{"id":427,"date":"2014-12-29T19:55:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-29T19:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/?p=427"},"modified":"2016-04-09T06:54:14","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T06:54:14","slug":"the-lady-in-red-photo-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/2014\/12\/29\/the-lady-in-red-photo-story\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lady in Red” Story Behind the Photo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bringing 2014 to an end, I want to share the story \u00a0behind the Coast Redwood photo \u00a0some refer to as\u00a0“The Lady in Red”. The print was released \u00a020″ x 30″ with another moniker … but that\u00a0name sounds good too.<\/p>\n

… continued below image<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Lady<\/a>

Lady in Red Redwood Forest<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wanted to capture the beauty and size of it \u00a0just in case more people learned it’s whereabouts and possibly “altered the landscape” around it. Or … before some\u00a0 storm might take it down in our generation.<\/p>\n

I decided to find a\u00a0woman up north to photograph with the tree because I already had 100s of photos with men.<\/p>\n

Native American female was my original hope, because \u00a0local tribes like the Yurok \u00a0had a connection with the Redwood Coast. But a\u00a0Native American \u00a0from Klamath \u00a0failed to show up for a test-shoot, and later\u00a0in Oregon, I found darker skin of Black and Native American harder to photograph in \u00a0shade. Otherwise \u00a0I would gladly have gone down that road.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0next step was finding someone near north Del Norte. I found one model listed for Crescent City, on a networking site for\u00a0models and photographers. \u00a0I sent a message to Kiera<\/strong> (Lady in Red) the night before driving down, and was surprised by an immediate \u00a0reply \u00a0expressing\u00a0interest. When I arrived \u00a0the next day, it seemed such short notice, so I\u00a0decided not to call about a test\u00a0shoot . Then passing through, \u00a0I noticed a\u00a0“beads”sign \u00a0in a store window near\u00a0\u00a0Hy. 101 x 3rd Street, and stopped. \u00a0Story made short … I talked with a\u00a0man working there\u00a0about photography and websites. He suggested\u00a0talking to a woman in the next room, and she points to yet another woman whose daughter apparently models. The 2nd woman said her daughter’s name was Kiera ….\u00a0<\/strong>Surprise …<\/p>\n

What are the odds of traveling 325 miles through 1,000,000 worth of population and being pointed\u00a0to a\u00a0person I\u00a0never met, but messaged less than 24 hours earlier? So I contacted Kiera, and we did a couple of photo sessions … \u00a03rd time is when we got the huge redwood photo done.<\/p>\n

The “connection” aspect is something that Kiera fit \u00a0unexpectedly well … \u00a0In recent years, she \u00a0worked\u00a0on trails in Redwood parks. She loves the redwoods too. That closed full-circle my hope to photograph a huge Coast Redwood with someone whose life was connected to the redwood forest.<\/p>\n

The thought behind the dress …<\/p>\n

I found two women through the same networking site, who tinkered as models \u00a0around \u00a0Humboldt county. One of them, during one photo shoot, selected a long dress, and I liked the elegant look it gave next to a huge redwood trunk. The length of color worked excellent \u00a0in several ways … getting attention, artistic, elegance, illustration.<\/p>\n

Kiera helped with other redwood photos. And the other\u00a0two women near Eureka helped with another\u00a0giant redwood photo and more. The red dress or “Lady in Red” photo may go down as one of my most iconic photos. I have other photos that are technically better images, but the first giant redwood shot with Kiera \u00a0may remain one of the most meaningful images.<\/p>\n

The redwood photo with Kiera holds memories that others won’t realize. Not long before that photo shoot, Kiera’s stepfather passed-away. \u00a0And we did a\u00a0memorial photo shoot at another park \u00a0weeks prior to the coast redwood photo with the red dress.<\/p>\n

The image below was experimental, the same day … \u00a0a closeup of the\u00a0“Lady in Red”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/a>

Woman in Stout Grove Redwoods<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bringing 2014 to an end, I want to share the story \u00a0behind the Coast Redwood photo \u00a0some refer to as\u00a0“The Lady in Red”. The print was released \u00a020″ x 30″ with another moniker … but that\u00a0name sounds good too. … continued below image   I wanted to capture the beauty and size of it \u00a0just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,67,14,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coast-redwood","category-crescent-city-2","category-forest","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":787,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mdvaden.com\/photoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}