European Elegance in NYC

Kenneth Shinabery

Before I moved to Germany, I was contacted by a costume designer named Lori Gassie. She was interested in designing gloves for my “Dia de los Muertos” project, however I was already in the editing phase. I proposed a collaboration that would highlight our skills.

A week later I met with Lori to discuss our collaborative undertaking. Lori brought with her three designs of costumes that she was in the process of creating. The first was a Bavarian Dirndl or Tarantella style red dress, the second a 1920s style burlesque costume, and the third a tropical inspired burlesque costume for performer/model Taradise. She also brought with her swatches of material that she planned on using to create the looks. She shared with me some photos of dancer Tara Bizub. I was really impressed by the photographs of Tara and thought she had a charming elegance about her.

We decided we wanted to shoot within at least a week. So after meeting, we both had a lot to accomplish.

I came to the conclusion that I wanted to scout Dumbo in Brooklyn for possible locations. My goal was to find five to six locations for each costume. I decided because Tara is model and a dancer that I wanted each location to be a stage where she could express herself and demonstrate her movement.

While preparing for the shoot I thought it would be clever to bring a Hofbräu beer mug as a prop to be used during the shoot. I believed the shoot could be a possible spec ad for either Hofbräu’s Bierhaus Restaurant in NYC, as a print campaign for Hofbräu that could be used to promote the beer in the city, or a promotional poster for the Steuben Parade. When I arrived on set the girls loved the idea of incorporating the mug.

After the shoot I began editing the first part of the series using Photoshop CS5. Once I had completed the editing stage, I began making my final decision on which images would be used. For each series I took over 200 photographs in order to make sure we had enough coverage for each costume and location.

THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHS ARE FROM THE SERIES WITH THE BAVARIAN STYLE DRESS.

• NOTE ADDITIONAL IMAGES SHOW HOW THIS COULD BE TURNED INTO A SPEC AD CAMPAIGN FOR HOFBRÄU BEER. Please see my website for more info… http://www.behance.net/kennshinabery