Rare Specimen No. 7
Megan Caponetto

"We're going to need to call Megan for this."

That comes up often here at Men's Health, as it did at Best Life whenever brainstorming sessions produced a potentially cool (crazy?) idea...that we had no idea how on God's green Earth it could be done...and we knew Megan would make it a much better idea than we could have ever imagined. You know the saying: "You get what you put in front of the camera"? Megan always seems to put genius in front of it. Enjoy some samples after the jump you may or may not have seen! (And yep...that's her in the film sowing her wild...corn)...

SUGAR SKULL: photographed by Greg Broom for Men's Health
(on the skull "melting" overnight before the shoot)

"It was sooooo not funny!!!! It was terrifying. I thought I finally found an adhesive that wouldn't dissolve the sugar but I was so wrong and the 'clinking' sound of the cubes hitting the table all night made me feel totally powerless. Thank God Greg and Jeanne (Graves) were so understanding and that it ended up looking good anyways! It was one of the few projects that I've done that I shook all the way to set not knowing if it would actually be ok."

METAL T: photographed by Jesse Chehak for T, the NYT Style Magazine

"We overnighted this 8x10' monster to Alaska and then proceeded to drag it up and down muddy cliffs and glaciers. I could have used 3 assistants on that job but it was just Jesse, his assistant Joe Tanis and the location guy. There were gale force winds that blew it over; there was quicksand like mud that we glopped through. Oh, and, the incoming tides which rise 20' in 15 minutes.....Alaska is amazing mother nature in your face."

(click image for larger version)

HOME DEPOT SPINE: Photographed by Christopher Griffith for Best Life Magazine.

"The spine was an awesome project conceptually and to physically put together.
I got great satisfaction with it being able to move like a real spine despite being metal parts from Home Depot and it was the beginning of what has now become a signature of mine -- body part sculptures."

GAUZE CROSS: Photographed by Mikako Koyama for The New York Times Magazine.

"This was my first still life (thank you, Jody Quon). My introduction into thinking macro. I love the clarity and simple graphic quality of it. The team at the Times was sooooo good."

 

(click images for larger versions)

STEVE JOBS: Photographed by Christopher Griffith for Fortune.

"My house looked like a terrorist lived there. We ripped apart countless computers and got buckets of i-things and had an affair with the glue gun. I worked at table height and then would climb up into the rafters of the house to photograph the piece in progress to keep us on track. I still have those pieces in my basement waiting for apple to call and buy them ;)"

CROP T: Photographed by Vincent Laforet and filmed by Francesco Carrozzini for NYT.

"My biggest job to date. I location scouted and paid a farmer for an acre of corn (BTW the corn all leaned back up the next day). 200x250' T laid out with 8 miles of string in a grid. I didn't know if I did it right until Vincent came down off the helicopter. Whew!!!!
Francecso was a pleasure - funny that even he did not understand what I was doing until he saw it from above. I chose corn so his crew would not affect the imprint of the edges but later found out that I was allergic to corn pollen. Hence my short appearance in the last part of the film... I was mutating by the minute."

There are prop stylists and then there are set goddesses.



This is No. 7 in the SPD 45 Rare Specimen Collection. Want more? Click below, and celebrate this year's crop (ha!) of winners at the SPD Gala on Friday, May 7th. RSVP now while tickets are still available...

More:Rare Specimen No. 3: Matilde Montanari
Rare Specimen No. 4: Flickr Flow
Rare Specimen No. 5: Blue Note LP Covers
Rare Specimen No. 6: Folks who act on their stupid, weed-infused dreams