Picnic Dreams
This is your reminder to create moments and experiences for your self that are accomponied by a few images, not to create a moment solely for images to be captured. Remember to live first, document second.
The Initial Inspiration
Initially, the idea that sparked this shoot was to create a safe and joyous space for people to connect, make new friends, live a new experience; to simply have fun existing amongst other people.
This concept was supposed to take place the year COVID broke out, so unfortunately I had to post pone and that pause on this concept resulted in another two years of waiting. In the end it was all worth it but this was something that due to the hard work making this happen, finding people wanting to be apart of it, and other variables, just made me want to create an experience even more.
I spent the past couple years thrifting everything we would be using for this picnic. I even thrifted an old cooler and refurbished it for this concept. (I’ll share behind the scenes footage of that at the very end of this article if you’d like to see the before and after of that)
All in all, this idea was inspired by the simple want to create an experience for some one else. I wanted to be able to create something that would insight a positive core memory in everyone who would be there and apart of it. I also wanted to create a fun photographer/model space to take a break from the preciseness of the every day work load of a photographer/model.
This experience wasn’t something you had to be some one else for, you didn’t have to suck in your stomach, slick your hair back, or even clean shave your whole body before this. What ever you would typically do as a model preparing for a photoshoot, it wasn’t expected of you here. All you needed to do, was come as you are and enjoy the freedom that comes with being your most authentic self.
With social media being such a large influence on our lives and digitally documenting every little thing that happens in each of our lives, we often times sacrifice genuinely experiencing those moments we fight so hard to capture with our phones and cameras. We chose to prioritize the thought of posting something to social media whether for validation, attention, to simply make it look like our lives are interesting and have substance to them, that we forget to actually enjoy what’s right in front of us while it’s still there. Our world has so bluntly run towards an online presence that we spend most of our sights through the view finder of another device as opposed to our own eyes.
I want to create moments that allow people to slow down and genuinely experience and feel all that’s around them, the people, the smells, the sounds; I want a life where we come back down to earth and enjoy it with out the need to publish it some where right away.
I want to create moments that allow me and others I cross paths with to focus on the experience first, and simply appreciate the later opportunity of encapsulating it in photography. I love photography with my entire being BECAUSE it allows us to freeze genuine moments in time. It allows us to freeze love, bliss, sorrow, anger, all these things that once were never a tangible thing we can now make tangible; we can now look back and experience it all over again. But the key is to remember to actually experience it the first time around, so that when you look back at those photos you remember the moment, the experience, you remember living in that moment and not the memory of focusing your camera on the sights in front of you.
Why choose a picnic to create this experience?
Why not? I think creating a place where you simply meet up, enjoy food, music, the warm sun and every excuse to spark up a conversation with a stranger makes this a perfect choice in creating this experience.
Being able to exist care free with fresh made foods, cold drinks, the smell of fresh cut grass in the air while the warmth of the summer breeze grazes your face is a beautiful experience in in of it’s self.
When you think of those things, and then add in the variable of including people you may have never met other wise if it wasn’t for this picnic shoot experience, and being able to make new connections and friends just because you attended a picnic themed shoot really digs in this whole idea of choosing to live and document later, as opposed to documenting and forgetting to live.
To put this in a even more personal perspective; the whole reason I ever even decided to start taking pictures of people is because I fell in love with the ability, the idea, to artistically but genuinely document other people. To document some one in a way that most accurately expresses who they are, or to make them a piece of art that expresses something, or to document an achievement, an important moment in someones life and getting to live that experience with them in a sense. I think photography is such a beautiful tool we often take for granted. This ability to capture images of what’s right in front of you, to capture memories for safe keeping, it’s all we have left when people finish passing through our life time. When a moment happens, the only time you can experience is right then and there, but photography when done right, allows you to experience it over and over again.
Humans are such complex creatures, and so much happens even in just a day of our lives, this ability to capture things in the click of a shutter is just absolutely beautiful to me. There is nothing I love more than the ability to capture a once in a life time moment for some one else, whether I know them personally or they’re a complete stranger simply seeking a service through me, I love their moments as much as my own because I know how quickly these experiences pass us by. Something as simple as me capturing some one during a moment where they genuinely laugh at a stupid joke, or smile because you complimented them and it made them feel good… You can try to pose people any day but you can’t fake genuine emotions and reactions and that’s what I strived to document in this and what I strive to document in all of my works.
Everyone who participated in this fun day in the sun did get individual images of them selves as well, and because they helped me bring this beautiful moment to life I want to give each of them a more personal moment to shine in this post. Down below i’ll be sharing individual shots taken and then some fun behind the scenes or bonus photos captured at the very end.
If you made it this far, I appreciate you for listening to something I am passionate about, and I hope you take something beautiful away from this. I will also provide links to everyone’s instagram below:
AutumnLeatherWood
BipolarParadisee
Brea.Sanger
CurlyFroQueen
HannahXXWalker
KavitaLuva
Kimmia.Bratcher
Ky.Bx
LaelaRenee
Lemon.Of.Pink
MorganMichelleModeling
SirahModeling
Not everyone made it in this shot, but here’s a fun photo of me with the beautiful group of people I got to create with. <3
Shout out to the other photographer, Kay, who joined me on this fun experience. You can find her with the link below:
TheWildLifeOfKayBix
The Cooler
You can follow me on TikTok if you’d like to see more photo related content! This is a quick video I made when I was bringing this old school cooler back to life for this shoot you’re viewing now! Hope you like!
It’s fun to note that majority of the items I purchased for this picnic shoot were thrifted, only a handful of items were purchased from a different type of retailer! Each person got to go home with their preferred thrifted goodies once the shoot was finished, as well as each person got to pick out their own tea cup and saucer to take home with them and use for the shoot. It was a fun little gift to take home <3
TikTok