This shoot came up completily out of the blue, I was still looking for a model or just someone to shoot this shirts with, and these two girl Daniela and Filipa, would not leave my mind, mostly because of twitter and facebook, and they've been on their grind so hard, that pretty much everyone wants in on them. So i did what was right, I talked to Filipa and we decided to shoot the shirts.
I always get the biggest creative block when it comes to thinking about a 'place' to do a shoot ( mostly because i litteraly could shoot anywhere and i dont feel like there has to be a set location). And this time it wasnt any different, I was sitting there trying to think of a really cool place to go and shoot the new ABSOLUT MAPUTO design top+tshirt for Moztyle, so i took out my hand-dany BlackBerry and chatted up my friend DSN, who's a total creative GENIUS , and he was all "why dont you go to Mercado Central", and it felt so right when he said that, and i was like "Genius!".
The next morning, i went to pick them up, and I was sorta kinda nervous, because there had been so much anticipation built up, and obviously when you got to meet someone for the first time, it's always like that. But the ice didnt have time to sit long enough to make things unconfortable, the girls are very easy going and chilled it hardle felt like we had just met.
"So, where are you going to change?" I asked, and I already new the answer to this, but i wasnt going to be the one to say it. So they both looked at each other and said "Uh, here, in the car."
And as I parked the car outside the Mercado Central, a flock of guys just surrounded us, some to offer their 'security' services, others to sell their stuff, and most just to see what was going on. It's not every day you get to see a fly ass chick rocking a huge afro, make that TWO fly ass chick rocking a huge afro.
After we get past the first group of guys, the pace for rest of the shoot was pretty much set. We got friendly stares, curious stares, disaproving stares,we heard comments like "That's not your real hair!" to "That hair is from the internet" and something like, "Gimme a lil piece of your hair" from all types of people walking by. Needless to say the AFROTWINS do not go by unnoticed.
So i asked " Do you ever, get tired of being looked at all the time? Does that ever make you unconfortable?"
"Not really." Answered Filipa (she's the slightly blond one)," we're pretty much used to it, and have learnt to live with it. " and I mean, who doesnt love attention?
Through the shoot I found out that they're studying through correspondence with their Swedish school, and at the same time working with a friend of theirs in the Hip-hop group called Magnezia, which has been keeping them pretty busy.
We talk a walk around that Baixa area, and I just shot everything as it happened, and the session was eezy-breezy, since our town in filled with insipiration.
And the interaction between my subject and the public was almost surreal.
Absolut Maputo
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