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Phoenix, Arizona-based portrait photographer Steve Craft recently shot the cover story for official magazine of EpilepsyAdvocate, an organization supporting a nationwide community of individuals living with epilepsy, their families, and their caregivers.
The story’s focus was 19-year-old Rebecca Jo Acero, also known as Miss Arizona United Continents. Rebecca suffered her first seizure at age 12 and over the last seven years has increasingly dedicated herself to raising public awareness about epilepsy. A philanthropist as well as a professional model, Rebecca uses beauty pageants as a platform to further her cause. See the Q&A with Steve, the cover, as well as the final layout, below.
How did you come to be involved in this project?
This job came about from a trip I took to New York City a few years ago to show my book. The photo editor for Epilepsy Advocate, Victoria Rich, used to work at TIME and that’s where I originally met her.
Were there any challenges or surprises that you encountered in planning or execution?
The day before the shoot it dawned on me to check with the talent to see if using strobes would be OK, since I didn’t want to trigger any seizures. We shot with strobes without incident. During the shoot, though, we had to wait about 15 minutes when a group of seniors began to slowly make their way through the middle of our active set to get to their exercise area, which was in the same building.
What was your vision for this project?
My vision was to make sure the client was happy with the results! It was definitely a joint collaboration between deciding on wardrobe, sets, background, and so on. I wanted to make sure we shot some images of Rebecca without all of the beauty pageant props. We found a couch in the lobby of the Epilepsy Foundation of Arizona building where we were shooting, took a few paintings off the wall and started to shoot. Luckily, I captured her as we were having a good laugh about our little hold up to let the seniors pass through the set.
Credits
Photo Editor: Victoria Rich
Hair and Makeup: Diane Aiello
See more of Steve’s work at stevecraft.com!
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