The Umstead Hotel is a beautiful boutique hotel, and, as a part of its interior design, has one of the most extensive collections of art in North Carolina - art that is forever rotating and new. It was one of the first things I noticed when I went there to scout. The agency and the hotel gave me free reign to photograph what I wanted as long as whatI did reflected their aesthetics. If I had to describe this hotel in two words it would be “haute couture” and “modern art,” and those two words were my inspiration for this campaign. So, my decision for The Amsted was to create fashion photography using their art work as backdrops for the models. The models had to beautiful, of course, and dressed in elegant yet somewhat conservative fashions - to reflect their clientele. But I wanted to added a bit of a smile to the imagery as well, to not have it feel too serious. Thus the bird on the hat.
