HANNAH SMITH
OMHS Class of 2021
So basically, Hannah is amazing.
We first met over salad and sweet tea; just a quick get-to-know-you lunch to talk about her interests and hobbies, and where she plans to go to college. (War Eagle.) She was quiet and maybe a little shy. But then I asked her what her hobbies were and she said SKATEBOARDING and my little artist heart said
Oh, Heck Yeah Girl!
She also likes vintage sweaters and working with children and odd little artist nooks downtown. By the end of our lunch we had come up with some great locations to scout out, talked wardrobe with strawberry Chucks, and found someone willing to lend us a '72 LeMans. And it's Bright. Yellow.
Yes, please.
THE PHOTOSHOOT
It was absolutely frigid on the day of the shoot but we started off with skateboarding along the color wall and railroad tracks then explored some industrial alleyways and rusty doorways until we were too cold to function.
The week before the shoot I went exploring to see if we could scoot in and share some space with the local artists at Birmingham Oddities for an hour or so - in a week or two. It was raining, I parked illegally, and that's how I met Darci Alexander.
She's an artist - Alexander's Wearable Art - and she was running the show for Adam at Oddities that day. Ten minutes later I was ready to move in and work for free, and Darci had to remind me that the lady upstairs would have me booted, towed and fined if I didn't get my Swagger Wagon off of her curb.
Oh, and yes we could shoot at the shop.
Boom.
Birmingham Oddities: where the dolls are headless and the art is "weird" (their words).
It's kind of like being in a Ripley's museum, but you get to touch everything and photography is allowed.
From here we completely switched gears (pun intended) and headed out to the country with our hot rod.
We finished the day off in the meadow with a perfect sunset.
The cool guy who let us spend the day with his car . . .