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When Decline magazine approached Eric Davies about doing a story on his company Deity Components he was pretty excited, but at the same time he was a little bit concerned. As an artist Eric likes to have a lot of control over his visions, and not just his products, but also his image and the way things look. A random photographer showing up with an assignment to shoot some photos of Eric and his products would probably have missed a lot of what is important to him and the company. |
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| Eric painted this photo of Alfred Hitchcock that hangs in the stairway, I added the crows with multiple exposures, no photoshop involved. I've been pretty good friends with Eric and Sadie since the beginning, and I listened when he called me up to talk about it. We had different ideas about the kinds of photos that we wanted to get, but we discussed it at great length a few times, and a plan started to come together. More like misguided visions on my part actually, a plan suggests that you actually have an idea about what is going to happen, maybe even what you're going to shoot. I only knew the feel of how I wanted it, the style I wanted to shoot everything. I wanted to suggest the horror films that Eric's life has been steeped in, but in a kind of a pin up fashion style. Nothing too gory, just something that would make you look at it and think. B movie horror poster style, done well. |
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| Eric poses with one of his new frames. This was the first shot we took, and it started to define the look that I wanted. |
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| Sadie in the second photo of the shoot. This one really set the tone and feel of what I wanted to do with the rest of the shoot. The shadow is of Eric wearing a mask and a glove, it took a while to line it all up. Eric and Sadie love horror films. I think that's almost an understatement. At the age of 5 Eric was obsessed with the classic horror masterpieces from Universal Studios, Hammer Films, and the influential performances of Boris Karloff, Max Schrek, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Christopher Lee, and many more. While most kids were watching cartoons, Eric was entranced with a genre that would ultimately influence many aspects of his life. When I first walked into their house in Idaho I almost felt uncomfortable with the number of references to the horror genre. I love all the old stuff, so I was stoked to see busts of Bela and Frankenstein, and Lon Cheney as the Phantom in the living room. It was other things like the almost life sized statue of Chucky standing next to Eric's desk that were disconcerting. |
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| Lon Chaney from the Phantom of the Opera and Frankenstein's Monster, both lifesize busts in the living room... |
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| When I was building my vision for the shots I kept coming back to old horror posters, and how they all seemed to have a kind of pin-up look to them. Here Sadie lies strangled on the floor while Eric sits happily at his desk. Although this one seems simple it took a bit of work, I wanted Sadie and the crank to look perfect, but also wanted the rest of the room well lit. One big light over Sadie, two speedlights and a longish exposure to bring the room where I wanted it. |
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| This shot seemed to take forever, it's shot in the warehouse and we wanted it to show Sadie packing a dismembered hand into a box of parts for shipment. Trying to get everything looking semi-realistic, but a little bit disjointed while shooting with a superwide lens took more than a few tries. I think I probably took 75 shots to get this one. |
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| Eric and Sadie's place is set on an awesome piece of land in amongst the cornfields. When they're not busy working in the office or the warehouse they like to ride the sick pumptrack that they built. Just don't get any ideas about riding it yourself... |
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| This is my favorite shot of the shoot. It was the last one I took, and I had a whole bunch of ideas for it that just didn't work out logistically. Ideally I'd wanted to have a shadowy figure with a big knife walking out of the fog in front of the car headlights. Unfortunately setting up a fog machine in the middle of nowhere wasn't really an option, and without the fog lit up a silhouetted figure would be lost in the black sky. I'm still stoked with how it turned out, I might still shoot the fog and silhouette and photoshop it in one day. Don't tell Eric or Sadie, it will be a surprise for them... I ended up spending 3 days in Idaho. 3 days to shoot enough photos for what was going to be a magazine feature, possibly 6 pages. We sat in Eric and Sadie's living room and talked over the ideas that they had for photos and things slowly came together. As I took the first few shots everything fell into a rhythm, although a slow one. I'm very particular about these kinds of photos, and most of these took an hour or two to shoot, if not longer. I'd take a first shot, then decide in my head exactly how I wanted it to look. As I created the look with lights and props and different angles there would always be input from Eric as well, and things would end up changing until we were both happy. It was a slow creative process, but in the end we were all happy with how it turned out. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed creating them... |
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| Eric relaxes in his living room, dreaming up new designs for Deity. I took one other shot while I was in Idaho, it was something special just for Eric and Sadie. Check it out in the video below... |
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