Lauren Winans | Brooklyn Photo Shoot
This shoot combines a few of the coolest things I know.
The first, of course, is recording artist/pop singer-songwriter Lauren Winans. While checking out her new website last month (most of the photography on the site is from our shoot this past summer in Nashville, TN!), I noticed that she’d coincidentally be in NYC at the same time V & I were going to be (she was performing at Pianos) — we just had to do a shoot! Something raw, shadowy, edgy; still sexy, but different from our last collaboration.
The second is the area in Brooklyn known as DUMBO. So, I knew we’d all be in NY at the same time… but where were we going to shoot when we have the entire city at our disposal?! I began scouting for the shoot via Google maps (which I know sounds ridiculous but I actually shoot-scout via Google maps regularly!), and I found myself focussing on the Brooklyn side of Brooklyn Bridge since V & I had loved photographing that area last summer. Then I remembered two visuals, one each from the films 27 Dresses & What Happens in Vegas, of a cobblestone street with views of both the Brooklyn Bridge & the Manhattan Bridge. Googling these filming locations helped me stumble upon one of my newly favorite spots in America: an area known as Down Under the Brooklyn Bridge Overpass (DUMBO). With its old school brick buildings, industrial feel, train tracks running through the textured surfaced streets, and views of both bridges… omg. It is, to me, the consummate urban shooting location, not to mention an incredible place to meander and drink in a living history of the area. DUMBO is a work in progress that has become completely buzz-worthy: (as per the NYCGO website) “less than two decades ago, the former manufacturing district was largely deserted, inhabited by a few artists who had colonized its lofts; today the area is awash with art studios, technology companies and luxury residences, as well as the kinds of amenities—stellar French bakery, edgy independent bookstore, designer boutiques—that typically follow.”
So, the day of the shoot arrives, and V & I wake up long before the crack of dawn at our rental place in the Hamptons to get to Brooklyn by 9am, and we’re dismayed to see rain. Like, hardcore, skies-opening-up-and-the-heavens-pouring-down, thunderous rain. Not what you want to see when you have very limited time for an outdoor, no shelter nearby, scheduled shoot. The drive to DUBMO takes nearly 3 hours in the horrendous weather and, despite our hopes that somehow Brooklyn would be spared when everywhere else was doused in wetness, our shoot location was drenched. Rather than bail, though, V & I drove around, peering out our dripping windows looking for an alternate place to shoot, and we were beyond thrilled to discover the Manhattan Bridge Archway. Like, could there *be* a more perfect spot in this weather?!!? The only people there were two servicemen power-washing the cement, so we basically had 8,000sqft of fantasyland to ourselves.
Though it was quite dark (most of these were shot at 1.2mm and 1600 ISO… and I still had to bring up the exposure in Lightroom), and it was definitely wet, and frustrations were high, and I was terrified of getting our tens of thousands of dollars of gear wet — despite all of these things — this shoot is one of my most memorable. Once again collaborating with Lauren + getting to shoot in a fantasy location = a very happy Carla, and a truly unique opportunity.
