Ever wonder why there are so many people on set at a photoshoot? Because it's a lot of work. Most people only ever see the end result - the photos - but there's so much planning that goes into it. And then the day of the shoot you cross your fingers that it doesn't rain or that you can catch the sun in that perfect spot.

I love planning photo and video shoots (here's an oldie but goodie). For this one I had an idea in mind and looked for images that would help explain the overall vision and some individual shots. I went over all of these with Betsy, a friend and photographer, and Val, my sister and model. We met and had a brainstorm session and scouted locations. It just so happened that Betsy's apartment in NOMA was perfect. I created a shot list, location list and then tried to organize everything so we knew which look to photograph where and when according to shots, time, look, etc. The night before we made the floral hair pins while watching model videos on youtube so Val could practice. Some of the videos were totally ridiculous--but it was fun to be silly and I do think they helped. Modeling is hard and annoying. You have to really just be in it. We talked through the character for each look and how it would work out.

Day of we got up super early to be ready for the sunrise. We ironed everything, did Val's hair and makeup, and got our equipment ready. Val did awesome. Betsy did awesome. I am so lucky to have such amazing friends and sister!

Throughout the day we just kind of talked and me or Betsy or give her a little direction. We tried different shots that I wanted to get and made up games to get a certain look. I've been on super casual shoots before, so it felt natural. After a while Val felt comfortable in front of the camera and we all were just in it together! I tried to follow my shot list and keep us on schedule. We found some new locations when we were out and about, like this awesome brick wall Val spotted.

Or this awesome parking garage...

We shot everything in one day and then Betsy edited a selection of photos for the lookbook. All these photos in this post were ones I took during the day just as backup and for this post ;)--except the brick wall one that was Betsy! We narrowed down the images to tell one story and that's what is posted up in the collections page. Edit, edit, edit -- a pretty common theme in all of this. That was probably the hardest part, picking the photos that make the clothes look best AND tell the story.

Thanks DC for having such an awesome skyline! And great weather on our shoot day!

Have you ever done a photoshoot? Let us know your tips!