Last fall wardrobe stylist Holli Kingsbury approached me to shoot a fashion editorial in New York City at night. Her vision was using a dark skinned black model. She wanted a lot of ambient lights, blurred with motion. What better place than Times Square?

After contacting many agencies we cast model Adesola Adeyemi with Wilhelmina NY. We recruited makeup artist Shannon Rodriguez and hairstylist Emma Elizabeth to complete the team.

The day of the shoot we met at Holli's apartment in Chelsea to prep which took a few hours then headed up to Times Square in two cars. My trunk was filled with photo gear, Holli's trunk was packed with clothing, shoes, accessories, a portable changing tent, and other accoutrements.

It was a weekday evening right after the Christmas holiday and Times Square was was popping. Traffic was crazy. Holli and I both had assistants to drive and stay with the cars while we shot. It was a bit hectic finding a good place to stop the cars, prep the model and shoot, but exhilarating as well.

I shot the editorial with my Canon camera tethered to the computer. This way I could see the images immediately on the screen. I also used Elinchrom mono lights powered by a Paul Buff Vagabond II inverter. Since we did not have a permit for the shoot (guerrilla style) I could not use light stands or tripods. The flash unit had to be handheld.

It was a cold evening so I had to shoot fast, which is challenging, especially when combining strobe and ambient light. I am fairly experienced with mixing light and using the technique "dragging the shutter" which gets the blurred ambient light.

We shot 7 looks in 7 locations that night and wound up wrapping up around 12:30 am. It was a lot of fun and totally exhausting!

Brands included in the shoot are Versace Jeans Coouture, Alexander McQueen, Manolo Blashnik, Bronx and Banco, Marc Fisher, Alex Perry, Herve Leger, Cult Gaia, Dries Van Noten. Holli killed it with the styling!

Please visit my website to see all the images from the shoot!

www.erichason.com