valen

If you scroll down to the post before this, you can see that we did a boudoir shoot with Valen. We also decided to take her out and do some portrait work with her before she had to go to work. I'm sure we would have all liked to keep her around for the rest of the day. She really was a pleasure to work with.

Can you believe that this was right down the road from the house we were renting?!

I could not have manufactured a more perfect desert-with-snowy-mountains-in-the-background scene if I tried.

Valen, you're gorgeous. I'm trying not to be jealous.

Intensity much?

I got a few e-mails asking about my post-processing the other day. I use the Totally Rad Actions exclusively. They just nail the kinds of looks that I'm going for every single time, and I couldn't be happier. If you're a photographer, I would seriously recommend checking them out. (My most favorite action this week is Lux Hard.. I can't get enough.)

In other news.. Does anyone have a really nice-looking Twitter badge that they'd like to share the code for? Some of you may know that web coding is definitely not my area of expertise... (Ok, let's be honest, I'm horrible at it.) So, if any of you have suggestions for a Twitter badge that would look good with my blog layout, I would really appreciate it!

nelson, nv -- the ghost town

This is going to be another post that features Jessie, the gorgeous girl from the last entry. I'm pretty sure you won't mind.

On Thursday, we took a little drive out to Nelson, NV to see the ghost town there. It was definitely a photographer's playground. Lots of interesting backdrops, including a plane crash! And a canyon in the background... Ridiculous. Here are a few shots from around the area.

    

Check out the canyon behind Jessie. Also.. She is making the middle of nowhere look fabulous. I'm trying not to be jealous.

Remember the plane crash I was telling you about?

After poking around the property for a while, Jessie had a wardrobe change, and the sun was just starting to head behind the mountains around us. Beautiful backlighting? Check.

I think this last one is a favorite of mine with Jessie by that beat-up truck.

One more wardrobe change.

Hey, nice necklace!

Warm it up a little.

Finally, I'd like to show you exactly how much fun we had in Nelson, NV. I don't have a recording of Chris Bartelski's awesome Aaron Neville impression, but I think that you can almost hear it when you look at these pictures of Jessie cracking up.

If you ever run into Chris, from The Reason, the first thing you should ask him to do is sing like Aaron Neville. I would have to say that after his ridiculous photography skills, he could probably list that talent on a resume.

red rocks... kind of.

As promised, I'm now going to post the rest of my Vegas images in order.

On Sunday, we thought we were going to head to Nelson, NV (a ghost town) to shoot, but our plans fell through. (Luckily, we got to go back later in the week.. More on that later.) We found a couple girls, and we decided to drive to Red Rocks. Unfortunately, we were too late to get all the way there before we lost the light, so we just ended up pulling over on the side of the road to get these shots.

This is Elly. She was an amazing sport, and trekked all over the place in stilettos. It was SO cold, too, and she didn't complain once. (You can even see her goosebumps in the second picture!) What more could we ask for? I don't know if you can really get the full effect of the first picture without seeing it full size, but there's something about either the look on her face or the lighting that really makes me happy.

Could we have asked for a better "bouquet" than this tumbleweed?

The next model is Jessie. This is not the last you'll see of her! She ended up in front of our lenses two more times during the week. Once at the Neon Graveyard shoot and again at the Nelson, NV shoot. She was a pleasure to shoot, and was a great sport on this day as it was genuinely FREEZING outside, and she was wearing a short skirt.

I wish I looked this fly in my sunglasses.

Best smile? Yep.

Hope you enjoyed those! I have to say, I'm so pumped to be going back through these images now. It makes me realize just how ridiculously awesome Las Vegas was, and how excited I am to go back next year.