What’s black and white and dead all over? THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! In celebration of Friday the 13th, I am pleased to submit my final result for two long-overdue assignments. At the beginning of the year, I joined the “Style It, Shoot It, and Share It” community on Google+. The coordinators for that effort give out monthly challenges requiring creativity in designing, planning, and executing a photo shoot to create something amazing. As an added motivation, you’re given a technical challenge that must be tackled as well. I signed up for three or four of their monthly challenges but never followed through. I dropped the ball.

Every time an assignment was handed out, I came up with an excuse for not following through. After all, my typical process consists of going somewhere, looking around, composing shots, snapping photos, and perhaps trying to get creative with post-processing later. These assignments required actual planning. Drawing things out. Purchasing props and supplies. Putting things together. Writing up a “behind the scenes” narrative to discuss the process. To say it was outside my comfort zone would be an understatement. So I gave up.

And boy did I miss out. When you see what community participants come up with every month, it’s quite extraordinary. And like most photographic communities on Google+, everyone has their own proficiency level and only works to improve their personal skills. Competition exists in a fun way, but everyone is supportive and helpful regardless of what you bring to the table.

So I was determined to eventually complete one of the assignments. And, in fact, I promised one of the community coordinators that I would do so. In the end, I decided to tackle two of this year’s assignments with a single image. That result is what you see here. The technical components include a custom background (January challenge) and a wardrobe design (April challenge). You can read more about the process in my Behind The Scenes post here on my website.