During my trip to Hermosillo in February, I met up with model Alejandra Castillo Benavides for a shoot. We had been working on a concept for my January visit, though due to scheduling that never happened. This time though, we had an amazing location to work with, El Casino del Diablo, thanks to a suggestion by my friend Teresita.

We arrived on location and it was beyond my expectations. We initially had a bit of trouble actually getting past the gates, though once in, everything flowed quite smoothly. We walked the location, picking out our setups. Far in the back, up on top of the roof, I found my first setup. It was definitely my “IT” spot for this session and I knew it when I saw it. Up on the roof were these concrete benches that looked like they belonged at a bus stop rather than a rooftop, surrounded with debris and half dead shrubbery. We setup shop here and got things started.

Next up was the room pretty much directly below where we first setup. It was huge and empty with none of the windows intact and a ton of graffiti. I liked the way my test shots were turning out, using only the natural light to illuminate the room. I added a little pop of light for Alejandra and we were set.

The last setup of the day came together rather organically. Alejandra had one more outfit she wanted to shoot… and I had seen this square pattern from behind old tiles in a few rooms that I was liking. The rooms with the pattern I liked had so far been too small for what I wanted to shoot. We looked around the location a bit more and found another room with the pattern that was much larger and had some green graffiti that tied in well with her outfit.

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