Summer Shoot at the Portrait Gallery, part 3 - Dan

So, as I posted recently, we did a summer shoot at the Portrait Gallery in August. These are the photos taken by Dan Arango Photography.

I’ll also repost some of what I had said about my costume! You can skip this section if you saw my other posts. :-)

The short version: I decided to wear my Titanic Jump dress. I recently had to do repairs on this gown. I’d had it on display for a while on a dress form, and the beading on the skirt stretched the netting. It ended up being a pretty easy fix, done at the waistline. I’ll also note that I probably should have scaled the bodice to be a bit smaller and more “empire” of a cut - but I’m bigger busted than Kate Winslet and I tried to proportion the beaded bodice for me. Now I think I’d still make it slightly smaller if I did it again, but what’s done is done! I also think that the netting on the bodice has stretched slightly too under the weight of the beads so it hangs lower than it used to.

Everything on this gown was hand done. The trim, the beaded circles, the beaded bodice. The gown weighs about 6 lbs, and other than beads, it’s just cotton netting, tulle, and silk charmeuse. I did sew some organza in the hem of the skirt to help with the weight of the beads.

I have upgraded jewelry and shoes since the DragonCon wearing too - I think the necklace I actually got from my friend Stephanie’s mom. It’s not screen accurate, but it’s a much better match than what I had. The earrings are replica, bought ages ago when Jill Bailey was producing jewelry. Ditto the comb, which I know wasn’t worn with this outfit, but I had it so I was gonna use it because it’s so pretty. (You can see a close-up pic of these on this blog.

I never landed a pair of the Peterman booties, so I tend to wear my American Duchess beaded shoes, which I think work well with the outfit.

And here are Dan’s photos! I say again, modeling is hard, yo.

I love the rich reds he brought out of my costume here. I really liked Justin’s moodier feel to the photos he took - which is why it was super fun to have three distinct photographers produce photos. I really liked how different all the pics were, and how each photographer had their own sort of vision and color palette.




















This was a stairwell that had cool wrought iron, and I thought it looked Titanic-y.