This month’s “Behind the Camera” is an illustration of a nude woman inside a protective moisture drop floating in a desert. The headline was, “Seal It and Heal It!” created by Budd Shehab, creative director for the skin repair cream, Nouriva. Budd’s layout had our model floating in the moisture drop, so I wanted to deliver the same magical floating effect by having light completely wrapped around her body...top, sides and bottom.

Budd and I have a terrifically creative relationship. He says create this or that from a great layout and I, the magician in me, figure out my magic trick.

After many really exquisite looking women came to our casting session, we found Lacey Morgan through the Arlene Wilson Agency. Budd  must have known there was an exact model talent who looked like his layout illustration because it seemed he had drawn a portrait of Lacey.

Since my start in photography was traditional, that is, before digital retouching, the purest comes out in me until the creative process screams for the computer. To continue my magic show, we hung a one inch thick 4’x 4’ sheet of clear Plexiglas from our studio’s ceiling with an aircraft cable assembly (for our levitation trick). Drilling into the ceiling studs with heavy-duty hooks was necessary to hold our over 200 lbs of weight (Plexiglas, model, and cable). My assistant and I both stood and jumped on our hanging rig to test its safety. The wraparound lighting needed to look as if it were coming from the sun. After completing the mechanics of building the rig, setting up the lighting and proper digital preferences, we then had the “Lacey and Don magic” happen to produce our dreamy look. Through the magic of digital, we removed the bikini that Lacey was wearing. We didn’t need to shoot for very long because Lacey quickly started producing one wonderful look after another. We then shot our glass water drop with the same light we used for Lacey, plus an assortment of reflective cards in the foreground to show the curves of the glass.

Next came Budd’s toughest job, culling through and choosing the final shot of Lacey and our clear drop. The final choices were married as one and placed on the desert background. Thanks to Budd Shehab’s concept and layout, beautiful and gentle Lacey Morgan, along with my trusting interpretation of it all, we had ourselves a magical, client-pleasing ad. Ain’t life grand!