if friendship were a grunge album cover 

model: zoe brian

creative directed and shot by maia feruzi

wednesday march 19th 9am

📍Chicago, il

shot on canon eos rebel t3i 18-24mm, 70-300mm

concept

Zoe reached out to me following a specially discounted photoshoot ad I posted in the Chicago Queer Exchange Facebook group. Her best friend of 25 years was moving to Germany and she wanted to do a shoot to celebrate their many years of friendship. I thought this was such a cute idea and honestly more people should do shoots like this. Screw a couple shoot, grab your bestie, get cute, and let’s take photos! When discussing vibes and location for the shoot Zoe and her friend were very open to suggestions and having an open discourse about the mood they wanted to create for the shoot. As funny as they are, a JCPenny style sappy sisters shoot was simply not the goal.

Instead they wanted something a little darker and grungier, that reflected their personal fashion styles. I created a moodboard for theme inspiration based off our conversation and urban, moody, and cool were the vibes we decided on. They liked the idea of a playground being part of the location since they’ve known each other since pre-school, but also wanted to have some city infrastructure in a vintage album cover theme as well. I decided to take them to the lakefront since Maggie Daley park was close by and there were some industrial landmarks that could provide the urban city vibe without being in the dead center of the city. We only had an hour to shoot so we couldn’t choose locations too far from each other, and this way we were able to get different backgrounds in a short amount of time.

When it came time for the actual shoot Zoe and her friend requested some help with posing and getting comfortable in front of the camera. I focused on getting them to laugh as many times as possible in order to not only relax them but also to capture the energy that a shared laugh can bring between two friends. I wanted them to have a little bit of sappy sister happiness in some shots and then we focused on more cold and cool posing in other areas. The struggle was mostly making sure both of their faces were clear and following my instructions, sometimes Zoe was perfect but her friend wasn’t and vice versa. As the shoot went on, our synergy increased and getting the shots became easier and easier. I think we definitely nailed the album cover vibe, especially when it came time to edit. I focused on lowering the saturation of the images, upped the yellows and greens, added some grain and voila! We have a vintage film effect, made even more grunge in black in white.