While planning the shoot, Leiah Luz sent me some images of inspiration to model the shoot after. I couldn’t help but notice the consistency of a ghetto blaster in all the images, a heavy 90s NYC rap scene vibe. So, when I was killing time in a Value Villagé and stumbled upon this ghetto blaster – shoot already set and penciled in the calendar at this point – it is needless to say how excited the both of us were finding the necessary prop for the shoot.
Leiah is a hip hop dancer and booty shaking afficiando, and a well traveled one at that. She recently returned from a journey to LA to mess with some of the best in the business. I know from my own experiences on journeys – and talking to her – that you return a changed person. Motivation. You may remember her from the last shoot we did together in a graveyard, Apparitions and Ghosts.
We did this shoot in an East Van alley just off Hastings street. You know a person is packin’ some cojones when they hardly break a pose when a alley wanderer wanders by with nothing but up and down eyes.
We were parked in the lot of a community center, and as we were finishing up the shoot kids were filing into the community center which had an after school care program. So all the young boys in there were trying to get a view of her out the windows – shown at the top of the first image below. I heard one of them yell, “you’re heavenly.”
I couldn’t agree more.
