Dachs Thoughts

I ended the rash of post-travel photoshoots with a Seattle based model who is new to me whose model name is Mighty Earthling. She had reached out to me a couple of times over the last few years, but our schedules never seemed to mesh. We finally managed to do it. We had a bit of an early start but managed to get a nice variety of shots on a very grey day. She also brought her service dog along with her, and it was nice to have a small pup in the house again.

I had resolved right before going to Portugal that I was going to back off a bit on photoshoots to allow me to catch up on editing and other household chores that I have fallen behind in with some much shooting in the last few months. This was the last shoot I’ve planned for a while and hopefully I can clear out some backlog of tasks. This was a nice session to end with as this model was a pleasure to work with.

I had my first ever photoshoot with east coast based model Collibrina. I had been referred to her by a couple of models I had shot with previously. She had some interesting vintage wardrobe which made for some interesting shots. We are both quiet so without talking so much I ended up taking a lot more shots. Her host dropped her off which saved me a lot of effort at the beginning of the day. Afterwards we caught some lunch downtown where we ran into a street fair featuring vintage cars. It would be nice to work with her again at some point in the future.

I again got a chance to work with well known Miami based model Alice Antoinette. It was nice to see her again and we had a very enjoyable shoot. Afterwards we caught some lunch and I took her back to her host location in the city. On the way there I could see that the traffic coming back my way was terrible, so when we got to her host’s location, which I’ve dropped people off at a bunch of times, we walked around the neighborhood a bit and got a snack. It killed enough time that by the time I headed back the traffic was much more tolerable.

I again had a chance to work with my most frequent collaborator, Ohio based model Anoush Anou. Sis the first model I worked with on the first photo tour I went on and we have worked together many times since. It was nice to see her and catch up. We scheduled a lunch break in the middle of our time, so we were able to take a relaxed pace during shooting. Despite my yacking too much we still managed to take some nice pictures, and I was able to try some modifications to my approach to composition in order to come up with something new. A fun day of photography, less than a week after returning from a long trip abroad.

For the last photoshoot before a long trip I worked with a model who was completely new and unknown to me, Atlanta based Eugenia Gonzales. While she does modeling, she is not primarily a model, but also does acting and circus arts performing for various events. She was out in the area for the birthday party of a local model and was doing a few photoshoots to help fund the trip. I had been referred to her by another local model with whom I’d worked about a month earlier. We worked with a variety of wardrobe and managed to shoot all around the house as it was a very pleasant day. I’m always amazed how fast the time goes by even when I think the options are constrained ahead of time.

Less than a week after I had shot with Erin Divine, I had another chance to work with Auroraa with whom I’ve worked many times. She was just back from traveling in Russia and Istanbul and she had rented a place in the Oakland hills. Unfortunately, I was suffering badly with my sciatica so it was a challenge shooting (including just getting down the stairs to the place where she was staying). Nevertheless, we managed to experiment with some creative ideas. I had brought my new LED which provided some interesting lighting variations. Also, Auroraa had started utilizing ChatGPT in an interesting way to suggest settings and poses after she had fed in pictures of the space and some prompts with esthetic goals we might try. It was a new experience for me. All in all a productive session even though I was pretty hobbled in my physical activity.

While she was still hanging out in California, and taking a break from her rock climbing, I had another chance to shoot with Tennessee based traveling model Erin Divine. The last time we had shot I felt that we didn’t really get through everything I was interested in exploring, so it was nice to work with her again. Unfortunately, the night before we shot I pulled something in my back and had major sciatica pain, but I managed to get through it taking it nice an slow. I think we were able to get some nice shots.