The shoot: My friend Tamar asked me a couple months earlier to set up this shoot. The bike, a recently-rebuilt, heavily customized 1949 Harley-Davidson Panhead chopper, belongs to her father-in-law Glen, who as I understand it has had it for the better part of 25 years, and it's been in rusty pieces in boxes for most of that time. A "basket case," in motorcycling terms.


In his words, he "finally has a show-quality bike," so his sons (Tamar's husband Jim and his brother Eric) wanted to do something to showcase the bike for Glen, which led to the request. Having worked with Jewel at Tamar's shop once before, we agreed that she'd be the perfect model for this shoot.


The location: Tamar and Jim's 12-acre property north of Frederick, Maryland.


The challenge: A mid-day shoot in the 90+ heat after more than a week of much more tolerable temperatures.


The result: A chance to showcase a gorgeous bike and a great second shoot with Jewel. Glen and his sons had a blast observing, my wife Jen was exceptionally helpful in assisting both me and Jewel (the 2x4 shots in the barn were her idea), and Jewel was quite the trooper, holding pose after pose in that heat.


To further illustrate what the heat was like, the garage in the first few shots is the bike's home, and we had my studio lights set up in there with no air conditioning. Between takes we all stuck our faces in front of the fans we had going just to cool off.