THE STORY BEHIND THE SHOT:
“It’s not going to work!” Thats the first thing David Blaine said to me when he walked into the studio. After explaining our plan and showing him how prepared we were, he then proclaimed that it would take 5 tries to get it right. Let’s just say that David has a “strong personality” and I had to use every trick in the photographic Jujitsu playbook to make it through the day. It’s incredibly physically demanding to hang upside down and I do have to give it to David for delivering a command performance. He did end up inverting 5 times but we actually got the winning shot on the 3rd time upside down. The whole team did a great job, including photo editor Alison Unterreiner, set builder Jesse Nemeth and you can see stylist Wendell T Brown in the BTS photo below. Of course the shoot wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Michael Norseng’s brilliant concept! After the shoot David gathered the crew around and performed some of the most amazing card tricks I have ever seen. Literally cards disappeared right in front of my eyes. That was some serious Magic! ~ Michael Lavine
