Lifestyle / Model Photography ~ Mariana

I decided to continue featuring beautiful, strong and independent women on my blog and I did a shoot with my friend Mariana. I always get super giddy with excitement to be shooting her because she is the ideal model: she is creative, she has her own ideas, she does her "homework" ahead of time, she consults magazines and fashion editorials and always.brings.a.suitcase.to.the.shoot! A suitcase! Full of stuff!

This time we headed to the beach for our shoot. Naples beach, that is...But not the Pier, not the Naples Beach Club, nooo.... We needed rocks. So we Google Earth-ed (I just made a verb!)and found out there are rocks at the end of the beach. Yes, the end of the beach. So we walked and walked some more...then some more...and she carried her suitcase like a feather (noooo, just kidding that thing was heavy!). The rocks looked like mirages in the desert and I really hoped they were real... Ha ha... BUT...it was soooo worth it!!

We unpacked the suitcase and our creative juices started flowing...Mariana has awesome sense of style. Call it Italian, or call it European, you know what I mean. Sleek, edgy, modern, fresh - she put together a few fantastic outfits. The shoot was around the idea of "modern and overly accessorized beach attire"...

So she takes out the fur collar. What?? How awesome is this?







I absolutely love this next one!



A little overexposed accident, but I dig it...



We also did an 80's inspired outfit







Then, we had some fun in a bathing suit...





There's a badass feel to this next one







These next two are just for fun... Manni, hope you don't kill me for posting them! He he he





Loved this shoot, thanks again for playing and for being your usual awesome, my dear! Until the next one...

XOXO

Model / Fashion ~ Kelsey

It was Halloween the day when we had our session with Kelsey and we wanted to try this crazy, grungy, zombie-land-looking junkyard in town... Well, that was a no-go that day but I'm determined to get them to agree soon! Will leave that for another day. So, that Sunday for Halloween our crew, together with model Kelsey, drove aaaaaaaaalllll the way down to Everglades City. I was actually surprised none of my friends have been there yet.

Everglades City is a sleepy old town of fishermen. If you want grungy and rusted for your location, that's the place to go. It is quite the drive from Naples, but it's also worth visiting, as it's close to the Everglades Reservation / Park. Plus they have some awesome fresh seafood one can die for! It is the capital of airboat tours and fried alligator tail!

So after some mumbling and grumbling similar to "Are we there yet? are we there yet??", we make the drive and start shooting along the water, by shrimper crates, booies and other miscellaneous junk fishermen dispose of while working...so un-environmentally friendly!

Meet Kelsey, our pretty model of the day.





I persoanlly love this next photo, it evokes the ruggedness of the city.



Then, after an outfit change for added color, we moved on to another pile of junk we found.



Kelsey's eyes are a beautiful green, her top only accentuated them more! Va-va-voom!





We looked quite a while for this purple wall I knew about from my previous visits but I think it was well worth it. Her outfit and the color of the wall worked well with her eyes again. Hello gawwjus!



Kelsey, thank you. Tomorrow I'll return with a post about a themed session we did two weeks ago that I've been dying to do for a while and I nagged and nagged and nagged and finally made it happen... So awesome, you'll see!

Model / Fashion ~ Casie and Nicole Beach Shoot

I know I have been neglecting the blogging world lately. It's just that I've been really busy. Busy trying to put my website together, busy doing shoots all over the place and busy practicing, practicing, practicing! I've been eating photography-spread on bread, dreaming of finding locations and breathing f-stops and shutter speeds! I love this!

Today's blog post is about a session we organized at a "secret" beach with some photog friends. I've done shoots with model Casie before, but I only met Nicole that day. When we started out, the sun was high up in the sky and hot!

Here's Casie just hanging out.









Nicole, you're gorgeous what can I say?



Then, the sun started setting and gave this beautiful glow...







I leave you for now with a postcard from Naples!



Thanks Casie and Nicole for rocking it out for us!

Model / Fashion ~ Mariana

Mariana is a friend of mine who happens to be gorgeous. Ummm...without even trying. She has an awesome wardrobe and fantastic style.

The location of the shoot I happened to come across while driving around looking for locations (again). Seems to be my favorite pastime lately. Thank goodness my car is economic on fuel. Naples doesn't have too many grungy, ugly, dirty spots so you have to get out and explore the area around. Especially when you're desperate for rad photoshoot locations. This is how I fell in love with the Corkscrew Country Store located in Estero.

Take Mariana's beauty and surround it with things that are rusty, old, grungy, dark, molded, or dirty and you'll get a fantastic photoshoot! I've been enjoying kinda setting the tone for these types of shoots, as it gives me the freedom to style them, design them and totally be creative. I've never really been an artsy person, but I'm enjoying all the ideas popping up in my head lately.

Here are some of the best from the day. First, we started on this huge yellow rusty machine. And I felt that the yellow contrasted wonderfully with our model's bright blue booties.





Then we moved to a shed. This was full of old appliances, buckets and who knows what else. Oh, and mosquitoes!! Our poor model was a trooper!





Next, we had to include in the shoot an old rusted Ford truck.





Then, there was an old mobile home...



...and, of course, the store itself that sort of looked like a train station, hence this:



Our session was cut short by some fire ants that decided to attack me that day, but I was still able to get these two last shots:





I can't wait for our next shoot...where's it going to be? I'm jumping in my car to find out...

Model / Fashion ~ Casie

Today I got together with a few of my fellow photogs to shoot at an awesome location I discovered by chance. Naples is a pretty manicured place, there are not many dirty, ugly, rusted spots around, although us photogs would love them! We love grunge, we love textured walls, old chipping paint on things and we love everything rust. So when I came upon this fabulous "construction material-storage slash dirt road slash empty space with a lot of concrete" site, I was stoked! I had already envisioned the whole shoot. I mean, there was concrete blocks, concrete tubes, rusty old machineries, piles of dirt and a whole lot of good stuff.

Our model is the kind of model every photographer wishes and prays for. Casie knows how to be fabulous without even trying a bit. She was nice enough to get up early for us and rock some high heels on hills of dirt and puddles of water with tadpoles in it (but we didn't tell her they were in, because she would've run away!).

So, here are some shots from today.



















Part of the theme of the day was "Fallen Angel" and you can find more inspiration for this shoot here.





On this strong "Wonder Woman"-note, I wish you a great week ahead!