Key West Photo Shoot - Michael Allen Photography

Key West Photo Shoot - Michael Allen Photography - Southern Bride Magazine

Earlier this year the editors at Southern Bride flew us all down to Key West for a major fashion photo shoot on Duck Key. Flying with 250 pounds of photo gear has it's challenges, but with our Media Pass the airlines made accommodations and we got to Miami in record time. Getting a large rental car from the airport was also a challenge, as the rental agents all spoke fluent Cuban, but after a while we figured out how to communicate that we needed room for lots of gear. The drive down from Miami was supposed to take about 1.5 hours to our first destination, but due to Islamorada having a festival that had traffic to a standstill for hours turned our 2 hour drive into a 6 hour drive. But in the Keys we were simply happy and no challenge seemed to dampen our spirits. When we finally got to our first location, we were scouting at last light, almost dark, so that was another challenge trying to find just the right spots for the best light. Did I mention we had a few umbrella drinks in our hands, so we were having fun. We met with the entire crew, about 15 of us, and settled in for the night. Early the next morning we woke up to a monsoon rainstorm, with dark clouds and wind, heavy rains to say the least. Ah, that did delay us for a couple of hours, but we managed to shoot in some covered areas that no one would ever know about pouring down rain in the background. Our first day was a bit overcast, but by the afternoon we did see some sunshine, The first day of the shoot was a success! The rest of the shoot went like clockwork for the next few days. Our hosts in the Keys included the resort management team and the Key West Visitors Bureau. We were treated like celebrities the entire week, and our stay in Key West for the last 2 days was more like a vacation than work. Our stay on Sunset Key was over the top. (We kept hoping we would run into the crew of Bloodline, but never saw any of them.) Our models were Merritt and Josh, we've worked with them before and the editors flew them in from New York just for the shoot. They both did a killer job even though they thought we were rained out the first day. Here's a few images from the Southern Bride blog that just posted. Be sure to pick up a copy of the new issue that just hit newsstands the other day. We shot over 5000 photos, so we will be posting the rest of this year as we have time. Here's the very first shot of the rainy morning. (I love it when the first shot is just amazing!)

Southern Bride: Repost J Crew

ALWAYS SO CHIC IN J.CREW

 June 3rd, 2016

Wow was the only thing that came to mind when we saw this JCREW jumpsuit. Lacey yet elegant adorned with short cap sleeves and a low v-neckline, this jumpsuit would be ideal for a beach ceremony or a bridal shower. Easy to walk in and even better to dance the night away in, why not change in to this cute number when being announced at your reception. Which ever way you decide to wear it, Southern Bride loves this lace jumpsuit!

Backstory from Michael Allen Photography: Here's a few more of my favorite segments from our shoot at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville North Carolina. When we arrive on location with the Southern Bride editors, I spend my first day scouting locations, creating scenes, and developing the style for the shoot. As a professional photographer I'm always looking for light, architecture and anything that I think will be a unique photo location. I talk to the Inn Keepers and look at their normal suggestions from past photo shoots and do my best to avoid those locations, I want to create something unique for me as a photographer, and something unique for the magazine that hasn't been shown a millions times before. The property managers always have their go to locations, so I asked the manager to show me something that no one has ever photographed before. This spot was just what I was looking for, this amazing stone mansion is adjacent to the Inn, and was vacant, waiting for the Inn to decide what to do with it. Most of the week of the photo shoot I'm knocking out the fashion shots that the magazine needs to show the hundreds of designer dresses, so a lot of my work has a straightforward catalog style. I knew when I hit this location I could take liberties to push the envelope, break some of my rules and have some fun. Our models spend the week changing outfits, hairstyles, makeup over and over again. so when we hit this location I told Alynn to let go and give me some of her ideas for the style. We had about 10 minutes right before we wrapped this location, that's when I moved her to this portico and here's the result. We both knew that this spot was going to give us something really cool! Here's just a few of my favs. Be sure to read the original post to see a few more of the shots used on the SB Blog. Here's a link to my portfolio from the shoot too