Duck and Cover

Do you have a story about being walked-up upon, while on a nude shoot? Sorry, but I am already giggling about what I am imagining to be your response.

 kumquatsessions

I’ve had people walk-up on photoshoots twice.

The first time was with Leah Ashley, early on a very foggy Tuesday morning, during a river shoot. She had just slipped off her swimsuit bottoms and had climbed up on a large flat rock, when she just froze, staring over my shoulder. I turned around, and on the far bank was a woman walking her dogs.

retrospective (2011)

“Sorry, we’ll leave, right now. We didn’t think we’d bother anyone, this early,” I called to her, already starting to wade back to the shore. “Don’t worry about it — it’s art and she’s beautiful,” and with that, the woman continued with her dogs. We made probably 5-10 more photos and took off. (In fairness, it was cold and I had to get to my day job.)

The other time was during my most recent photoshoot with Keira Grant — we’d gone out to one of my favorite locations, and found a set of keys sitting atop the giant rock that features in so many of the photos from that shoot. I assumed that someone had dropped them and that another hiker had found them and placed them in a highly visible location.

We had been shooting, at sunset for about 10-15 minutes when Keira says, “there’s someone running towards us.” I suggested she step back into the tall grass, since there wasn’t time to get to her clothes. “Nah.”

The runner jogs up, Keira steps out, nude, and says, “does it bother you if we keep photographing?” He kind of does a double-take and says, “not at all. I’m cool with it,” and keeps running down the path (though his next lap was much faster).

I’ve had other close-calls — yesterday’s photoshoot was spent largely dodging fishermen (canoes are quiet) — but those are the only times I’ve actually been spotted. For the most part, at least in this area, people are fairly open-minded, so long as the intent is clearly artistic.