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Born To Die

Russel Frank
Nov 23, 2014
5 min read

Theme: Born To Die

Date of Shoot: Sunday | November 23 2014

Photographer: Joe Fogarty

Fashion Stylist: Myself

Jewelry Designer: Alexia Kay

Body Paint Artist: Nick San Pedro

Male Grooming: Alysia Tavidagian

Location: Sons Studios

Model:

Mackenzie C. | Envy Models

Nebraka Thunderfuck | Ru Pauls Drag Race: Season 5

Derrick Barry | Divas Las Vegas / Share Night Club

Yara Sophia (Gabriel Ortis )| RuPaul’s Drag Race: Season 3

Hector Lopez

Reunited with Mackenzie Claude! I am going to start off saying that working with Mackenzie is never a “DULL” shoot, especially if he is the one being the art director. I never do an ordinary shoot with him. There’s always something new and different he adds to the shoots and concepts. He challenges himself as a model / entertainer, which is what I love about him! He asked me to style this shoot for his idea, themed after Lana Del Rey’s song Born To Die. He was looking for a regal royal feel. Throne with white wardrobe and white tigers. Except the tigers as a male model (Hector Lopez) body painted by Nick San Pedro. With this shoot, his twist was to add Derrick Barry and Yara Sophia, and reintroduce Nebraska Thunderfuck back to life. As you can imagine, this already didn’t sound like an ordinary shoot.

With Mackenzie, one of the things I like about him he gets really excited about his ideas, sometimes has a difficult time explaining it. He has the idea in his head but sometimes over thinks it. After working with him with a few different shoots, I understand where his ideas comes from. I understand his thought process and is easy for me to be on his creative page. He sent me the images of the looks we are aiming for. I love the innocents and royal feel of the white dresses. My first thought was how am I going to make this not look like three models in a wedding dress? That was my first challenge. The second obsession he had was incorporating fur coat. For months, for the past year, he has been wanting to do a shoot where I included a fur coat for him in wardrobe. No concept fit that idea, until now. He made sure that would be a piece I needed to pull for wardrobe. One thing about Mackenzie, he gets an idea and doesn’t let it go.

I went to pull wardrobe form a couple different places. Dealing with white dresses, I had to search for non traditional wedding dresses. I did find some few dresses that were flowing white dresses. I felt the dresses were evening wear appealing, long gowns, not fluffy or romantic feeling. I was thinking Greek Goddesses when trying to pull the dresses. I had to pull a few dresses, because the theme of the shoot is Born to Die Lana Del Rey. He mentioned to me to think of it as a day and soft look going into dark and black looks. I also pulled a few gold / silver dresses, and of course some lace black dresses to give it that dark sex appeal. Mackenzie did tell me he wanted just Derrick and Yara to be in the first shoot, but I saw the black dresses I was aiming to get him on my thought process. Add the two of them to the final shots with the black dresses. Mackenzie also told me about a Jewelry designer, Alexia Kay who would be bringing some pieces to work with the concept idea.

For Mackenzie’s looks, I had to find the fur! Male outerwear of fur coats was a hard task. I began to feel over whelmed with the fur coat idea. I knew I couldn’t show up without it. There are plenty of women’s coats that are fur. So, back to my relationship with Mackenzie, knowing how he models, he can make anything work. A model who is comfortable in his skin, and respects, appreciates other artist crafts, I knew he would make a woman’s outerwear fur coat fit the concept. There were also some other pieces for looks, with a simple black suit, white button up shirt with pleats on the chest I had pulled. Total of 7 evening wear dresses, two men’s suiting looks, and the infamous fur coat. Mackenzie never does small concepts. So when I completed the looks of this amount, it was nothing small. He definitely keeps me busy.

Photo Below: Yara Sophia Photo Below: Derrick Barry

We finally had the shoot planned for the 23rd of November. Location was set, team was set at Sons Studio in Las Vegas. When I arrived, I met the team, warm greeting to Derrick and Nick, which I love seeing those two just as much as I love seeing Mackenzie. The three of them have this, creative energy, where they support and include all three of their skills contribute to each of their projects. I introduced and met with Yara Sophia for the first time (which I am huge fan of her drag performance, and her time on RuPaul's Drag Race). Then I met Alexia Kay, the jewelry designers. I haven’t known her before nor familiar with her pieces. Yet we compared people we knew and had collaborated with, and we have a few people I common within our circle of network. Her pieces were different. She explained her pieces as being tattooed inspired. Which in this concept, they can work for both male or female looks to accessorize. I also haven’t worked with Joe Fogarty (Photographer), but I have seen his work from other shoots he’s done. I was excited to work with him and to make a new connection. His work is amazing. I felt very comfortable in this setting for the shoot.

As the shoot went on, dressing each of the models, it was a feeling of completion. Each look, looked amazing! The cohesiveness with the setting of the set, It felt amazing. Lana Del Rey’s album was playing in the back ground to set the tone of the shoot. This was my first time seeing Nebraka Thunderfuck, in person. I’ve seen the episode where she made her first appearance. To see her come to life, was a different experience. When you think of Nebraska, you think of her as a blonde. In this shoot, she was dark haired brunette. There was a feeling of embracing of Janice Dickenson, the super model. I think with those features of dark hair, strong jaw line and face features, and the high fashion editorial wardrobe all made the looks be that much more striking, each shot. Normally when I do photoshoots, pulling wardrobe and accessories I need to see them before doing a shoot. With Alexia’s jewelry pieces, it complemented the wardrobe perfectly.

** Here is a SNEAK PEAK from the shoot, on edit just released. The infamous fur coat.

Photo Below: Mackenzie C. | Photographer: Joe Fogarty