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123webguru News Desk
Fantasy Camp for the Pixilated
Ramona, Calif.
A FEW minutes after the man wearing the suit of armor emerged from the makeup tent, three photographers trailed him as he clanked over to the creek, buzzing around him and snapping wildly, like paparazzi.
Brian Fischer, a respiratory therapist from San Luis Obispo who had driven eight hours to be here, stood back from the scene, surveying the landscape, clutching his new Canon digital camera. The trees dappled the bright midday sun on the campground, almost as if they were a special lighting effect.
Victor Ciccarelli, the man who had organized the day's event, came over to advise Mr. Fischer: "Something better is coming out in about three minutes."
And in three minutes, something did. A woman with long blond hair, clad head to toe in armor except for her naked backside, hobbled out to some trees not far from the knight. Mr. Fischer rushed over and took one arm, and an assistant the other, to help keep her steady.
"The only thing better than a girl in armor," said Mr. Ciccarelli as they walked away, "is a girl in horns."
If you had happened upon this 305-acre horse farm off a remote road in an obscure part of Southern California on a recent Sunday afternoon, you might have thought you had dropped into a bacchanal, or perhaps the set for a soft-core film staged by fans of Dungeons and Dragons.
This, however, was neither. It was a Fantasy Photo Tour, which cost $165 to attend. The sum bought photographers in search of subjects the chance to capture a fleet of models in elaborate costumes and makeup, some bearing arms and armor and one dressed as an ogre.
Such tours, offering amateur photographers a chance to take pictures of beautiful women or unusual locations, are not new. But the arrival of digital photography has brought a new layer of unreality. What Mr. Ciccarelli offers besides live people willing to dress and pose in fantastic (and sometimes uncomfortable) costumes on location is guidance on how to create special and digital effects. On a picnic table, a set of real raven wings was suspended against a white backdrop. Photographers snapped pictures and were instructed on how to digitally insert them into their pictures later on.
"Rented from an authorized taxidermist, these wings will be photographed in the correct angles and lighting to match the larger images," Mr. Ciccarelli had explained in an e-mail message before shoot day. "The real-time feedback of the camera lets us see the composition and match the images before we proceed. Then, editing in Photoshop, rather than by enlarger technology, gives us the ability to complete the task and create our image."
Larry Drayton, a photographer from Lancaster, superimposed the raven's wings onto the ogre after his day in the woods. Later he extolled the virtues of digital photography.
"With film you were really shortened by a few things," he said. "Digital just makes it so that you don't have to have a lot of scientific basics for the developmental part of it. You just have to have the artistic eye."
On the ranch, as Mr. Fischer directed the woman in armor in their private photo session, another model, Mindy Blankenship, emerged from the makeup tent in a black flowing skirt and black breast plate - a petite, blond version of "Xena: Warrior Princess." She walked over to an enormous tree stump and stood next to it. Four camera-wielding men moved in cautiously, lifted their cameras and began to shoot.
After a few minutes, one of them, Courtney Barron, an artist who lives in Palmdale, stepped back to survey the pictures he had been taking.
"I'm a collage artist," said Mr. Barron, who said he worked a lot with Photoshop. "I'm interested in the parts and pieces. I like to put people somewhere they don't belong." He paused as some action unfolded in the distance. "Everything is art to me."
All of a sudden, Ms. Blankenship was positioned against a tree with a sword at her throat. The ogre roared his best menacing roar, and the photographers snapped away.
Over by the picnic tables, Mr. Fischer was checking his work on his laptop computer. He was having download issues and had to reboot his computer, but remained remarkably calm in the face of possibly losing an hour's worth of shooting.
Another photographer, Andre Dardashti, a student at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, looked more visibly worried. "I'm here to do my final project for my fashion photography class," he said. "I'm not sure I'll get it." He said that he needed 10 shots to fulfill the requirements for his class.
Then, a woman dressed in an elegant black gown covered with peacock feathers came out, wearing striking green eye makeup to match. A rooster crowed in the background as Mr. Dardashti went over to her.
"Hold that there," he said.
"Isn't it beautiful?" said the model, Jenafer Ingram. "I feel like a goddess. I don't have to do anything but stand here."
"You are a goddess," said another participant, John Keehn of Scottsdale, Ariz., who runs a contracting business and said he was more accustomed to taking photographs of countertops.
Mr. Dardashti reviewed the shots on the back of his camera. He said he thought he would have enough for his class project after all. But he said he did not think he was good enough to quit his day job as a computer programmer for Nissan. "It's a talent you have to develop," he said.
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