Ryan Schude doesn't do selfies, street photography or fashion shoots. He does productions. Every image he makes is heavily staged, overflowing with outlandish scenarios and organized chaos. They can require days of preparation as he painstakingly orchestrates lighting, props and people. Nothing is left to chance. His interest in photography stems from creating that magic.

"Some [photographers] prefer to wait around and they enjoy the authenticity of documentary work," he says. "As for me, I enjoy the drama of the staged shot and being able to very meticulously orchestrate."

The pool party image shown here is a classic example of Schude's elaborate construction. Getting everything just right required multiple lights, over two dozen people and 60 shots. Schude made the photo at Phoot Camp, an annual summer photography retreat. He and Lauren Randolph had a concept for the shoot going into the get-together: A high school rager thrown while the kid's parents were away.

As we create a new reality based only loosely on a collection of muddled memories and inspiring aesthetics, anything goes. Everything is possible.

Before the shoot, Schude and Randolph asked people to dress up as their favorite high school stereotype. There were the obligatory prom queens, and jocks, along with band geeks and, mysteriously, a party-crasher in a panda suit. Schude got in on the fun too; that's him, passed out amid beer bottles and a beach ball. But getting the actors together was only the first step.

Setting everything up took all day. Schude and Randolph worked with multiple strobes and the available light. In the half hour before sunset, Schude snapped about 60 frames so he'd have many options for the final composite image. They pushed that poor band geek into the pool 11 times, but ended up going with the first take, when the guy was still dry, because it was the best of the lot. The fellow on the diving board made 10 jumps before Schude said, "Enough." And the guy spraying champagne all over the place opened at least three bottles during the shoot.

For all the work, Schude and Randolph needed just a handful of frames to make the final shot. "To make the compositing seamless we wanted to use as few frames as possible. This ended up being eight different shots," he says. "When you're shooting at dusk the light changes so much it doesn't look as real if you have one from the beginning when it's light and one from the end when it's dark. We tried to get all the frames from that golden hour."

The final image is flawless, looking to all the world like a serendipitous moment in which everything fell to place at just the right time. The tableau is larger than life, and it's hard to discern what’s "real" and what isn't. That's the point. Schude isn't interested in reality, so much as the appearance of it. "As we create a new reality based only loosely on a collection of muddled memories and inspiring aesthetics, anything goes," he's said of his work. "Everything is possible."

The photographer's latest book, Schude*, will be released this month by Roads Publishing.*