Oh my goodness, this is one of the best and funnest shoots I've been able to do.
Credits:
Model: Yvette Marie Ramirez
EC: Mark Winter
Stylist: Yvette Marie Ramirez and Samantha Staton
As I understand it, Yvette had the Aztec Goddess idea to honor her heritage and she made the beautiful Aztec headdress. I actually saw a photo of a painting of the Aztec Goddess Omecihuatl with almost the exact same headdress, but of course now I can't find it.
Anyway, Yvette is an amazing model and the location was perfect to bring her idea to life.
Aztec history is really fascinating, but I don't want to get into it much here because I don't know that much and it's complicated. I'm thankful for Yvette and this shoot which motivated me to read more about this powerful empire.
If you Google Aztec skulls you'll see tales of human sacrifice and sacrificial rituals that will blow your mind, including the Tzompantli which was a display of skulls of sacrificial victims and conquered enemies on racks. One had as many as 60,000 skulls displayed!
Anyhoo, Yvette had a cool, Aztec-marked skull to use in the shoot.
Okay, so here we go. I wanted to try to pay some homage to art from and based on the Aztec Empire. I can't vouch for the results being "professional" (because I am so not that great at photoshop!) but I can vouch that I had fun making them and hope you enjoy my ideas!
This first one is obvious. Golden Goddess with a Bronze Skull.
An Aztec-inspired skull "calendar".
Mictecacihuatl - Lady of Death and Queen of Mictlan, the underworld.
And another depiction of Mictecacihuatl.
This one is my favorite.
Love these! Yvette's headdress matches perfectly and she makes a stunning Lady of the Dead! Don't you agree?
Next, we explore more Aztec deities with Yvette as our inspiration.
xoxo
Nikon D600
