Megan and I have known each other for over half a decade at this point, and have always shared a kindred connection thanks to our mutual love of all things dark, spooky, and nerdy. As a photographer with a knack for makeup and modeling, Megan and I share a creative brainwave. When she’s not shooting the Moon and capturing the Milky Way at night, you can find Megan chasing storms and freezing lightning bolts by day.
We’ve bounced photoshoot ideas back and forth for years, but the distance between DC and Rhode Island has hampered our opportunities. On my last visit in 2018, we had planned a foggy graveyard shoot, but this never materialized. This Summer we made more firm plans for photoshoots in advance of my trip to Rhode Island in July. Unfortunately our foggy graveyard plans fell through yet again… but we were able to finally have our first photoshoot together after all these years, and it definitely isn’t our last!
Over the years I’ve come to love Rhode Island’s mix of oceanic leisure and venerable rural antiquity; the small New England state is rich in history and photogenic backdrops. At a super-secret location, Megan and I held our finally-first-ever photoshoot in a former textile mill, incorporating our mutual love of steampunk to coordinate with some of the antique equipment surviving from the industrial revolution. We used this first shoot as an opportunity to experiment - Megan had a wardrobe first, sporting a steampunk-styled corset, and ran through poses while I took advantage of the creative flexibility and added some dramatic color I don’t usually get to include in many of my other photoshoots.
This was a photoshoot we were excited for months, maybe even years in advance, but we ended up even more excited about it after seeing the results as they offloaded onto my computer - dark, bold, and dramatic.
So today, on “The Queen of Halloween’s” 30th birthday (born on lucky October 13th!), I hope you enjoy the first creative project my Rhode Island Muse and “The Duke of Spook” finally collaborated on together.
The Queen of Halloween & The Duke of Spook will return!
Behind the Scenes
Well, less behind-the-scenes, and more selfies during the shoot and afterwards at a cookout - have to keep our super-secret shoot location super-secret somehow!
