This shoot came about for an art show at Shilo Brown’s Book Beat, for a new CD release party. The CD was from Bloody Ol’ Mule and was called “Love and Horror in the Backwoods”.

I did two sets of photos, one for “love” and this one for “horror” in the backwoods. The concept was a beauty queen being chased by zombies! Hillbilly Zombies… that is.

As you can see from Robert’s set titled “Concrete Jungle” Scott Van Eck has a singular mastery with airbrush makeup, and we put that talent to work on seven zombies! He works quickly, and did a fantastic job on all of our zombie volunteers.

This is one of those shoots that is excruciatingly irritating while you’re there, but very much worth the effort (at least I think so). It was a very hot and humid summer day and we were out in the mid-day sun, in an overgrown field. While I was uncomfortable, just imagine how those zombies felt, after getting the airbrush makeup, then pouring fake blood all over themselves AND rolling in the dirt!

I just shot the scene pretty much the same way you might shoot a movie, and honestly, just look at the performances of all the participants, they were acting during the entire shoot too. Everyone did a stellar job.

I’ll never forget the very serious discussion we had about the way zombies move and the dedication everyone had to pull this off. Poor Toxic Goddess Aello was doing real screams and silent screams for an hour!

I loved doing it though and I’m happy to share the extended shoot with all the Toxic Goddess fans.

- Dirk Hooper