The Enchanted Symphony (#29 #30 #31)

When I was little, I would walk down the front patio steps from our humble home in Sylmar California, and watch as bats would fly around our banana tree. Bats are attracted to music; they love the vibrations that radiate through the air. They were listening to the sounds of my dad, Ric Hancock and his rock 'n roll band playing in the garage. Their band, Paragon is amazing rock music full of love, joy, and deep intellectual ideas of the world and this universe we live in. I have been inspired by my dad through music, his brilliant ideas and his way of being, since birth. He is truly one of my best friends. We can talk for hours and hours about the wonders of life, just as he can do with his mom, my grandma who to this day can still sing her heart out with the voice of an angel. Generations of music runs deep in my blood along with my sister Shelsi who I have grown up singing with since we were small girls.

From the womb, my mind and my heart have been filled with music. Music reaches our hearts on a level that surpasses anything else in this world in my opinion. Words don't even need to be sung for us to feel the emotion bleeding through every note played on an instrument and just like the bats, vibrations are felt even when we can't hear. Through poetry, lyrics, and notes we can release pain, invoke joy and set ourselves free. I am so grateful for the roll music has played in my life. My dad has written thousands of songs and an entire album of Paragon was released to the public on multiple music sites! The world needs to hear it! You can find it all at this link: www.paragonrocks.net

During a long conversation I was having with my dad a few months back, I kept envisioning THIS creation as we were talking about my art and his music and just creation and inspiration in general. I didn’t mention my thoughts to him at the time because I wanted to piece them all together. I decided to keep this a secret from him, so……….Daddy, I love you so much. I hope you know how much you mean to me. You are my hero. You have always been such an incredible role model and you inspire me with everything you do. I am the luckiest daughter alive to have a father like you! Thank you for teaching me everything you know and continuing to uplift and inspire me. I hope that I can do the same for others and I hope that I can bring your music to more people!

Okay now after wiping my eyes dry, let me finish the story. A few weeks later, I had a funny dream about this women, Sarah who was just “my son’s friend’s mom” at the time. I had only met her a time or 2 before, I really liked her and connected with her, but of course with crazy schedules, we didn’t have a ton of time to get to know each other. Just a brief moment while our children were practicing for their talent show together (link to that awesomeness right here: Youtube) where I learned that she played the piano for many years. Anyway, I dreamt that she was in handcuffs, but she was whispering to 2 little birds giving them instructions about how to help her escape. I immediately woke up and at 3am I decided to Facebook message her with my hilarious dream. She replied [cracking up] and we both went on with our lives. Less than a week later, around 2 in the morning, I was falling asleep envisioning this shoot…what poses I’d have, props, scene, etc. and while I was “positioning” my model in my mind, “she” looks up at me and guess who it was? SARAH! It was one of those moments where I almost sat straight up in bed because it was so clear. I again…like a mentally insane person…wrote her in the middle of the night and told her that I need to have her model for me. She happily accepted. Our friendship has grown so much. I know so much about her and her about me. I stare at her like a stalker every time around her, studying her face, bone structure and body language, probably creeping her out, but hey! Its research! I know that she was meant for this shoot in so many ways and for so many reasons.

No longer will we let handcuffs bind us. Untie our wings and fly free from the burdens that weigh us down. Let music open our hearts and minds and guide us to peace, love, forgiveness and strength. Let the love in our soul be a symphony radiating through the air to all of the world. Let every step we take create another beautiful note in this melody of life. You are free.

Introducing:

The Enchanted Symphony

#29

#30

#31

Behind the scenes! The treacherous process!

The Wings:

These were very interesting, but not too difficult! I had the idea of cutting sheets of music into feathers and placing them all over wing shaped boards. This is exactly what we did and it worked great. After Andrew cut the shape out, he pushed wire into the middle creating a mount to slip into the corset. Then I just glued the the feathers all over....about 40 feathers per side totaling 160 feathers. 

The EXACT left over pieces from each wing made these cool jets! Jordan my youngest figured this out!! How cool is that!

The Piano: By Heather Worthen Of Hobbyholica 

Heather and her husband Billy are amazing at woodworking! They have a company where they sell all kinds of cool custom things!! I asked her what she thought of my idea to paint a piano vintage black and ivory and then modge podge different areas with torn sheet music. She said it would be easy and that she would do it for me! As you can see....it turned out spectacular! Better than I could have imagined! This piano will be auctioned off or sold at $600! It needs some serious tuning...especially after what we put it thought lol!

I also wanted some musical notes and a large treble clef which they cut for me!

Here is a link to their company! Check them out!! Serious talent! { Hobbyholica Site }

The drive over the Heather and Billy's cabin with a massive group of kids... Oh yes...we used their cabin too!!

The Hair, Makeup and Nails:

Brittany and I collaborated for quite some time on this and finally settled on this awesome treble clef eyeliner!! Brittany rocked this! She did such an amazing job with it an of course Sarah looked strikingly beautiful in it along with those incredible amber eyes and hot red lips!! On her nails, we did a blood red polish with a black crackle over top! it turned out gorgeous!

The Treacherous Unload!!

Billy used his truck to haul the piano up the mountain to the cabin and then they used FULL body strength to take it down the hill into the spot I wanted! Of course I picked a very difficult spot! Andrew had to custom make the base dolly with massive wheels to ever do this! They both put so much time into this its not even funny!

I FORGOT THIS: It was POURING rain on our dive up and as you can see, everything was wet and muddy! This was terrifying because the piano obviously AND the fact that her wings are made of PAPER!! This would not be good in the rain! Thankfully they skies opened up for us and sun shown 30 minutes before shooting!! Heavenly!! Giving us this beautiful, high contrasted, rich colored scenery!! Loved it!! Poor Sarah was freezing I'm sure, but not for too long! She was a champ, along with everyone else!!

And then of course when it was down the hill, Billy and Andrew were messing around....Andrew in particular! My husband cracks me up!!! Caleb Berry is also in the picture holding the camera helping to film! Last minute I asked if he wanted to come along and he did! So happy to have some more of this project documented!

These bird cages were borrowed from a client of mine. A few weeks ago I started looking for bird cages. Heather had been looking at swap meets for me and I was looking on craigslist and online garage sales. After not having luck with what I really wanted, I decided to just have faith that I would fine what I was looking. Just 2 days later, I walk up to the door of this client and see these right outside the door!! I kindly asked if they would mind me borrowing them. They happily said yes!! I was so grateful and they really came to life against the dark brown and green forest!

Here I am prepping the fishing string to hold the music notes in the air.

LOL....Tightening the dress like a Victorian princess!!

These are some adorable pics of Sarah and shooting bloopers you could say!

On the right....Smoke bomb overload, haha! I'm sure we freaked out some neighbors, sorry neighbors! wind in the wrong direction didnt help much! Thankfully the leftovers worked out just fine! Sarah was so freakin awesome in he dress and combat boots! I'm so glad we snagged these last pictures!

Takin the piano up and out!!!

Seriously the help that went into this was tremendous I could cry!! This was THE BIGGEST shoot yet in terms of help! So many people involved! The piano was so tough to get up and down, and some injuries happened along the way...."WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE, BILLY!".... but it was so worth it!!

Please share!! These projects mean so much to me and I want to world to see them!!

CAMERA DATA:
Canon 5D MarkIII
Lens: Tamron 24-105mm f/4 & Canon 50mm f/1.8
Aperture (first images): f/1.8, f/4.0, f/4.0
Shutter: 1/60, 1/100, 1/100
ISO: 2500, 1250, 1250