Audrey Billups // Maui, HI
This was an epic day, to say the least. My planning for this trip began months before when Audrey stopped by into my San Antonio studio for a 4x5 film portrait session. After a few sheets were photographed, she put on a dress and started dancing, which made me ask if she was a ballerina. To my surprise, she told me that she had once wanted to pursue ballet professionally, but as a result of an injury, decided to become a film maker. Immediately I told her about my project, and asked if she’d want to participate someday in Hawaii.
At about the same time, my sister had just moved to O’ahu, and had been asking me to visit her for about a year now. With Hawaiian Covid-19 restrictions in place, however, I had been hesitant to visit, as the negative tests could cost almost as much as the flight itself. The timing just happened to be perfect. Hawaii started opening flights up - with a negative test - and it was time to go to Hawaii.
Since my sister lived in O’ahu, and Audrey (not Hepburn, but equally as cool) lived on Maui, I wanted to try to make my trip (and the necessary negative Covid-19 test) work within the stress-inducing 72-hour window. Thankfully, only a test is required to visit other islands, but when returning to O’ahu, a negative test was not necessary; which was nice, because my test expired midway through my Maui trip, and I was stressing the entire time, waiting for my third test to arrive by email. If this is confusing, don’t worry - it’s extremely confusing.
Needless to say, the Maui portion of my trip was incredible. I have never seen with my own two eyes anything more beautiful than what the island of Maui has to offer. With my flight arriving at 8am, and my departing flight 14 hours later, Audrey and I planned a variety of shoots all over the island, involving black sands, red sands, a volcano, and even a beautiful Mercury Montclair. Thankfully we scratched Haleakalā out of our to-do list halfway through the day, instead deciding to focus on Kaihalulu: a small, secluded red-sand beach.
Shooting at this range, and with the waves crashing down on Audrey, it was loud and difficult to direct. I had to do most of my directing by hand signals, trying to mime directions; I can’t even imagine what I looked like. In hindsight, there are plenty of things about this photo that I would change. But hindsight is 2020, and this is 2021. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
When normally I travel to shoot with a ballerina and shoot one roll, occasionally shooting two, seven (7) rolls with Audrey is a record; in 14 hours, no less. And as I post this blog, today, actually, Friday the 25th, I shoot another roll, or two… with Audrey and her horse: but this time in the Great State of Texas.
May 20, 2021
