I had a very messy photo shoot with local model Agatka the other day. She came to me with a dress that said “Ice Cream” on the front of it and asked if I’d like to develop a concept for it. I’ve been toying with the idea of interpreting song titles in photos, so I thought maybe I could shoe-horn this dress into that concept. The first song that came to mind was “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream.” I know it’s not much of a song, but you have to work with what you have! I wanted her to be punked up and aggressive, holding on to the ice cream as it melted. I decided against putting the ice cream in a cone because I didn’t think this type of character would care to use one.

Anyway, the shoot was fun. I got the wind machine out to blow that wild purple wig around. Ice cream was melting all over, and drops of it were blowing everywhere in the wind. Even a couple of days later, I’m still finding drops of melted ice cream plastered in various places around the studio. I kept the lighting very simple. It’s just a single Alien Bees B800 strobe with a silver umbrella for high contrast light that really makes the colors sparkle. I pumped the flash up to high power, and stopped the lens down to around f/11 to get lots of depth of field so you could see what was in Agatka’s outstretched hand, while also keeping her eyes in sharp focus.

I presented the final images in a triptych because I didn’t want to lose the sense of motion in the shoot.