Find the Egg

It's Easter time again, and the City Hunts folks just had their annual egg hunt. I love working with these guys. It's always a lot of fun.

The weather tried to spoil the fun. A huge storm came through earlier in the evening complete with hail but everything cleared up just in time. We all met up at South Broadway Athletic Club in Soulard where the teams signed in and picked up their instructions. At kick-off teams ran to their cars and drove off to the next clue locations.

Dressing up is encouraged.

We had a bit of trouble at the South County Mall clue spot. For some reason the security guards didn't like groups of grown adults running in the mall. Go figure. But what'cha gonna do? People get excited.

At most of the locations teams would find someone to give them an egg with their next clue. The last location however is an actual hunt. About five teams had made it to the end before one of them found the golden egg winning a $500 grand prize!

For the after party we went back to South Broadway Athletic Club. Everyone hung out, shared stories from the night, & oh yeah- had a peeps eating contest!

One of the greatest things I've ever seen.

The team that found the golden egg.

Go check out http://www.cityhunts.com/ for more of their hunts coming up!
Also, to see all the pictures from the night visit the "view your photos" section of my website and use the password "hunt."
http://www.photographybyjmi.com/

Midnight Boudoir

A few days this month I've got together with Meredith of Milton Schoolhouse fame and worked on getting some product photos for Glenda's shop Midnight Boudoir. She makes beautiful pieces with feathers.
About a month ago Glenda sent Meredith a few boxes of her fascinators so she could model them and Meredith asked if I would help her do this.

I knew I wanted to give a feel of someone actually wearing them out so people could see what they might use them for and also to have a good idea of how they'd really look on them. I also knew I'd like to show them in both formal and casual ways.

I never would have been able to come up with all the ways Meredith thought of to wear them. I'm so grateful she was so creative because like I said, I really wanted to showcase their versatility. Placing some on clothes as a boutonniere and accenting a hat are probably some of the best examples of this.

So go check out Midnight Boudoir's shop on Etsy, but also Meredith & Joel's adventures at the Milton Schoolhouse. It's very entertaining. They also have an Etsy shop, you can follow the shop link on the top of their page.

 

Evie's One Year Old

We were going to take Evie's pictures a little bit closer to her actual birthday but the poor thing was sick.

This time of the year here, the weather is all over the place. The day we were originally going to do her pictures was a beautiful day, much warmer than any other day that week. When that happens it feels like it's just for you and I was nervous that we were missing our window to take some photos outside. As it happens, we lucked out again and our make-up date was even warmer than the day we missed. (I foolishly thought we may have actually been done with winter but I woke up this morning and had to turn that 'ol heat back on)

We met up at Godfrey park for most of them. She seemed a little suspicious of me but we got along pretty well and she enjoyed checking out the park. Mostly the wood chips laying all over the ground. Those were definitely the most interesting.

She also liked to show me where her belly button is.
After the park, we went back to the house and let her run around the living room a bit and play with her toys.

Then it came time for the birthday cake. She didn't waste any time going for that icing. I have to assume there was a simmilar situation at the actual birthday party and if she didn't go right for the cake then, she remembered that this cake thing is good news for her.

She tore about half of it away before feeling it was time to crawl away and wasn't too thrilled with me not letting her crawl away too far and launched into tears. Mommy came in to save her and cleaned her off. She was awake when I left but I'm sure she slept good that afternoon.

Naughti Gras 4

Last weekend the Koken Art Gallery had their erotic art show, Naughti Gras for it's fourth year.

I've been to the show before but never got around to entering until this year.

[This is me with my photo. It's still for sale if you're interested.]

Naughti Gras is a real good time. In addition to the rooms full of art work there's also performances going on in multiple places the whole time.

They build it up bigger every year. I can't wait to see what they come up with for next year.

The best kind of family bonding

A few months ago I got a message from an old friend of mine. Her family would all be getting together this winter. Her mom and older brother still live here but she'd be coming in from Seattle and her younger brother would be in from Korea. I practically grew up with these guys. My sister & I went to school with them and they lived just down the street from our grandparents.

While they were all together they wanted to get together for a family portrait, but that's not all she wanted. During this visit they would all be getting their first tattoo. Matching family tattoos. She asked if I would document the occasion and I was more than happy to.

[Carol's wrist bird]

There was a little miscommunication and Dale (the oldest) had never intended to get a tattoo of anything ever. He did show up to watch but just the other three actually got the ink.

The tattoo artist asked everyone where they wanted theirs, and when Jan said her neck we all stopped what we were doing and said "your neck?" He said if you get a neck tattoo your street cred will go up about 20 points. I guess we all pictured it up front somewhere. Where she actually got it, on the back lower part of her neck, it's not as hard core looking as we thought but still pretty tough.

(The bird comes from the design on a necklace Jan's mom used to wear a lot when she was younger.)

The next week we were pounded with snow and ice so when we got together for the group session I thought it may not have mattered where we went because everything seemed to look the same and was equally dangerous to try and walk on. We had a good time though, and it warmed up a bit that day which I appreciated.

These four get very silly. I think most of the photos have some sort of funny face or light hearted posing going on. Then when we were done they couldn't help but indulge in a snowball fight.

Oh yeah, and here are the tattoos, almost all healed:

(tattoos were done at All American Tattoo in Florissant MO)

The Randy Dandies

In an earlier post I mentioned and showed you Mimi Le Yu and Swifty Deeds. After that show I ran into them at an event at the Mad Art Gallery. They told me about an upcoming show with their comedy burlesque group, the Randy Dandies. It sounded like such a good time that even though mother nature has seemed set on trying to keep me from getting out of my driveway we ventured out to Off Broadway to check it out.

The show was based on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. The audience were given clues and won prizes if they were the first to yell out the correct answer. The prizes were even related to the destination. It's obvious they put a lot of thought and work into the show.

Where's Waldo hosted and each performance was related to the place where the clues lead.

[Gretta Garter in China & Roxy Red Rockets in Australia]

Carmen Dandiego had been mustashioing landmarks in each of the locations. In the end she tried to mustashio the moon but Dora the Explorer came to the rescue. They fought, tore off each others clothes, and Carmen, as always, ended up behind bars.

Keep an eye on what the Randy Dandies are doing and check out a show. I can't imagine you'd be disappointed.

Group Shoot at the Lemp Brewery

The other day I was invited to join several other photographers & models on a shoot with no real agenda but to get together, meet people and make pictures.

The studio space is an entire floor on one building of the old Lemp Brewery in St. Louis. It's an incredible place shadowed by what it once was. There are people using sections of the now "business park" but it still felt very empty.

There were lighting set-ups spaced all around the floor. I used them some but found myself more interested in all of the fantastic natural light spilling in through the large windows and focused mainly on that. 

A lot of the girls brought bikinis and lingerie for their photos, which I got some of but for the most part wasn't too inspired by. Not this day at least. What I did love is that Meredith brought her guns. Pretty women with guns is a combination like tattoos & babies for me. I think it's just great.