Dachs Thoughts

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 do 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.

I had my first photoshoot of the year with Auroraa Celeste (formerly known as Dasha U) in an Airbnb in Oakland. The day before a big trip outside the country I made my way up through early morning rush hour traffic to her place. This shoot had been delayed a month from our original plans as she had previously gotten stuck in a blizzard in the Sierra and wasn’t able to make it. Even though the Airbnb was small it has lots of interesting light and settings and we had a very nice shoot. It was good to work with her again.

I had my first ever photoshoot with Russian traveling model Julie Romanova. She had reached out to me and it was nice to get to meet and work with a new model. Following a several day period of warm weather, the day of our shoot was a bit cool and windy and we ended up not doing any shooting outside. She was quite talkative during our shoot, and it was interesting to learn some of the logistical challenges of traveling with her country under the current restrictions. Despite some longish conversations we still managed to take a good number of interesting photos.

For my fifth photoshoot of the year, in barely 3 weeks, I had the opportunity to again work with Texas based traveling model Liz Ashley. We first worked together here a little over a year ago. She is very talented and photogenic, and we always have a lot to chat about. It was Valentine’s Day, so we tried to incorporate some colors and flowers into some of the shots. Despite all the yacking we managed to make a nice variety of beautiful pictures.

In my fourth photoshoot in less than two weeks I worked with Czech model Denisa Strakova, with whom I’ve worked once before. She is extremely skiiled at posing. She brought a lot of nice dresses and we ended up exploring a number of fashion looks, which I don’t necessarily get a chance to do so much. The weather was a bit cooler after 2 warm days, so we didn’t shoot outside for very long. Denisa is a pleasure to work with and I will actually get a chance to work with her 2 more times this year at different Femme Nue events.

For my third photoshoot in a little over a week I worked with a model who was new to me, Florida based Mika Lovely. She had reached out to me through Model Mayhem. We shot later in the day than I normally shoot, but it gave me a chance to explore working with a little different outdoor light. It was an unusually worm day for this time of year, and it was in the mid 70s even late in the afternoon. I got a bit too yacky and we ended up talking a bit about some bts issues, but it was illuminating. Despite spending too much time chatting, we still managed to created a good number of images with some nice variety.

My second shoot of the year was a remote phootshoot with Muirina Fae, a Canadian/Czech model with whom I’ve worked a couple of times on different retreats around the world. This photoshoot had a twist in that it featured Shibari rope binding with some light bondage. This is a genre I had never shot before. She was posing in a house on Vancouver Island that belonged to her friend Dave who was skilled in Shibari and who did the actual tying. It was interesting trying this different genre and we got some nice, but generally tame shots.

After take a 2 month break from photoshoots, my first shoot of the year was with Amber Flowers, a model who I first worked with 2 years ago. When we last worked together she had just discovered she was pregnant. This time she was dropped off by her husband, and their little kid was in the car. Unfortunately, there was a little glitch and just before we got started she got a call that she had the keys to the car and her husband had driven to a local park when he discovered he didn’t have them. So we took a little drive to return them. After that we got started a little late, but had a nice shoot together and were able to create a nice variety of images.