The Traveling Dress Project

Maybe a more apt description would be challenge instead of project because it most certainly was. I don't know if this "community over competition" phrase is as frequently thrown around in other creative industries as it is in photography, but I'm starting to hope someone copyrighted it. In my first introductions to the phrase it was laced with irony and often coming from someone wanting you to purchase some training of theirs. And then I met my "mamas".

I'm guessing it's been a little over a year now that I fell into this facebook group for other like-minded photography moms. We started out as only a couple dozen and quickly grew to a couple hundred. It's was the first time that I truly started to feel the community over competition as a legitimate thing. Some of the girls have become real friends. I know the names of their children and their ages. I can identify one of their images because I recognize their work. It's a supportive and caring environment which can be hard to find on the internet...let's be real, IN LIFE...these days.

One day, one of the members shared this blog post she had come across about this traveling dress. The premise was that a group of photographers selected a dress, they each had a set amount of time to photograph the dress as they saw fit before passing it on to the next girl. The catch was that you weren't allowed to discuss or share any of your images until the last girl had completed her session with the dress. I was totally hooked. I'm going to share with you the other 5 girls that participated and tell you where they are located. I can't tell you their vision for the dress, because we haven't discussed them yet..BUT you'll get a good feel for it just from seeing all the gorgeous images.

I can tell you about mine. The dress selected was an elegant, velvet, off the shoulder, emerald gown by Vince Camuto. At a tour of McLeod plantation during Winter Break with my dad, the idea suddenly hit me. McLeod Plantation is a gorgeous southern piece of property that has been turned into a historical site and park. I won't go into great detail of it's past, but I will say that it has been full of conflict as much of our beautiful city has been. My vision was to place a beautiful, strong African-American woman in this gown...on this property. I wanted to try to almost rub the noses of the old owners noses in the glamour, beauty and power of this woman on their property walking freely like it was hers. I had several ideas to play with metaphors, but time didn't allow me to take it any further than what you'll see. Imani (model) did an excellent job portraying what I wanted. I snuck in some of her beautiful smile. Her make-up was done by Maria (she's awesome) at Pampered and Prettyxoxo.

This project was a lot of fun. It was fun to do something just for myself and to see how differently we each saw the gown.