June Project – Traveling Dress

A couple of months ago, a photographer in one of my Facebook groups put out feelers for women who would be interested in a traveling dress project.  The concept for this is one dress in multiple different photo sessions.  Each photographer would have the dress for a designated period of time, complete a photo shoot, and then send the dress to the next photographer in line.  I’m a member of another group doing this same thing, but the dress is for children.  I’m still on the list, and I’m hoping to find a little girl who will model for me.  Since I recently moved to a new town, this may prove a difficult task. 

Anyway, there were two reasons that I decided to participate in this project.  The first being that the dress was for women.  Second, it was for Black women photographers.  I’ve seen the traveling dress project executed by other photographers, but they were primarily white.

I elected to receive the dress in July since we were moving in June; however, there was a mix-up in the schedule.  I received the dress the week before we were scheduled to leave Arizona!  This changed the concept for my shoot.  I won’t share it here because I’m using the same idea, with some modifications, for my July project.  I had spoken with my friend, Annette (Annette Matthews Photography) about the project, and asked if she would sit for me.  I wanted to have the shoot at the Salt River outside of Phoenix.  It was one of my favorite locations for sessions.  Annette agreed, and we set the date for June 12 in the evening. My intention was to also capture some self-portraits in the dress, but Annette photographed me.

The week of the session turned out to be the hottest week in June.  Phoenix was under a heat advisory, and we were in triple digits.   When we arrived at the river, we were surprised to see it so crowded during the week.  However, it made sense because school was out for the summer break.

We decided to photograph Annette first, and she did an amazing job.  I created a Sade station on Spotify to provide the ambience for the session. At one point, we had an audience of teenage girls and someone flying a drone.  We pressed on with the shoot regardless of the onlookers.

The images on my Instagram for the week of June 24 are dedicated to the Traveling Dress Project.  Thanks to my friend, Annette, for being a trooper!