Photoshoot: Beauty Queen Vs Hillbilly Zombies by Dirk Hooper

Photography by: Dirk Hooper
Makeup by: Scott Van Eck
Models: Toxic Goddess Aello plus Toxic Goddess Aries, Toxic Goddess Eclipse, Robert Henry, Shawn Wilson, Jon McIntire, Jason Brodmirkel and one other.

The origin of this shoot was a CD release party by Shilo Brown.  The CD was titled “Love and Horror in the Backwoods” by Bloody Ol’ Mule.  Shilo asked a few artists to do work based on the theme of the album and this zombie shoot is what I came up with.

A group of us gathered in the outskirts of town on an extremely hot summer day to do this shoot.  Scott Van Eck set up a location in a shed and did all the makeup for the zombies by applying latex paint via airbrush.  The effect was simply amazing.  One by one, the zombies emerged ready for the shoot.

Someone brought a ton of karo syrup and red dye, mixed it in a bucket and used it to create blood for the zombies.  They tore their clothes, rolled around in dirt and used that “blood” to make it even more realistic.

Although I only needed one photo I did this shoot sequentially.  I composed the scene the same way you might shoot a movie, and honestly, just look at the performances of all the participants, they were acting during the entire shoot. Everyone did a stellar job. I always intended the shoot to be processed as a series of sepia toned prints.

Aries liked being a zombie so much that we did another quick set of photos and I’ve included those with this set, plus I’ve added some behind the scenes photos.

I can’t express how difficult this shoot was at the time.  We had limited time to get this all together, it was excruciatingly hot and there were a lot of elements that had to come together.  I’ll never forget the very serious discussion we had about the way zombies move and the dedication everyone had to pull this off. Poor Aello was doing real screams and silent screams for an hour!  Kudos to Scott Van Eck who did a brilliant job on makeup and all the players who pulled this off without one complaint.

Please click on the thumbnails below to see the full size photos.  I’d like to hear what you think in the comments below.