I am not in anyway Goth. Matter of fact I’d never met or knew a goth before I became a photographer. Never even been in Hot Topic. (Oh my goth friends are not going to like that.)

At this point in the story I have some shots in my portfolio. I start getting contacted by proactive models (A rare breed). One of those models is Goth celebrity Traci “Batty” Robinson. Batty has her own goth clothing line and has done quite a bit of modeling. She’s appeared on the cover of the goth fashion magazine Gothic Beauty.

She wants to update her portfolio and would I be interested in shooting with her. I say yes. It isn’t really the kind of stuff I want to shoot, but there aren’t many asking. It also goes with my dating philosophy from college. We had Sadie Hawkins week back then, when the girls asked the guys. I would always say yes, even if I wasn’t interested in the girl. Why? Because that’s what I’d want a girl to do for me. Give me a shot.

This turned out to be a great shoot. Working with an experienced model is very different from working with an amateur. Batty brought her own clothes, her own MUA, and skills. Like in posing and expression and stuff.

Got Me Published

Remember I said Batty had her own clothing line? She did, but all the clothes she brought to shoot in were someone else’s. Well one was an old wedding dress died grey. But there was a black dress by designer Kambriel.

A few days after the shoot, Kambriel contacts me and asks if she can send in the image to the right to Gothic Beauty. They are doing a story on her and want pictures of her stuff to go with it. Long story short, I say yes and in November I can walk into a store and buy a magazine with one of my images in it.

Funny thing is, I don’t think it is all that great an image. First it’s underexposed. Second the background light is wrong and therefore the color is off. Its just a blah image. But they had a number to pick from and choose mine.

Here’s some more images of Batty from that shoot. Something I called Gothic Glamour.

And once you get an in into the goth community they just keep coming. More on that next time.