LivePD – The Calendar Shoot

If you’re going to do a calendar project for the upcoming year, you start about 8 months ahead, and complete principle photography about 3-4 months ahead of Christmas. Then you start a pre-order campaign around Thanksgiving.

Sometimes things don’t work out that way as happened with the 2020 LivePD Calendar from Richland County, SC. Instead, we did it with only a month and a half to shoot and print the calendar. Each month had its own theme, staring one of the Deputies of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department. Often times these officers showed up for photo shoots after having worked full 12 hour shifts.

All of the profit from the calendar sales go to the Richland County Sheriff’s Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization, that provides financial and material support to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

Just a few from the calendar shoot.

This is Donny Ray Campbell. Yes, that is his car. Yes, he jumped over it exactly as the photo shows. Donny is an athlete. I gave him the option of doing the actual stunt, or having me Photoshop him over his vehicle. He took the hard road and wanted to “keep it real.” He “kept it real” about 20 times while I dialed in the details of the photo. The smile never left his face.

Let me say that these men traversed the 40ft repel wall about 8 times to get this shot. At the end, they collapsed on the ground beneath the ropes, exhausted. Deputy Perez, who was a friend to both of these men, posted a video of the result. (I’ll try to get the link) As a former D.I. herself, there is hardly a more fitting photo for Deputy Perez.