STORIES FROM THE SET: UNTAMED TERRITORY

It’s impossible to accurately convey what a blur photoshoots can be, especially in hindsight, because you are so laser focused on the next task, and then the next, and then the next. Everyone is in the zone the whole time, and you don’t really take your eye off the ball until you hear Cheryl say, “I think we’ve got it, Mitchell” and we wrap. It’s pretty wild. And not only are they a blur, they all tend to run together in recollection.

“Well they run together because we cram them together,” Audrey laughed. “Time is limited, daylight only lasts so long, and everything – and everyone – is expensive! Time is literally money.”

She’s not wrong. Models, makeup artists, photography techs, equipment… they’re all on day rates, so “finishing up in the morning” is not a thing. Ipso facto, if we can sandwich shoots together into a single travel effort, it’s not only more convenient for everyone, it’s cost effective. Untamed Territory, for instance, was part of a trifecta – we left the Cowpoke U shoot in Hico, hoofed it down to Yoakum for some studio shots and to finish Hay Babies, and then we booked it over to Blanco to set up shop at the Buggy Barn. Talk about a whole lot of switching gears!

Truth be told, we’ve really already covered a lot of the behind-the-scenes highlights for Untamed, from our make-believe magician Carla Curry styling the set to suit our 1883-inspired vision to our superstar wagon driver Dennis Moore and his famous fleet and even our awe over being in Margaret Dutton’s wagon.

Surprisingly, other than being a little uncomfortable temperature-wise, we didn’t have to fight Mother Nature too much on this one!

“To be fair, we did have to make our own shade,” Mitchell reminds us. “It is nearly impossible to shoot midday in direct sunlight, most people probably don’t realize that. It reads too hot on the camera and the shadows are too harsh. So, either we call it and nap for an hour or two, or we make our own shade. The latter isn’t always an option, but we managed this time. It’s all smoke and mirrors, I tell ya!”

Speaking of Mother Nature – sort of – horses are some curious creatures! Not only does every horse we’ve worked with seem to L-O-V-E our models (who wouldn’t?) but they are very into camera equipment.

And horses weren’t the only animals on set that got up in the humans’ business, either. Carla’s precious little dog, Tinka, and Audrey’s son Bryson became the best of buds almost instantly. It seemed like if Bryson had a free hand, Tinka was in it. And when he didn’t, then Tinka was in his sweatshirt!

Amusingly, we ended up pushing/pulling a wagon once again, a situation we seem to keep finding ourselves in. In fact, when talking to Dennis for his article, he requested a copy of the photo of us pushing the wagon, to which Mitchell replied, “Which one? We push a lot of wagons!”

Another somewhat surreal highlight from this shoot was that during one of the downtimes, we look over and Quisha is FaceTiming and the voice sounds distinctly familiar. Turns out, it was Shaq. As in Shaquille O’Neal. Girl’s got friends in high places – like 7’ high places!

Of course, before we left, we couldn’t resist getting rigged up and taking tin type photos. Hedy’s always claimed they come from a long line of outlaws, and by the looks of that photo, she’s right!