Behind the Scene - Bella

Each image can be challenging in its own way but some have a higher levels of difficulty. My image of Bella, the Boston Terrier had some unique challenges. The concept is of a dog that has a secret dream of being a ballerina.

The first challenge was finding a ballerina. We were lucky to find one through a local dance studio who had her own gorgeous tutu.

The second challenge came in posing her. In order to photograph the jump and the capture the width of her tutu, we had to move the shoot outside. We removed a pair of sliding glass doors leading to a deck so I that could have a wide enough frame to capture her dancing on the improvised dancefloor we built. Thank goodness she was a good sport!

Next up - location and a male model. I knew I needed a big shop window that would allow in the right amount of natural light. I also needed a big burly male model and was lucky to find both in the same spot. Our friend, Chris Calabrese, owned an old-school barbershop that had the window that I needed for the shot. He also happened to be a big burly guy with the look I envisioned for the model. Bam! Two birds with one stone.

Once everything was shot, the final challenge came in creating the entire newspaper. I designed the paper from scratch and my wife wrote fun articles about our friends and family (which you can read if you have really good eyesight - the couponing engineer is our brother-in-law)!

The Boston Terrier? That was the easiest part of all!