It finally happened!  A dream of mine for a few years finally came to fruition. A fully styled 1960’s Concept Shoot with my high school seniors. A skipped over decade in my opinion, the 1960’s may be making a smallish comeback since a lot of the outfits my seniors’ found were in contemporary and hipster stores such as Forever 21 and Modcloth! 

The sweetness of the 60’s is this: the fall over from the 50’s brings us simple lines, modest coverage and gorgeous cuts PLUS the sass from the 70’s with bolder colors and patterns and a little more fun in the designs marry perfectly to bring us the prettiest decade. The makeup in the 60’s was transformative and daring in it’s boldness and the hair was meant to compliment the young lady but have a showiness that made you want to emulate the look yourself. 

This shoot was a huge collaboration with my senior models, my videographer Jack and the stylists from Salon Ludic plus a national jewelry line Jami and a 1966 Chevelle loaned to us from it’s original owner, Ron Elijah, who has had it since he was 15! The planning started 8 months ago when my seniors’ signed up for the shoot. 

To begin, I made a Pinterest board with all things 1960’s which you can see here:  https://www.pinterest.com/ivytowler/1960s-concept/

Then we set a date and crossed our fingers it wouldn’t rain since this shoot was happening outside at the University of Iowa campus, chosen for it’s timeless appeal and believability.

About a month out from the shoot the girls posted a picture of their face and hair plus their outfit to our private app group so the stylists could create their own design board for each girl’s look. This was a huge help because they printed the looks and pinned them to the girls’ outfits once we we arrived at the salon.

A week out I remembered I wanted a classic car to complete the look and feel of the images so I did a facebook plea with my friends. Emily, one of the stylists on the shoot, reminded me her dad had his car for us to use!  It was meant to be. So lucky to have that fall into our laps. 

The days leading up to the shoot I felt a bit nervous with those insecure thoughts rattling around my brain like: what if I take terrible pics? <—— that was the main one or what if I don’t process them correctly or what if I let the girls down or what if it doesn’t look like I dreamed of. Honestly, this happens a lot and I tell myself the same thing every time. All you need is your camera and you will be just fine. You always make it work, always. So that is how it went down. The day of the shoot arrived and I was bouncing all over the place wanting it to start already!

Two people brought us boxes of donuts, can you believe that?  It was so thoughtful, therefore a thank you goes out to Emily’s boyfriend {who btw also lets us use his gorgeous property for sessions!} and Allie’s mom Liz. <3 

Be sure and scroll to the end of this post for a fun video by Jack!

 

There are so many images that I made them into collages but I will also be sharing them over on instagram ivy_seen and each girl and the salon will be sharing their own images. I just can’t thank each and every one of the people involved for helping and going ALL OUT for this shoot.