WONDERLAND behind the scenes: The FRAGMENT Shots

For each of my photo series, I like to supplement the really orchestrated shoots with some spontaneously captured images that I like to call FRAGMENTS. Sometimes these FRAGMENTS happen before the thought behind a photo series even comes along, even planting the seed for an entire concept shoot. Other times, I will happen upon a scene so appropriate for whatever it is that I’m working on, I can’t resist taking yet another photograph.

The opening FRAGMENT shot in the WONDERLAND series, “Hotel Wonderland”, is a bit of both. I had completed the “Alice Falls” shot, and so I was digging for inspiration to help me continue developing the idea. On a trip to NYC, I decided to go sightseeing on one of those double-decker buses, just to take some pictures and see if anything caught my attention.

Lo and behold, we drove past the Hotel Wellington, and I caught a great picture of the sign out front. That giant sweeping ‘W’ just screamed ‘Wonderland.’ After performing a little digital magic, the Hotel Wellington became the Hotel Wonderland, the inspiration for the story behind the WONDERLAND photo series.

Strangely enough, the cool atmosphere of “Alice’s Mushroom” came about on a warm summer morning in Orlando, Florida. I was visiting a friend shortly after completing the rest of the shoot, and we had been up celebrating far too late the night before. As morning broke, I wandered out onto his front lawn to catch the first sunlight. There in my friend’s driveway among these great wood chips and greenery sat this great mushroom, just beckoning me to shoot it. I ran back inside to grab my camera, and another FRAGMENT was born. The contrast between the crispness of that mushroom and the out-of-focus ground cover still knocks me out, because that’s exactly how it looked to me under those sleep-deprived conditions.

The “ALICE” was added in post-production. I was tempted to try writing it in the moment, but I just couldn’t bring myself to possibly damage that pristine mushroom. Besides, I could almost hear the hookah-smoking caterpillar just behind it, calling out to me contemptuously, “Who are YOU?”… but maybe that too was just the delirium from staying up all night.

Visit WONDERLAND for the rest of the behind-the-scenes features and to view the entire photo series!