Posts Tagged: heather zahn gardner

Now that both Circle of Fire trailers are up I thought it would be fun to do a couple photography Friday posts on the behind the scenes work that went in to pulling it all together. Michelle Zink and I started working on putting together the book trailers back in January. Our first step was working on setting. Michelle wanted some forest shots, rolling green hills and pastures. Without giving away any spoilers for those who haven’t read the book yet, here’s the first scenic shot picked and released.

My next step was casting the four main characters of the book. One of my awesome author friends, Sheralyn Pratt referred me to a local talent agency KnightStarTalent where I found everyone expect for Alice. Our James brought her with him to the shoot.

Alice (Erin)

James (Dash)

Lia (Analisa) photo courtesy Crave photography



Once the main four were cast I started collaborating with Michelle on costumes. She said. “Circle of Fire “is set in 1892. I try to counteract the Victorian prejudice by making all the Prophecy stuff pretty and just a little bit sexy.” My first trip to the local thrift store was for clothes for the extra characters in the book who would be in several of the scenes. I tried to find things with lace ribbons and taffeta, velour, high buttoned boots and embroidery.

I had a blast shopping and when we had a full set of costumes I did a test shoot with two of my neighbors plus the daughter of another local author Marie Higgins . She was kind enough to take some photos of me shooting and post them on her site.

And here’s some of my favorites I took away from our day.

Gareth (Hayden)

Our next shoot was a Masquerade Ball with the entire cast. My fellow photography friend Lesli Jenks Groves of Haven Rock Photography came along as a second and as Aunt Virginia. The masks added a dramatic effect that really fits the Victorian and Gothic moods. I used these galleries on Flickr as an inspiration for some of the shots.

Special thanks to Hailey Gardner for bringing several of her friends to fill in as Brigid and Helene, Ashley Dickman for playing Sonia, Katie Bowen for standing in as Luisa and Meg Kavanagh for playing Helene. All in all, we had 15 actors and models working on the set.