Barefoot Glamour

I got to shoot with Cathy K. again this week. We tried a couple of different locations this time, but I still put her in the water at both locations. She's a good sport and didn't mind (too much).

Our first shoot location was in the Tillamook Forest at the spot where I shot my Water Fairy last year. The spot features a wide, shallow area of the Lower Nehalem River. Here, in the summer at least, the water is tolerably warm, and if shot at the right time of day, is quite blue. The day we shot, however, the river was a bit too shallow to get the deep blue color that I've managed to see there in the past. We did, however, get quite a few shots in before the sun got too high and we lost all of our open shade.

Once we lost the light there, we decided we would take the ride out to Ecola Point State Park and do some shots there. Cathy was quite eager to do this as she hadn't been to the park before and I had promised her a great view of the Oregon Coast. I also think we was eager to dry off and warm up.

We first went the the viewpoint which juts out from the surrounding cliffs and offers a wonderful view of Cannon Beach to the south, and Indian Beach to the North. It was not a very windy day there for a change, so it was quite comfortable shooting at the point. For this shoot, Cathy wore a black linen beach dress, and we had quite a lot of fun shooting around the various tourists and sightseers.

After about 45 minutes at the viewpoint, we drove down to Indian Beach for some shots on the beach and in the small stream that runs down to the Pacific. Little did Cathy know at this point that I would be putting her in the water again, but I think she might have guessed what was going to happen once she saw the waves and the small stream. Still, she was as game as ever, and even went pretty far out into the Pacific to kick up some sand and water. I dared her to kick water on me, but since I was shooting with a 70-200 f/2.8L IS zoom, there was little risk she could actually reach me. It was a fun shoot and both the photographer and the model had a great fun.

Completed Shoots

I've completed processing a number of shoots lately, but I"m still working on several more. I have three shoots scheduled for this weekend, and just finished one more yesterday evening. Photographically, I've been quite busy, but I've been having a blast and enjoying stretching my imagination and skills for each of the shoots.

I've been processing images for the models as they've picked them out for their TFP (Time For Print) sessions, but I'll still have plenty of images to processes over the winter, as well as a couple of other shoots that will occur during the cold season when we actually have snow on the ground.

I did a couple of photo sessions featuring three different models using a military theme. The first one, featuring Jennifer and April, was shot at Dragonfly Landing with the assistance of my good friend Mark, who shuddered with dismay each time I set my 5D MKII or my 1DsMKIII on the ground, and his girlfriend, Rainbow. That shoot went quite well, and the models were quite fun to work with, though a bit inexperienced and not used to taking directions or self-directing.

The other military glamour session was with Gabriell as part of her portfolio development, which is mostly complete at this point - at least as a starter portfolio. Shooting with Gabriell was both planned and not planned. Originally my idea was to shoot landscapes in the morning, starting and Ecola Point and Cannon Beach, then meet Gabriell later in the day in Newport and do more of a fashion shoot in Newport or Lincoln city. The day we were supposed to shoot, however, it was quite cloudy and cool; not exactly a day for shooting landscapes, so I just shot on down to Florence and spent the day shooting with Gabriell.

We did several themes that day. We started with the military shoot, then found an abandoned rail car and did a gypsy shoot. Nearby was a old gate where we did a country girl shoot, and then we used the abandoned rail line for a nude shoot. Finally, we finished up the day by shooting Gabriell as a pirate.

Gabby has come along quite well as a model. With a little effort she could do quite well as a glamour model and I think she would do especially well as a promotional event model since she has an outgoing personality and a girl next door look. Here are a few more of her looks from that day's shoot:

This is from our gypsy glamour shoot with the abandoned rail car.


And one from our Pirate shoot:


Tomorrow I have three shoots planned. I'll be shooting the Reaper Fairy with Gabriell's mother, Bridgett, ladies in chains with Wanda and Bridgett as the models, and in the evening the final Fire Fairy, with Melanie. Of course, I have more images to post from some of my other shoots as well, so there will be a number of future journal entries here show-casing those images. Right now, though, it's time to for bed so I can get an early start setting up the studio tomorrow.

Shoots, Post Processing, and Models, Models, Models

I've been quite busy since my return from vacation. Not only have I had to catch up on my real job (always a task when you take a few days off), but I've been working quite hard on post processing a number of images for the models I shot with during my time off. One very nice benefit of my Fae in All of Us project has been that I very seldom have to search very hard for models. In many cases, they now come to me and want to be part of the project. Additionally, though I'm not charging the models for images right now, I can see that there is certainly some opportunity to do so in the future. The drawback, or rather the reality of the situation, is that once the images are shot, I have to post process a number of them for the models so they can have them for their portfolio, and I do try to turn those around very quickly. That's been my primary task each evening for the last week. That, and I've had to prep the photos from Jocelyn's birthday and get that CD to her mom (who is a scrapbooking fanatic and who has very little tolerance for delay - yes, I mean you, Kristin). Fortunately, she should have her CD by now as it was mailed a few days ago.

We actually had a great party for Jocelyn, made even better for the fact that her daddy was able to get back to Tracy from his ground school in Tuscon, Arizona. He made it back home the evening of her birthday, and was able to be there for the entire birthday party weekend, though a good bit of that time was spent packing up their household for their move to Chandler, Arizona where took a new job. The party was on Saturday, we finished packing on Sunday, and they took off for Arizona on Monday. I headed home with Jocelyn's Auntie TT and cousins Ryker and Makayla on Sunday night, leaving Wanda behind to travel with them to Arizona to help with the baby. The theme of the party was the pool, and Kristin pulled it off quite well with some help from her mother and mother-in-law. The photo above is of Jocelyn and Ryker enjoying the pool with Kristin, Tanith and Jan, Kristin's mom. The pool water was quite warm, but still refreshing in the heat.

What would a pool party be without rubber duckies, and especially and ducky birthday cake? I think there were about 40 or 50 rubber duckies used for the party, but I didn't exactly count them. I know I sure bagged a lot of them up the next day when we were packing out the rest of the house. To go along with the cake, Jeremy grilled some beef, and there were lots of munchies and drinks for everyone to enjoy. If you left that party hungry, it was your own fault because there was plenty to eat.


Jocelyn, of course, got to have some cake. We think she liked it quite well, given how she grabbed a couple of handfuls and stuffed it into her mouth. Her daddy thought it was quite funny, as long as she didn't get any on his shirt (he's a bit anal when it comes to his clothes). She did get it smeared into her hair and all over her face, but that's what babies do. Everyone else enjoyed the cake as well, including Ryker and Makayla, but in general the rest of us were a bit neater than the little girl of the hour.

Later this week, I'll share some of the images I made during the last couple of weeks.