Well, it’s official. The March/April 2007 issue of Supermodels Unlimited is on the newsstands and I’m finally able to share with you the results of my shoot with Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith. I shared some details about the shoot in my post on January 1st, 2007. This was my first cover for Supermodels Unlimited and I’m excited that it was such high profile shoot for my first cover with them.

The Crew
Model: Rachel Smith (Miss USA 2007)
Makeup Artist: Sheila McKenna for Kett Cosmetics
Hair Stylist: Natalie Decanini (NY)
Fashion Stylist: Annie Pemberton (NY)
Garments: Jovani & Sherri Hill.

As a little side note
I haven’t shared this yet in my previous posts about the shoot.

In the 9 years that I’ve been shooting, I’ve been very lucky. I have never had a camera, major piece of lighting equipment, or computer malfunction during a shoot. I’ve had firewire cables malfunction, but you kind of expect that. I’ve had a flash tube blow or a modeling light die, but again you expect that too. What you don’t expect to go is your primary camera, especially when you treat the equipment like gold and it’s had less than 5 months of use.

While I was shooting this spread, one that I considered to be one of my most important shoots in 2007, the shutter on my Mamiya 645AFDII jammed. The rear curtain was stuck down and I heard a motor inside the camera moving, but I just couldn’t get rid of the “ERR 01″ message on the camera’s LCD. I tried everything the manual suggested, including turning the camera off and back on, removing the batteries and replacing them, and putting new batteries in the camera. Nothing! The rear curtain just wouldn’t open.

As is usually the case with high profile subjects, I was under a strict time limit of only 4 hours. We were within our last hour of shooting; Getting a backup from a rental house wasn’t an option as messengering it over would have taken at least a half hour.

Now on a commercial job, I usually rent a backup of EVERYTHING, but I didn’t for this shoot. I switched over to my backup camera, a Canon 1D Mark II for the remaining 2 looks of the shoot. Unfortunately, I was unprepared to tether with the 1D Mark II so other than seeing the images on the back of the camera, it was basically back to the film days of shooting “blindly”.

In post, we had to match the color of the images from the Canon and my PhaseOne digital back. I think the spread looks pretty good; Though my nerves were shot by the end of the shoot.

For those photographers who don’t have a backup, I think this goes to show how IMPORTANT it is to have one!!!



More Images from March/April 2008 Issue.
I had a total of 25 pages in this issue of Supermodels Unlimited. I will share them with you over the coming days; If I shared everything with you now, you wouldn’t go buy a copy of the magazine.

About the author

Kevin Michael Reed
Kevin Michael Reed (Google+, Facebook) is a fashion & beauty photographer and producer/director based in New York City and Los Angeles, CA. He is the President/CEO of RedFOG Visual Media, a production company in New York City, and a partner in Passion of Photography, Inc, a company dedicated to teaching photographers and sharing our passion through charitable causes. Kevin has lectured and hosted workshops throughout the United States and the world teaching photographers the business and creative sides of photography. (Kevin's Fashion & Beauty Photography Portfolio can be seen here).