When great minds collaborate, beautiful things are born for the rest of the world to enjoy for eternity!

My stylist Malyssa came to me and said “I want to do a photo shoot and my inspiration is Dark Woods!” She then showed me a picture of her vision, I was absolutely thrilled! We talked for weeks about ideas, hair, makeup, location, clothing and so on. These photo shoots are absolutely fun to do, but at the same time they can be exhausting. For months you eat, sleep, and breathe your thoughts and ideas. We not only wanted this shoot to be about the hair but about the landscape, photography, clothing and makeup. So first things first we reached out to a local photographer Brittany, owner of 10 Bare Toes Photography, videographer Wooyeon, makeup artist Brittany, and of course our talented team of stylist at HOC, Malyssa, Tara, Adriana, and myself, Andrea.

We chose Oakland Redwood Forest Regional Park as our setting. Malyssa and I went and scouted out the park on our day off and fell in love with it, who knew our city by the bay and Mother Nature had so much to offer us? All the rain we had this winter made for a perfect backdrop. The streams were full of flowing water, moss on the trees was green as could be, nature made living walls of ferns, and the scent of nature that no one could ever duplicate in a perfume filled the air. Needless to say it was magical.

Next was finding our models, Danelle, Maddison, and Sophia. We wanted to keep it small but also make a statement. We decided to go with three beauties of three different generations, with decades between the ages we were able to capture the beauty within all of us, young and old.

Once we nailed down a date the artistry began, text messages back and forth on everyone's ideas, we all went through our homes/garages and offered to bring different things. Danelle, one of the models, is also a interior designer and her garage is a photo prop heaven! She asked what Malyssa’s vision was for her attire, I then proceeded to tell her “vintage” and she just whipped up that lace dress like nobody's business! It exceeded our expectations.

The day came and we were all filled with excitement, after months of collaborating with some old and new friends I could see the artistic storm brewing! Photographer Brittany asked what we wanted the main focus to be, Malyssa, Tara, Adriana and myself agreed we did not want this to only be about the hair, but to be a collaboration showcasing everyone's craft. We let all the artists do their thing. I feel that when you start telling artist what to do, it holds them back and their raw talent is lost. We didn't want anyone to hold back with what was in their heart and soul on the day of the shoot. As you can see by these photos and video it was a majestic magical collaboration. I feel that we captured the innocence of a child, the confidence of the woman in her prime, and the knowledge and wisdom of a woman that has lived and has been taught by this thing we call life. This collaboration was done with ages 11 to 49, I'm proud to say i was the oldest one working on this photo shoot. The talent I saw from these young adults is undeniably EPIC! I can't wait to see what's next! Stay tuned!

XOXO Andrea

A Video of our adventure is also available here!