Lovely Sparklies

So last week I posted behind the scene pics from my shoot using some AMAZING jewelry from designer Otazu. Love, love their designs. Big thanks to MUA Chantel Hyden for hooking us up with the contact. So for my first shoot with the jewelry I wanted to do something simple. I enlisted help from model: Felicia and hairstylist Hope Shoemaker. The day started rough due to some last minute cancels and the shuffling that entailed, but ended on a good note. Thanks to everyone for their patience! It made the shoot go smoothly and we got some great shots. Here are some of my favorite ones.

Victoria and James are getting married...

James and Victoria are getting married. How exciting. Couples and engagement sessions are always fun.
You get to see other couples interact, hear the story of how they met. It just so happen that James and
Victoria met in Ybor City, so that's where we did our session. Ybor City is a great place to shoot,
but us Floridians know what it means to live here in the summer time. Yep, sporadic rain showers.
It rained midway through the session, and the clouds were virtually dancing in the sky, so lighting
was a ginormous problem. But we found cover to shoot when it rained, and braved the heat when it
stopped. By the time we were done, the three of us were drenched, and not from the rain. lol. It was hot and muggy. All in all in was a great session and I loved the shots we got. Here are some of my favs:

Pretty in Pink

So last weekend I had a shoot with Jenny Mercado, a very talented hair stylist. We met when she did hair on a LipGloss magazine shoot for me. She showed up in bedazzled shoes and an awesome pair of parachute pants. I knew I had to shoot her. Her energy was amazing! I was really excited when we set up a time to shoot together. We didn't have really a set concept, I just knew I wanted to do some portraits that would hopefully catch some of the energy that crackles around her. I have to say, I LOVE what we ended up with.

My trip into the fairy tale woods...just a warning, they're full of mosquitoes.

So today I took a trip to the Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg for fairy tale like shoot. I bought a donkey mask a while ago for a shoot and didn't get to use it. I finally got a chance to today. I wanted to do a modern day spin on the beauty and the beast. I had it planned out. There would be flowers and this crazy romantic and ethereal vibe. Instead, we got mosquitoes from HELL!! Add the humid heat and it was a recipe for disaster. Luckily for me everyone in our party kept in good spirits and made a day that could have miserable, pretty fun. :) I'm about five pounds lighter, and sporting a few bites, but I really love the shots and that pretty much made it worth it. :) Shout out to Chantel, Elinka and Jathaniel, along with my hubby for being so awesome and such a good sport. I'm sure after a good soak in Benadryl, we'll all feel better. LMAO! Here are my favorite images from the shoot:

I shot a wedding...and survived!

Anyone who knows me, knows I pretty much intensely dislike weddings. (Trying to teach my son not to say hate. Gotta practice what I preach. ;) ) Anyway, weddings are very stressful, and you have to LOVE them to be a great wedding photographer. Notice I said great. Some photographers love everything about weddings, and you can really tell in their pictures. Me...not so much. I think that my girly gene failed me on that note. The whole process freaks me out. I just hate the thought that I could make a mistake that could cost a couple their entire ceremony. Plus, I'm a ball of nerves when I have to shoot people one on one. Put me in a room full of strangers and I'm chewing antacids like m&ms. (Ya'll know I'm shy. lmao!) Ok, I exaggerate, you couldn't pay me to chew an antacid. Just the thought of that just made me gag a little. But I digress.

So I'm the kind of person that doesn't necessarily hold a grudge, but I don't forget a slight. Nor do I forget a favor. When Jessica wrote to me and told me she was getting married, I was so excited for her. When she asked if I would shoot her wedding, I heard the needle scratch on the record sound. LOL. Then I thought about how awesome she was when I first started shooting. She was one of the first 'models' I'd ever worked with. It was hard to find models in those days and Jessica was always down to shoot. It was really a godsend. Especially when you're just starting out, and having to teach yourself everything. Photoshoots were a craps shoot in those days. Sometimes it was successful, sometimes you wanted to bury the film into the farthest reaches of the earth's core. :)

It came as a HUGE relief to me when she said the wedding would be small. Not that it was any less stressful for me, but I could handle small. She didn't really want any shots of the ceremony. She mostly wanted shots of she and her husband at the beach, after the ceremony. I could handle that. I was on pins and needles throughout the whole thing, and nearly fainted with relief when I was done, but...I did it. I made it through a wedding without a my hands shaking too much, and without any crazy un-fixable mistakes. I think I did a good job. I love the shots, and most important, Jessica loved them.

Here are some of the shots. I thought I'd include some of the earlier shots I took of Jessica back in her modeling days. Haha, bet you forgot about these, Jessica. And I bet you wish I had. :)

What to do on a rainy Sunday

So while summertime in florida is beaches and barbeques, it's also hurricane season. So every now and then you'll find yourself stuck indoors with a little rain. Sunday, I found myself catching up on edits, and playing around with some editing techniques I learned from the internet. Deviant Art is an awesome sight for photoshop tricks. I recently did a shoot with Cristin that I called 'Set Adrift'. I edited it, the way I normally do, and really loved the shots. Well, after spending an hour or two surfing deviant art, I decided to try a couple of things. Here are the results. I think they're pretty and I love 'em. Not quite the mermaid story we were searching for, but still a tale of whimsy. :) A perfect fit for my current mood.

Beauty Shooting, Guerilla Style

So this morning, I was so not feeling my day job. I was in a creative type of mood and could feel the walls closing in on me at work. Of course I took to Facebook and expressed my restlessness. Chantel Hyden suggested we use my lunch  hour to shoot. An hour? Yeah right. But then I got to thinking, and then I got excited, and then I was like *shrugs* why not? I sent out a mass text trying to find a model who was available last minute and who was down to do something crazy but fun. Marissa answered, and the lunacy began. I did a hasty run to my house for my camera, snatched an apple on the way out the door and beat feet back to work. When make-up was done, we hopped in my truck and went around the complex to a lake that I used to eat lunch by. I pulled up, popped the brake, and we jumped out. Luckily for me, not so much for my husband, I keep most of my stuff in the truck. My current obsession is my five in one. It's so awesome! Ten minutes later we piled back into the car and peeled out. I had to get back to work, you know. lol.. Anyway, there was no way we could have gotten more than two or three usable frames, right? Wrong. Marissa rocked it! She moved, and really gave me enough range so that the eighty frames I was able to squeeze out really counted. I had a hard time choosing which ones to edit. :) Here's what I chose, and I gotta say. THAT ISH WAS FUN! I love photography!!!!!