Death Scenes - slightly gory

Last night, my friend/handyman/assistant Kevin and I got bored.  This happens more frequently than people would think, but sometimes our boredom inspires more than just Kev cleaning the back porch.   Last night it inspired murder.  We've been talking about this a bit recently, having some people over and doing some gore makeup (if you've seen my zombie and vampire photos, you know our love for this) and staging some kill scenes.  Trix Morgan, who modeled for me once before, was IMing me on Facebook discussing a future shoot, and she ended up coming by.  Kevin's friend Bolea stopped by, and this kid Ricky I knew in high school, who brought my cousin David with him.

Our first kill of the night was Trix.  She's a wrestler and dancer, so can contort her body into some amazing angles.  I pulled out the liquid latex to scuff up her legs and hands, as her death was by falling down my front stairs.  Put a grid on my speedlight (no outlets around for the Alien Bee), mixed some fake blood with water, and positioned Trix on the stairs.  It didn't look to comfortable to me, but if my model says she's good, then awesome! 

We took a couple shots where I was at the bottom of the stairs, and had a shadowy figure (David - who would only kill and refused to die) at the top.  After doing that for a bit, I went up to the roof and shot down.  Her leg wound looks especially gruesome in that shot!

While Trix was cleaning up, I cut Ricky's throat open.  This involved a lot more layers of liquid latex because there needed to be flaps of skin, and a decent amount of blood gel was smeared in the"wound" to make it look extra gross.  After some discussion, I decided I wanted to shoot this through my kitchen window, so we took a chair outside to stand on and fake blood was sprayed on the window.  My Alien Bee B800 was set up inside next to them and awesomely, my totally cheap remote trigger did it's job through the window!  Ricky had some pretty entertaining facial expressions, even when his mouth was covered.

Last set of the night was Bolea.  Kevin did a great job bloodied up Bolea's face, as his scene was that he went splat.  Splat!!  They mixed up this totally disgusting bloody mess to be his smashed in brains.  I especially wanted to shoot this one from the roof, and after doing that, went down to the parking lot where he was laying and got some shots there.

 And of course, a snapshot of his face, to showcase Kevin's wonderful work!

NILMDTS

Today I got accepted as a volunteer for the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation. NILMDTS is a group of volunteer photographers who can be called in to photograph, free of charge, stillborn or dying babies. The infants can be photographed while still alive, after death, or, if the mother knows her child has little to no chance of survival, while still in utero. Or all of the above. Whatever the family wants. It's to provide people with lasting, professional images of their child.

It's a beautiful idea and when I was took History of Photography in school, we talked about post-mortem photography in the Victorian age (often done of deceased children) and how no one really does that anymore. It seemed like a cool idea then and still does now. I'm very pleased to have my application to NILMDTS accepted and, even though I'm sure I'll cry, because it is terribly distressing and sad, I am glad that whenever I get called in to do this, I will be able to help someone's grieving process.

To read more about NILMDTS, you can go to their website: http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/