In Star Wars: 1,000 Collectibles there’s one photo of a forlorn doggie in a Princess Leia costume. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at how we got the photo. BONUS: A box opening video with Steve.
In March of 2009 me and my husband-to-be, Stew, were trying to take a difficult photo for the book Star Wars: 1,000 Collectibles. We wanted to show the Princess Leia dog costume from Rubies. But we didn’t want to just take a photo of the packaging–we needed a model! Rancho’s greeter-dog at the time was Lucca, a love-sponge Golden Retriever who would do anything for her humans (and a chew snack.)
We knew we had to be quick. Get her in the costume, get her in the photo studio, get her out and give her a reward. Stew sat with her and whispered the command “stay, stay” as I clicked the shutter over and over hoping one would be good enough and in focus. Stew crawled out of the frame and for one brief moment Lucca stayed. The look on her face was precious. And she got her chew snack and pretty quickly forgot all about the unexpected torture.
Lucca passed in July, 2010, but her loving spirit is with us always!
BONUS box opening with Steve:
Anne Neumann is President and CEO of Rancho Obi-Wan, former Volunteer Coordinator and Fan Club Breakfast Manager for Official Pix, and previously a Systems Analyst at the University of Texas at Austin.