The beginning of my day started off pretty smoothly… Jenn and I picked up Lisa and headed off to Calumet in Chicago to pick up a 5 ft backdrop that would fit in my car (in comparison to our 9 ft white backdrop). The people at Calumet were super nice and we purchased 1 “Lagoon” seamless paper backdrop, 2 rubber-tipped clamps, and Gaffers tape. I was researching new lighting techniques for Mint Male’s fashion spread in February and it required me to use foam board as a bookend to reflect the light. We headed to Blick’s Art Supply Store where I purchased 2- 40×60″ foam boards and 1-30×40″ foam board. There was no way that the 40×60″ boards were going to fit in my car so Jenn scored them so that they would fit. It was around 2:45 at this point and we had to make it to the shoot by 3:45-4pm. We then headed to Lisa’s to pick up the backdrop stand for the shoot and we arrived at the shoot around 3:50.. got lucky with some fabulous parking right in front of the Heaven Gallery (1550 N. Milwaukee). We started to set up the photo equipment, I metered using this new lighting set-up… and…. it failed. The foam boards weren’t deflecting any light back onto the subject. Womp womp…. So it looks like I will a) figure out how to use them as reflectors or b) I will have some HUGE idea and mood boards for this issue and future issues of the magazine. So in a sense that actually worked out. The photo shoot went smoothly. Setting up took us around 20-25 min because of the foam board failure… we started around 4:30 and the photo shoot ended around 6:30pm. The models were super friendly, the backdrop looked great, and the colors really popped on the “lagoon” hue. We tried to enjoy some really bad takeout from across the street or our hunger was going to move onto devouring more than just our stomachs… the fashion show was great. Saw some great clothing, met some cool people, and all in all it was a great day. Stay tuned for Cory Allen Designs in Mint Male’s upcoming issue!

Here are some photos from the show:

It’s an insane amount of work. Lots of trial and error in order to create a cohesive and working publication that will draw viewers in and keep them coming back each month for more.

Mint Male has upgraded from past issues:

You can see the progression from title change to image strength to fonts used.

We are continuing this progression in months to come.

Stay tuned!