In this article, I’m going to lay out the details of my David Bowie inspired shoot that I did with Nashville artist Mandy Berry back in 2019. I want to share the details of this session because of the multiple layers of detail that had to come together for this shoot. To produce the results we were looking required very specific lighting, makeup, raw processing, and some image compositing.

The idea for this shoot came from Mandy texting me that she’d like to do a shoot inspired by David Bowie, specifically the Heroes album cover and session photos. I leapt at the chance to create with her on this project because (A), I’m a huge fan of David Bowie and (B), I’d shot with Mandy before, and she’s a superstar in front of the camera.