Raven Rockette At Rock-A-Hoola
As my life recently has been a series of one horrible event after another I figured I needed to do some shit to break out of it. I started a new personal project yesterday, I am eating a bit better, I booked a tattoo appointment I have been avoiding and I am actually going to the doctors to get a check up for the first time in 15 years. On top of that I decided I should just go ahead and publish one of my favorite photo shoots of all time.
I don’t know why I have been holding on to this for so long but this shoot I did with Raven Rockette at the abandoned Rock-A-Hoola Water Park is pretty fucking amazing. The funny thing is I already posted a shoot I did with Raven that was taken AFTER this one. I guess I was just holding it for a special occasion and this is it.
A few years ago I saw this skate video that was shot at this amazing abandoned waterpark and I knew I needed to shoot there. I looked the place up and I saw that it was right on the drive from LA to Vegas. I had passed it dozens of times and didn’t notice somehow. It also is right by Route 66 where I spent 17 days working on my first book, but yet somehow I had never heard of it before this skate video.
I was in LA for my brother’s 30th birthday and I ended up getting a gig working for Sailor Jerry at the Viva Las Vegas car show and so I hit up Raven Rockette because I knew she lived in Vegas. I pitched her on the Rock-A-Hoola idea and she was really into it so the day after Viva Las Vegas we drove half way back to LA until we came to this amazing artifact of urban decay.
It was a bit sketchy once we pulled up and realized there wasn’t any hiding the car. It was either just park it along the road or drive back in there and try to hide it behind a building or something. You could still see the car from the highway and there would be no escaping if a cop pulled up. Even once you were inside in most places it would be easy to see the naked girl and photographer walking around the abandoned water park.
We were also pretty nervous that we would run into other people but we never did. We explored for nearly an hour and I took photos of her in the empty lazy river ride, up top where the highest waterslides used to be and even climbing on to buildings that have been closed since 2004.
The whole thing was an amazing experience with an amazing model and I think Raven and I killed it. I am usually pretty underwhelmed with my work but this is one of my favorite shoots of all time. And I really hope you guys dig it as much as I did.
As per usual I held back a few of the slightly more explicit shots for Girls of Driven By Boredom. You should sign up because it’s cheap, you get photos before everyone else and there’s a lot of exclusive content and higher resolution images. Plus, as my life implodes it would be nice to have some money to pay for a fucking lawyer. Huzzah!
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