She is also a huge Michigan fan, so any of you out there that are Ohio Buckeye fans might want to close your eyes. 

She’s also a huge Dodgers fan, as I’m sure you’ll see from a few of the images in the gallery below.  So, without too much more of my blather, let’s get right to the images we created!

Emilie was yet another model that was very easy to work with, had all her stuff together, and knew a heck of a lot more about how shoots were supposed to work than I did.  Are you seeing a pattern here yet?    So since I don’t want to waste your time with blather, I’ll just insert a mini-gallery of her images below.

The images here are from a shoot I did with Kristen Vanet in April 2008.  Kristen is a former Lady Cat cheerleader and a promotional model based in Charlotte – she was in the Triangle area for a modeling gig so managed to hold her nose long enough to stop by Burlington to shoot with me on her way back home.

She is very much a “country girl” at heart; she’s a huge fan of NASCAR and very large trucks, and just about talked my ear off about how much fun mudding is.

I’m still not entirely sure what mudding involves other than a large dirt field, moderate to heavy rains, large pickup trucks, and a hell of a lot of washing the trucks later, though.  Maybe it’s the Yankee in me just refusing to understand – Fate knows she tried explaining it to me enough different ways and long enough that I ought to!

Fortunately for me, she also appreciates small, fast cars like my SKY – it’s not quite a track car, but it’s pretty close!

Kristen is still active in photographic and promotional modeling, and from everything I hear is insanely busy, working 8 or 9 days a week in and around the Charlotte area.  Thank Fate I was able to catch her when I did!

I first met Crystal back in 2005, actually, when I did my first shoot with her out in Harrelsville.  At the time, I went out to her farm in Harrelsville and got some decent shots out on the “back 40″.  Since then, I’ve gotten nothing but better, and in all honesty, I’m not at all impressed with what I was able to do then.  In fact, I’m downright unwilling to publish very many iamges from that era of my photography, because they look so bad compared to what I can do now.

Fortunately for me, Crystal was willing to give me a chance to redeem myself when she contacted me in 2008 for another shoot.  It was early March when we did this shoot, so it was still a bit cool but the worst of the cold had been taken over by the rapidly approaching spring weather.  Most of the images were taken at a canoe launch on the Haw River just outside of Burlington.  At the time, I was living in Burlington and working in Greensboro, so I didn’t have much of a studio area to work with, but the canoe launch was very convenient and far enough off the beaten path to be very low traffic.

We started the shoot somewhat late in the afternoon so we had to do the last few sets indoors.  Given the severe lack of decent backgrounds in my apartment, I was somewhat disappointed in the outcome of those images, but that was entirely the fault of the location.  Crystal is an excellent model, and if she hasn’t retired yet (she was debating whether to retire from modeling shortly after we did this shoot – something about being too busy and starting to burn out…  imagine that…), I would recommend her to any photographer looking for someone who’s easy to work with.  She’s friendly, personable, doesn’t waste time, and just generally has all her stuff together for the entire shoot.

Come to think of it, I’ve managed to always work with awesome models who don’t waste my time and really have their stuff together – I consider myself incredibly lucky in that regard!

And on that note, I’ll close this entry out – stay tuned for more updates soonish!

In January of 2009, the Chapel Hill and greater Triangle area of North Carolina experienced an unusually heavy snowfall.  I was living in Carrboro at the time, taking the bus in to work, so I brought along the camera to get some photos of campus.  Here are a few of the best ones.

Snow covers a handrail near the Dental School pedestrian bridge.

It’s a bit cold out to be riding a bicycle home from campus…

Look, I know we left it around here somewhere yesterday…  now where’s the blasted frisbee?

Well, enough is enough – time to start on this with two of my favorite recent shots of Stephanie.  I made contact with her through a modeling web site and did a total of three shoots with her – lots of personality, very energetic, easy to work with, and willing to step outside the normal “comfort zone”.

This shot and the next one were both taken at Hanging Rock State Park in March of 2009.  The water is still a bit chilly, so we waited until the end of the shoot before getting serious about the water.  The rocks were only moderately cool – not cold enough to avoid sitting on, but not the heated rocks that reptiles prefer, either.  The North Carolina mountains likes to keep it chill!

Well, towards noon we finally decided to get her under the waterfall, and this next image is, I think, the best of the shoot.

Yes, it was a very quick setup, and the shoot was done not very much longer after that – Stephanie wrapped about 3 thick towels around herself and only just barely avoided having her teeth chattering!