Gretchen & Landen will for always hold a little special place in my heart. These folks made me reach deep down into the darker parts of my creative spirit; the parts that usually only comes out in my personal work; not client work. It’s not really a secret, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the cinematic excellence of film noir; which was inspired from German Expressionism (specifically filmmaking) (maybe not inspired, but film noir certainly does share A LOT of similarities).
Examples of German Expressionism:

Examples of Film Noir:

I don’t usually do this style of deep shadows, heavy contrast & grainy film look for clients. Not because I don’t want to (I absolutely do), it’s just not a very popular style; and to be frank, I still love shooting bright, airy photos as well. I do the same thing with color. I’m all about black, burgundy and hunter green for fall and winter but then get obsessed with mint greens, and pastels  for spring and summer.
However, Gretchen was up front with me; she told she loved the contrast, heavy shadows, dark, grainy photos. Luckily, they live about 40 minutes from me, so I spent the car ride to their place getting myself into the right mindset; thinking about movies like “The Big Sleep” & “The Maltese Falcon”. I even looked up a few images from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” in my car before I walked inside. What I ended up with are some images I REALLY love. It was a struggle to narrow them down.