The beautiful photography really helped make our first issue of The Sock Report lovely. We don't all wake up and shoot gorgeous snapshots though, there is primping, and ironing and driving to locations involved - truly glamorous stuff!
Before our professional photographer arrived, we went out and scouted our locations and did preliminary photoshoots, in some cases 2 or 3 prelim shoots at the same location. All of the locations featured in the first issue of The Sock Report were in or near our home base of Eugene , Oregon. The beach shots were done at the Heceta Head Lighthouse beach, and the others were done in the world famous gardens of Hendricks Park. We were lucky that it was the height of the Rhododendron / magnolia blooming season. But shooting in Oregon in the spring is not without risks - you may not have noticed, but the entire beach photo shoot was done in the rain. Our photographer spent hours erasing raindrops from those photos to make them as gorgeous as possible. The models huddled under umbrellas when they weren't on camera, and then bravely went out and smiled while rain pelted them in the face. I think they did an amazing job.
Professional photography is about more than just pose, point and shoot. Our photographer came with lots of sneaky equipment to make everyone look natural and yet perfect at the same time. See that big white canopy thing that our assistant is holding? That's called a sunswatter, and it works like a whitebox to diffuse the harsh light/shadow you get in direct sun shooting. We also had two assistants holding the big shiny dots, those are reflectors that you can use to catch sunlight and re-direct it. So if a model's face is overshadowed, you can bring some light to it without using floodlights and such. If you're feeling particularly evil you can aim it just right to blind the model with a piercing bit of sun (not that we ever did that of course!).
When you're shooting sock photos you have to think about how the model is going to walk over to where she's posing without getting the socks all dirty, so you lay out a little towel carpet and then whisk it away before the photographer has to lay on his belly in the mud to get just the right angle.
Our models were intrepid. We asked them to stand on logs, and fences and pillars of mossy stone, and to get into the most unnatural positions in order to look natural. Sometimes they had to balance on one foot, and other times they used their best ballet maneuvers at the edge of drop. All the while smiling and looking like they just loved their knitwear. (Which they did of course!) They also filled in as assistants when they were not in front of the camera. Here is Miriam helping mother nature look her best - good thing we thought to bring some scissors!
Photo shoot days are long and tiring. That's why we always end them off with dinner and ice cream! And then we toodle home to bed so we can get up and look gorgeous again.
Now that we have our first issue under our belt, we have lots of ideas for fun photo shoots for the next issue. We can't wait to show you!
