RE-MIXED MEDIA!

Having fun with illustration and photography!

PHOTO FANTASTICO

My wife, Casey McCauley, is a photographer and she attended a conference in Austin in January, 2020. She’s always come along with me to comic book conventions and I was excited to tag along with her to one of her events. It’s nice to travel and be the one that gets to sleep in and stroll out of the house whenever you want, explore the city, eat, drink, and then meet up with the gang of photographers after their day of sessions and talks is over.

Casey asked me if I wanted to join her and her friends who were participating in a prompt based photo competition called PHOTO FANTASTICO. You gather a team of photographers, get random prompts, and are given 24 hours to put together a series of photos that serve the prompts, but also work together in a cohesive collection.

Our team was Casey, Anna Nodolf, Molly Rees and myself. The three of them are great photographers…and then there’s me. NOT a photographer. Turns out, that’s one thing that would help our team think outside the lens.

The women put together a theme and started brainstorming concepts, finding locations and found a vintage dress for Casey, who was also going to fill the role of model for the shoot.

The plan was to create a character from another world that found her way into ours, but her dimension was still trying to find and pull her back. (Or something like that. hahaha. It’s been a year, memory isn’t firing on all cylinders.) The photographers would shoot and edit and I would draw on the top to bring the real and unreal together.

As they set the scene and took photos, I would start thinking about what I was going to add to the photo later. Sometimes I would sketch out the scene for them to shoot or give a note on angles that would help me add to their art in the most effective way, but mostly I just watched their talents in motion and had fun adding my little bits later.

We walked all over Austin, shot for hours, edited and drew late into the night. Watching these three talented artists work their asses off for a full day was awesome. Their skills with the camera, editing and compositing was inspiring. Molly, Anna and Casey are true masters of their craft! Oh, I should mention that Casey twisted her ankle first thing that morning, so that added to her badassery for hobbling all over Austin and jumping around like a stunt person.

We got the project turned in just under the wire and we ended up winning a few awards as well! It was such a fun, collaborative project to be a part of and it inspired Casey and I to start thinking up some art we can create together on our own!

You can check out the full set in the order we presented it and the random prompts we were given at the official PHOTO FANTASTICO site.

Also, today is her birthday so…HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CASEY MAC!