In 2020, I had my first shoot with India. It was the first time I’d traveled, specifically, for a shoot, and I’m happy I choose India to be the first because I’ve had bad experiences since. But her professionalism and commitment made me trust in doing it more.
When going over the details of the shoot, I picked a random day far enough in the future that I’d be able to both get my money together and plan some time off work. The date, January 18th, had no real meaning.
In 2021, we had another shoot. Again, working out the details in mid December, January just seemed like a good time for a vacation. January 16th had no real meaning. Until a few months later when I realized that both of these shoots took place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Weekend.
We might as well make it a thing, right?
We didn’t shoot anything in 2022 because of reasons that aren’t important here, but at the end of the year I started plotting again, and we were back together shooting on January 14, 2023.
A necessary exception. I was going to be in her area in August 2023 and wanted to make up for the shoot we missed in 2022, just to make the numbers right; an average of one shoot per year. So we got a “fix the numbers” shoot in.
January 15, 2024 rolled around and we did it again. And I started to notice something…
Every shoot that I had with India got more and more creative. Its something that I hadn’t really thought about when brainstorming them. It just happened naturally. And this has only happened with one other person that I’ve worked with multiple times; but it happened quicker with India as far as number of shoots. Sure, maybe the second shoot was more creative than the first with others, but that’s a given; we’re more comfortable working with one another by then.
Some more life things happened in 2024 and 2025 which made, what I coined National India & Bishop Shoot Day, not able to happen in 2025 and 2026 (today), but I’m hoping to make up for at least 2026 later in the year and continue the tradition in 2027. But the question is… How do I top the last shoot? The shoot that gave me the material for my first full, hardcover photo book.
The 2026 make up shoot will be dope, but we have to do something big for National India & Bishop Shoot Day 2027!