Making of a Cover Story

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 02:12 PM

For the cover story of the March/April issue, The Reign of Spain, stylist and designer Gary Spain transformed the living room of his Pacific Heights flat into three very different looks. The photo shoot was chaotic—Gary had to pull art, furniture and accessories from every room in his apartment. By the end of the day the house was a cluttered mess, with stacks of art in the hallway and a sofa haphazardly stored in the guest bedroom. Here are some behind the scene shots from the day’s events:

We started with the Cool Hunter room, a salon-style set-up that is Spain’s standard look for this space.

The next shot, World Wise, became the cover image and was a bit trickier to put together. We first had to move the montage of photos and antlers from the wall while making a mental map of where they go to eventually put them back up. Hanging the abstract drawing took the work of both Charlie Maier (the photographer) and Eduardo Acorda (his assistant and photographer of the portrait shot). Gary switched out the animal print rugs with the Moroccan one, and raised the café table, which instantly made the space feel brighter and significantly different than its previous look.

To get the same angle for each shot, Charlie (on the sofa), setup the camera in the kitchen nook. Though this space didn’t make it in the story, I love how Gary covered this accent wall in Osborne & Little’s dramatic bookshelf wallpaper.

The last shot of the day was the portrait shot and it was a race against the sun to pull it off. We shot on January 20th—inauguration day, so we sacrificed an early start time to be able to watch the 44th president get sworn in and it left us with minimal daylight time to work with. Thankfully with the help of Eduardo and Charlie we got Gary, perched on his desk, just before the sun went down. Here Gary and Eduardo are checking out the shots.

The Reign of Spain - March/April '09

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