For more images from the shoot go here

For more images from the shoot go here.

For licensing information send a request here:

We did a studio pin-up boudoir mash up as a wedding gift for her hubs.

Overall we had a great time in-studio, just a bunch of girls playing dress up with a fancy camera and good lighting.

Berry and Derek with their super serious shopper faces on.

The crazy giant inny-outy escalator staircase

So I was a little bored. We moved on. We ended up going over to the Gate then around Fort Point and up to The Presidio and finally moving on to Haight Street. On the way to Haight we met the greatest man at a gas station who thought I was amazing and that Berry was beautiful and I needed to make more babies. As he went out the door to, as he put it, tell my husband to put more babies in me (Damn I Love San Francisco) I yelled “That’s not my husband!!” As if the rest of it wasn’t embarrassing enough. The whole spectacle was a bunch of hilarious fun.

We got to Haight in time for the light, which made me extremely happy.

We were quite the crowd pleasers, made some new friends:

Haight Street was a bunch of fun. We decided to chase the light back over to the Gate but didn’t quite make it in time. Wah wah wah. So we were off to find dinner. We ended up down on the pier.

We had a good dinner and wandered a bit before heading further downtown to do some night photography in the city.

After a few hours downtown we decided it would be easier to stay up all night than to go back to the hotel and sleep for a couple hours then get up for the sunrise at the Gate. So. We wandered the city a bit before stopping at an all night diner for breakfast and heading up to the top of Fort Point where Derek played Angry Birds the rest of the night while I snored and Berry stretched out across the back seat of the Charger. Good times.

The best part was the sunrise being fogged in.

We went back to the hotel and slept for a few hours before we did some shots in the pretty window light in the room and headed out.

We were going to the Muir Wood, to shoot in the redwood forest, on the way the light was so nice I put a bounce in Ds lap and shot some images on the über-windey road.

The woods were packed so we went on to the beach which was beautiful.

After the beach we zoomed back to the city for some awesome sushi and then Haight Street for the tattoo I’ve been waiting to get. D ended up with one as well. From Mom’s Tattoo Parlor. Awesome.

We had one last stop before taking D home and that was the milkshake I promised him a couple moths ago.

We went to Mel’s dine (of course) and he got a chocolate, peanut butter, caramel milkshake. It was pretty good. D on sugar was about ten times worse than D on food. It was pretty damn funny.

We dropped him off, found our hotel and passed out cold.

OK off my soap box. *glares* Back to our regularly scheduled blog:

I brought Derek Hutchins out, the model who portrayed the hero in my illustrated novel, and we had a great time entertaining readers and making everyone happy in general. If you are interested in that chaos you can read my writer blog here.

I had one day to recover from that mess to do laundry, check my gear and get on a plane to California to shoot some portfolio images for Derek. I flew out Wednesday morning with Berry who came with me as key grip / lighting assistant. After the rental car fiasco (read: eff you Budget rent-a-car; National you are my HERO) we were cruising in a Charger toward Danville to meet Derek for lunch and get a game plan.

It had been a whole two days since I’d dropped him off at the airport in Colorado, good grief. After lunch Berry and I headed for San Francisco to scout a bit and to exchange our prissy white Charger with the radio static issue (no bueno for all the driving we were in for) for a mean looking black Charger. It made Berry *squee* with happiness. Worth it. Then we headed straight for the top of the PCH and headed for Rockaway Beach.

I love Rockaway because it is always covered in surfers and the sand is ashtray soft in places and like sandpaper in most others while being a range of black to white in tone. It adds a great texture to images. We took a couple shots and headed on our way. We stopped again in Half Moon Bay to book a room for the night in Salinas, then headed for Santa Cruz. I really wanted to shoot some youthful fun here at the boardwalk, and I’m already familiar with Santa Cruz after spending a couple days here last year hunting down…stuff. That trip was probably the start of my want to shoot a model around the Cabrillo Highway.

It was dark as sin on the beach of course, which is creepy because you can hear the surf coming but can’t see it coming. Also makes for focusing a bit difficult. Meh.

We had $10 lobsters and walked the boardwalk before heading out to Salinas for the night. The next morning we had breakfast and went straight to McWay Falls in Big Sur. Beautiful, stunning, inaccessible with gear. I’m not going to break my neck for this particular shot. The recent mudslides have carried away the easier access points, so it was nice to look at, but we had to move on.

Next we hit my number one. Garrapata Beach. The history here really pulls at my heart, and shooting in this area means many things to me. The last time I was here a big storm had come through and the beach was completely gone, there was maybe 30 feet below the cliffs to the waters edge. The stairs had been destroyed so you had to access the beach from the north side of Doud Creek which hits the beach. None of the recognizable rock formations I was familiar with were there, I thought they had been damaged or destroyed in the storm. What I learned this year was the beach was gone, but the rock formations were still there, they were just so much farther up you couldn’t see them. The beach this year was actually so high and deep that my favorite formation was not just viewable but easily accessible. When I shot it before I had to climb or hail mary to get the camera angle, now the footprint was at waist level. I was extremely happy to see something I thought to never see again. Learning how the coastline can change so drastically from year to year was a great bonus. (I’m a Colorado girl, I don’t know this stuff!)

They built a beautiful new staircase to access the main beach, and we walked it all the way to the Doud Creek outlet. Here I was not so happy. The creek was so incredibly overgrown it was hardly accessible and the water running down the canyon couldn’t even be seen. We hiked in to the staircases, and up the south case to get back to the car but it was obvious we wouldn’t be shooting the creek as I had been thinking about for the past two years. This is what scouting is for. So we found one location I thought was gone, and two I thought would be great but wouldn’t work at all.

Doud Creek Before and today:

The thing is it was so overgrown I couldn’t even get very far back into the valley, and it was not just overgrown by lilies and other wildflowers but by poison oak, which I did run into at some point. Not too badly. But I had to see how far we could get. Anyway it was obvious the creek was basically out for the style I wanted to shoot there, so we moved on, it was about time to head to Oakland and grab Derek do we could drive back to Monterey for a sunrise near Garrapata.

More on that later.

The importance of scouting, particularly in the natural world should be evident here. I gained one site but lost two.

We picked up Derek and went over his wardrobe then headed for Monterey. The plan was to stay there and get up early to shoot the Garrapata area. Now, when I go out on assignment I use Hotwire, Priceline and other such websites for late bookings relatively cheap. I am usually happy with where we end up. This night, however, was not so bueno. We basically stayed at what I dubbed “The Murder Hotel” and everyone was upset with me from that moment on. The room I booked was no longer available (of course) there were no non smoking rooms left (of course) and there was only one room with a queen bed (!). I gave him the face. Those of you who know me, know the face. Well this was the face after midnight and a full day of scouting, driving and wanting sleep.

What we ended up with were two rooms, each with a queen bed. In the Murder Hotel. One was room number ONE. Right by the soda machine, easy access, first room by a noisy scream-covering machine. The Murder Room in the Murder Hotel. Derek got it. Now in all my life I have never wished I had a camera more at this moment. We moved everything into my room, that I would share with Berry, and D walked in first, saw this giant red stain on the floor and just hovered there staring at it.

“Someone was killed here.”

*Stares*

*Stares harder*

*Looks up*

“You have a giant blood stain on your floor.”

*Stares some more.*

*pouts*

“Oh my Gosh.” (maybe, perhaps not those exact words.) “This really is the murder hotel!” That was Berry.

Then all eyes on me. GAH!!

I threw my suitcase over the giant stain and D continued to stare as Berry laughed and we left everything to walk D to his room. Buddy system you know. At least the number wasn’t swinging from just one nail. Just saying. We left D, and I texted him once back at the room.

We woke in the morning to find we had survived, so we showered, bagged our pjs in hermetically sealed bags so the smoke smell wouldn’t infect the rest of our suitcases and got the heck out of there. I won’t say where it is, I won’t tell you which one. Because that is what adventure is all about. But if you end up in room 14 with a giant blood stain, you let me know.

We ended up at a little victorian place for breakfast then headed down the 17 mile drive. Beautiful scenery.

The first place we stopped to shoot was a little rocky shoreline covered with moss and seaweed. D didn’t see what I was going for, the land looked gross, but that’s ok. We got him in some nice Armani briefs and climbed down to the water and I sent him in.

It.

Was.

Cold.

Not just a little bit, but REALLY. Now, I wouldn’t make D do anything I would not do myself, for the most part, so I followed. I was straddling a rock shooting him in the frigid surf, while onlookers began to line up on the surrounding outcroppings. One woman shot some video and some other people took cell phone pics, I mean who wouldn’t? Sexy guy in briefs in the frigid water.

Well, that’s such a flattering pic of me isn’t it? My pants were soaked. D’s weren’t That’s how that went. It was fun. One guy, who had an Italian accent, followed us up to the car and asked if we were shooting for the new Armani catalog, and said he was going to go out and buy some Armani right then because D looked so good. He was very excited about having witnessed our little photo shoot.

That was the first time we stopped some traffic, but it wouldn’t be the last.

D wrapped up in a nice fluffy towel and we headed out. Next stop was the nice sweeping beach I love.

Cora isn’t the only one who crawls around on the ground. Just Saying.

We headed for the Doud Creek even though I knew it wouldn’t shoot well, die hard. It happens.

Then came back out to the beach to shoot a bit more. More Armani, more freezing surf, more fun.

D got a bit cold out there in that wicked surf with no body fat, so I wrapped him up in my sweater.

Sad Panda.

Then we moved on.

Next up was the jetty at  Moss Landing.

And a few more clothes.

We skipped Santa Cruz, and headed for San Francisco.

I flew him out here for promo work for RomCon and to make some connections, meet some other authors, and do some work with one of the biggest cover agencies in the U.S. as well as to meet with my producer Annette so she could check him out.

We spent three crazy days shooting, parading, changing, schmoozing, laughing, and entertaining the crowd. It was a blast and in the end I think it was incredibly successful. The main thread in a romance novel is the hero, so if you want to sell the book you bring the hero along, and Derek is a great sales tool. He isn’t just pretty  he is personable. Everyone loves him.

We had him up on the waterfall for some highlander fun, got the hotel management out of their box for awhile to warn us they weren’t interested in a lawsuit and all the attendees out in the lobby to ogle and take pics. I had three of the best bloggers in the romance community come out and assist me on the shoots as well, so that’s who has my bounce, I know everyone is shocked it isn’t Cora.

There are a lot of images that need editing, but my favorites were from our Gonzo shoot around Denver on Sunday so here are a few:

Levi Goedl

Levi Goedl

Daniel, Anya and Eleanor, characters from a novel, and a little bit of me. Though in general I don’t add myself to images, in this one, since it was done as fan art for the author, I did, albeit in a very subtle way. So subtle in fact the majority of viewers will be hard pressed to recognize it.

Daniel is a former librarian archivist (sorry, Sir) and anya is a talented seamstress while Eleanor is a feisty life saver, of sorts, who loves to be tied up.