Behind the Scenes of the "famous" Candy Photo

By far the most commented on photo that I have ever taken is the photo of my friend, Sammie, with her face covered in candy. Most people assume this photo is photoshopped. This blog post is to give the background story on the photo, and show some "behind the scenes" shots. You will probably think I have some pretty great friends; you'd be correct. At a later time, I will show you "Sammie's Revenge".

The year was 2008. I was in Advanced Photo Journalism and finishing up my photography degree at Hawkeye Community College. It was Sunday afternoon and I had an assignment due on Monday. I had already shot a photo for the assignment, but I went back through and re-read the instructions. The second time around, I realized I had misinterpreted what I was supposed to complete, and understood the assignment to mean I needed two different photos. The assignment was to "Illustrate" something.

I panicked when I realized I had to come up with a photo in a short amount of time for the due date the next day. Fortunately, I often have my best ideas when I'm pressed for time--it's the real reason I procrastinate...or so I say. I developed an idea and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be possible; I would illustrate a "junk food addiction". I went to the store and bought about $30 of junk food. I knew I had loads of popcorn at home (I'm rarely caught without plenty of popcorn on hand) and I began to formulate a plan of action. Sammie agreed to be my dummy. I'm not sure how I got lucky enough to have the friends I did in college, but not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for them all!

Here is the set up. You'll see we had a large green blanket. This was a cheap blanket that we didn't care about if we threw away. You can sort of see the light stands off to the left. I used 2 strobe lights. We started off by taping a plastic bag to Sammie's hair. I then plastered her entire head with frosting so that the junk food would stick to her. I figured that would also help if there was any post production Photoshop work required later.

It's kind of like a facial....but different...

Gummy worms, skittles, marshmellows...what kinds of junk food can you pick out??

We realized we were never going to be able to completely cover her head unless we created a bit of a "dish". We did that buy placing two shoe boxes on each side to hold the junk food in place. That helped out greatly!!

"Wait one second....

There's one in my nose!"

The shoot is over, time to get up!

 See, she's still smiling!! And really looking forward to a shower!!

And the final product!! PS. I got an A ;)

Ok, it's late and I really need to go to bed--so I'm not proofing this for now...forgive me!!

A special thanks to Sammie Crotteau and Joyce Specht (who helped a ton behind the scenes, and snapped the progress shots)