I was recently hired to manage the throwing of powder on a photoshoot.

I’ve worked with pigments and powder before, but not yet in this quantity or throwing it right into the air– onto surfaces such as canvas, yes, or rubbing on my own body, but not straight up chucking the stuff.

So pre-shoot, I decided that it’d be a good idea to practice a bit on my own and try and learn some things. The photographer didn’s ask me to or anything, I just felt like it would be a good idea because I had some questions about the material that were answered in situ.

I originally wasn’t going to publish these photos, but after examining them in Lightroom, I played around with the white balance and liked the results. When we were shooting, I wasn’t concerned with the aesthetic at all because I was just focused on how the powder looked– this was a study. But there’s something enchanting about a fucked up white balance. It’s the original instagram filter, the unintended fault of the machine.

By the end, I was covered in flour. My head had a layer of it that had sifted through my hair, so that my skull was covered in powder. My coat, my skin, my dress were all cloudy and desaturated. I got some strange looks from people on the way back home.