The book originally started as a concept, and the concept was simply adventure. I wanted a series of images that were derived from the public’s general consensus on what adventure was and supposed to be. Spies, explosions, car chases, thugs in dark alleys, climbing, hiking, exploring, and all other related material was on the docket.
Eventually though, I began to realize I needed a more solid idea to work with, if I wanted to succeed with any amount of cohesiveness. My viewer didn’t want to page through a book full of stereotypical images depicting what I had seen on the television, they wanted to be sucked into a story that contained adventure within it. And so began Gahein’s Adventure, as it was tentatively called for some time.
My good friend Steve and I worked every weekend on developing the tale, and eventually had some images that helped define the direction of the rest of the book. It still is your casual and rather expected storyline of connecting the map pieces and finding a treasure, but I consider it just the start of a whole series of books. Each one will be more intuitive and complex than the last. You have to start out with baby steps.
The focus of the photographic style proved to add a whole additional element to the book as well. I wanted a dynamic and serious tension to the photography, and flash painting my subject did the trick quite well, also allowing me plenty of practice with specialty lighting situations. Every time we went out to shoot a few more pieces of the story, we would end up getting sucked into an adventure of our own. This is the nature of going to adventurous places I suppose. You get what you’re looking for.

The images themselves turned out to be much more important than the progression to me, and so while the plot floundered, I still managed to pick up the much needed organizational talent for larger projects in the future, and had a lot of fun in the process.

“The Adventurous Pursuits of Steve Gahein”
Completed Late 2009 - Photography Work - Shapes Industries