Laundry Day: A Celebration Shoot

In my wildest hopes and dreams, I never expected this:

It’s funny how one single image can start a frenzy of ideas. Chelsea McGowan messaged me this picture a few months ago, with the caption “laundy day?”

So simple, but this little jar of clothespins was the inspiration for it all… a few conversations and emails later, and we had a full-blown concept for a photoshoot. Laundry day. Clothes on a line. A field of flowers. A couple whose affection for each other would ooze out of every image. A non-traditional approach to a detail table.

Here’s a preview of all the lovely details. McGowan Images will be posting the full set of portraits, so make sure to check back there in a few days!

That’s a real iron. Like, a real, old-fashioned iron. Can you imagine??

The whole scene: Laundry on a line, a different approach to the detail table.

Ethereal. I swear, this was exactly how I pictured the clothes on the line. When Chelsea showed me this image on her viewfinder, I audibly gasped.

Soap display! I had originally planned to label all the different “cleaning options” on the table, but I never could nail down a way to do it without being too obvious. So, for you reading, that’s SOLID (Beekman/white soap on the cheeseboard), LIQUID (liquid laundry detergent), POWER (good old power detergent!), and you’ll see CRYSTAL (fabric softener) in the next shot:

I love options!

A wider-shot of the secondary placement. I love those washboards. They’re from my mom’s sewing room.

GAW. That is all. Jon+Anna were my first choice for this shoot. That thing I mentioned earlier about a couple with oozing love? Yeah, that’s these two. If you’re the cynical type, they’re almost hard to be around. Jon and Anna are SO obviously in love – at one point, Chelsea leaned over to me and said, “This is cheating.” I agreed.

Translucent clothing in the summer sunshine. Does it get any better than this?

Dear Anna. You’re a dish.

Ending with this last set, by the most phenomenal tree I’ve EVER seen.

That flower’s made out of dryer sheets. Closer look:

So there you have it. Our take on Laundry Day.

We didn’t do this shoot for any particular reason. It wasn’t requested, and it hasn’t tuned a profit. We did it because we could. Because we had an idea, and because I have immensely enjoyed making these ideas come to life over the last few months. There’s a scene in the movie Titanic, when Jack and Rose are talking about possibilities. Rose  says,

Say we’ll go there sometime, to that pier, even if we only ever just talk about it.

Jack replies,

No, we’ll do it! We’ll drink cheap beer, we’ll ride on the roller coaster ‘til we throw up, then we’ll ride horses on the beach, right in the surf and you’ll have to ride like a real cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff.

That has always meant SO much to me – the doing it part of life. This shoot was a celebration of not just dreaming about something, and hoping it might happen, but actually doing it, doing it thoroughly.