Flashback: October 23, 2008 ā T.I. leaves a Paper Trail @ Slickforce

Yes, I am totally looking into your eyes.
2008 was the Year of Hip-Hop for me, with artists such as Nas, The Game, Birdman, and Omarion stepping in front of my lens. So when T.I. walked into SlickforceStudio in October of that same year, I was ready for anything. āWhatever You Likeā and āLive Your Lifeā were on the radio, and he couldnāt have been more popular. As with any artist, sometimes that comes with itās share of drama or difficulty, but not with King of the South Tip Harris.
T.I. was joking with the models the entire time, probably to ease the tension (they were, after all, in their underwear), and when his song coincidentally starting playing on our streaming internet radio feed, he sang along and even got a bit goofy with the video camera. When my stylist suggested a shirt to him that he clearly hated, he looked at her, and in classic southern gentleman fashion, replied, āIf you really want me to wear that, I will, but I wonāt be happy in it.ā That was a welcome relief to the last artist I shot who said āF*ck no.ā
With high-profile celebs, you donāt have much time. Their people keep them on a tight schedule. I had about two hours with T.I., including make-up and grooming. And as with the majority of magazine work, your art must be compromised with what they need to sell mags. So this certainly wasnāt the most creative shoot Iād ever done, but I tried to get a few character shots that were different from the ātough as nailsā look you always see in rapper pics. So I asked him to hold the coffee cup and choke on his coffee, as if the girls making out on the couch were distracting him. All in all, Iām not sure this editorial had any coherence or even made sense, but itās always a dice roll. I was, however, happy with the shot of T.I. and model Daphne Joy above. In hindsight, I wish I had cheated him a bit more to camera, since some people just look at Daphneās boobs and donāt even know thatās T.I.
Flashback: October 1, 2008 ā SHOWCase #1 @ El Mirage
Production Shots:
Found these behind-the-scenes pics while going through the archives, and thought you guys might like to see.
This is from the premiere issue of SHOWCase (shot Oct 2008), featuring Vanessa Veasley and Laura Dore (then known as Sweetie Cyanide). Iāve always loved shooting in the desert, and this was actually the day I got inspired and decided to buy my own desert property, and Ultimate Graveyard was born.
This issue was a lot of fun to shoot, and Iād worked with both models many times before, so we could cut to the chase and just shoot amazing stuff. I already knew what poses worked best for both of them. These ladies endured both the heat (day) and the cold (dusk), and for anyone who thinks I just liquify my modelsā¦these production shots are COMPLETELY unretouched, so take a good look at their bodies and youāll see just how real they are.
If Iām guilty of anything, itās putting Vanessa in too many back-arch-orgasm-face poses, but hey, it was just really working for me. (And the white boots didnāt hurt either.)
(BTW it was hot as hell that day and I was tired of the models getting all the attention, so I decided to go shirtless too. Sue me. If you look closely, youāll see that my stylist isnāt even wearing pants, so there.)