in like 85° heat and high humidity, and one time back in 2018/19, we had to leave early because we were about to pass out, then in the winter there is a heater, but it's right at the super high ceiling, so it doesn't heat where the people are, and he's like "don't you dare plug in a space heater and bring up my electric bill!", like he doesn't run a service and should make it actually make it worth paying for with basic customer service, making it humane conditions 🙄)

Anyway, this one was working on an idea we started the last shoot at his house, he wanted some macro of the have with flowers, and he chose lilies that first time. While they did look cool, which was the thought process, let me tell you lily pollen gets EVERYWHERE and stains like nothing else. It got all over my face and melded into my foundation, so I had to wipe off a bunch of makeup to get rid of all the bright yellow stains, and had bruise-like yellow stains all over my arms, legs, hard to get off even with Dawn. And I was nervous because we were going to the cat cafe to shoot in a few days. Literally any part of a lily plant is extremely toxic to cats, even a single pollen grain will cause complete kidney failure within a day, so I was worried with all the pollen everywhere. It ended up fine, other than getting bitten by one of the cats in the beginning when I was giving him a tube treat and he got way too into it and aggressively ripped at the tube (and my finger was in the way and he didn't even notice it he was so laser focused on the food. He's actually a sweet, cuddly, purry boy, just not when the food comes out). He went right through my finger, so we spent like 45 minutes getting my wound cleaned and the bleeding to stop, then shot for a half hour (not getting to do the more commercial style I was going for :/ :( ) before I drive myself to urgent care to get on antibiotics. (You have to go on extreme antibiotics for cat bites, they have dirty mouths, and the puncture wounds are deep, but very small in diameter, so very hard to keep clean, so very easily infected)

So this time I bought sunflowers, thinking it was a nice color and shape. It was initially turning out very Vermeer style, with the strong lighting contrast from the subject lit only from a window they're stood in front of. But I'm the edit it took on this more heavenly vibe.

I'm hoping to be able to go visit my relatives in Romania more often now that I'll be so much closer, and I'm definitely going to go for the holidays this year, but hopefully I can go next summer and see this gorgeous sea of sunflowers that's near their house outside if Bucharest.