Dachs Thoughts

In the middle of a flurry of early September 2026 photoshoots, I again had the chance to work with Virginia based model Anastasia Maye. We had last worked together almost a year ago. Again this year she is traveling back and forth across the country with another model, Rebecca Lawrence, who I will be shooting with a few days later. Anastasia brought a large amount of wardrobe and I selected just a small subset, but we were able to create a nice variety of images during our shoot. She is very nice to work with and I look forward to her next trip.

Kicking off a rapid-fire group of days of photoshoots, I had my second opportunity to shoot at home with Arizona based traveling model Jamie Lee Bauern. We had missed connecting up last year, so it has been almost two years since we worked together the first time. It was a very hot day outside (later in the afternoon after our shoot it hit 108°), but Jamie said coming from Arizona it was no issue. We managed to explore a good variety of looks including the outside for a while until I and my camera started to overheat. Jamie is a pleasure to work with, and I look forward to our next time working together.

Shortly after returning from my long European trip I met up with Auroraa in Boulder Creek where she was staying and we traveled to a nearby area to shoot in the forest that contained a number of burnt Redwood trees. These provided some interesting colors and shapes. This is the first outdoor shoot we have done in a while and it was nice to get out to enjoy some nature. It was a little tough getting up so early to get down there, but eventually it was worth it. We mostly had the area to ourselves and had a nice chance to walk around and do some photography. It was a fun way to spend the morning and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At the end of June, just a few days after returning home from a long trip in the British Isles, I had another photoshoot with East Coast based traveling model Collibrina. This was just a little over a year since our first shoot. After a little logistical confusion at the pickup, we had a nice photo session on a day that started out a bit cool, but ended up pretty warm. She always comes with a nice selection of vintage wardrobe and we used a variety of that. It was an enjoyable shoot despite the fact that my brain was still trying to adjust to the time zone.

Less than a week since my last photoshoot I again had a chance to work with French traveling model Sandrah who was on a long visit to the US bouncing between New York and California. We last shot together about 6 months ago. She is quite petite but very talented in posing. It became a very warm day outside, but before we went there she actually needed a little extra heat in the morning inside. I really enjoyed the shoot although my energy was flagging a bit, possibly because of some extra exercising I started yesterday.

I had another chance to shoot with North Carolina based model Keira Grant almost a year after the last time we worked together. The shoot was scheduled later in the day, which turned out to be lucky as my mind misremembered the date of the shoot until the evening before. I picked her up and we had a nice session. The weather was quite mild so we were able to work both inside and outside. She is very creative and artistic and we tried out several new setups and set designs.

I got another chance to work with extremely creative Kate Snig. She was one of the last models I worked with before my holiday break at the end of 2025. She traveled out from the city, and due to some logistics we ended up starting a bit later than originally planned. Nonetheless, we had a great shoot together. She again was drawn to working in my kitchen, a portion of which has been a mess for way too long, which motivated me to clean it out on the spot. We ended up trying a bunch of natural light shots with varying wardrobe. Afterwards we worked on a variety of looks in the front room. I think we got some interesting shots out of the session. Moreover, it provided me long needed kick in the pants to straighten up the kitchen, which is now in much better shape.

I had a nice first-time photoshoot with local model Shari Putra. I had an early morning as I had to get up and go get in line to get some free compost from the local waste management people. I then got back home in time for our shoot. Shari does a lot of work in the local art modeling community working with painters and local universities. While the morning was cool, the day warmed up nicely, but we ended up shooting only inside. As she is local I will try to work with her more in the future exploring other locations and styles.