When Javeon Hill approached me with a conceptual idea involving him in silk pajamas holding a tiny moon, I thought it was stellar.

I was so stoked to get creative in a random field in Pungo, but I thought we could take Javeon‘s idea to the next level by creating a narrative around how he captured the moon. So, the series starts with him pondering, then moves towards the pursuit, and ends with him holding his prized possession.

Here’s the series, including some before and afters to see the process.

The Ponder – I added extra catch light to his eyes to cheat the moon in there.

The Pursuit, In Portrait – Two versions, the horizontal seems to have gotten a better reaction on Instagram for what that’s worth. I added a bend to the rope on the vertical version to make it look more realistic. I struggled with this one a bit, honestly. The color grading is blue and moody, baby.

The Pursuit, In Landscape – This one is a levitation image, which requires a lot of core strength from your model. Props to Javeon for making it happen!

The Possession – This one is a composite edit. First, I had to cut out the moon and drop the highlights and exposure to maintain all the detail it has. Then I edited the rest of the image on a separate layer in Photoshop. I was pretty happy with the moody sky hanging around for this one to give a bit more interest. Also, this is why you always shoot in RAW and error on the side of underexposure–look at how much detail I was able to bring back in! Swoon.

Thanks to my wonderful assistants, Neko Dice and @unicornslutttt.

I love these conceptual shoots. If you have an idea for one, holler!