Bienvenido a Miami! Shoot with Justin Macala

I'll admit, the title of this post is a little misleading. It might of been more appropriate, oh say... 2 months ago- when I first came to South Beach for the summer. But instead of blogging a few times a week about all my new experiences I got so caught up in it all that I didn't post anything..at all. So maybe in the next week or two as I'm back between Jax & Titusville I'll reflect on the past two months and all the experiences Miami had to offer.

I can say this much- moving down here I have never felt more conservatively dressed in my life. My normal resort chic The Loft wardrobe did not fit the bill down here! I saw so many girls' butt cheeks these past 2 months I was sure there was some store down here that all models go to buy their casting attire. Aside from the obviously hand altered shorts almost all the girls wore around, the general style of everyone was very laid back bohemian. The kind of effortlessly chic that made you think these girls rolled out of bed with 5 minutes to spare and grabbed the first things they saw and everything magically just worked.

I could write about the fashion down here for days, but what I really wanted to share are some of my new images from my test down here in South Beach with Justin Macala. It's been awhile since I've shot for the sake of getting images to, for lack of better words, sell myself. I'm always shooting to sell a product, service, idea etc. I don't look like I'm 16!! An accomplishment in itself. 

Bridal shoot with Danielle Nichol Photography

If there's one thing girls do growing up, it's imagine themselves in their future wedding gown. I'll admit I've never actually pictured my wedding day, but I am obsessed with weddings. Wedding decor pinterest board? Got it. Say Yes to the Dress marathons? Know they're on Sunday mornings (And TLC has Brideday Friday). And I'll admit, I wish it wasn't frowned upon to make a girls day of going to a bridal shop and playing dress up. Which is why I love my job- it's the small things ;) Not only have I had the chance to play bride for the day once, but 4 times. There's nothing better than wearing gorgeous gowns, jewels having your hair and makeup all done up and then leaving at the end of the day with no hole in my pocket. It's the ultimate dress-up loophole. I love loopholes.

I jumped through my latest loophole when Danielle of Danielle Nichol Photography wanted to do a bridal inspiration shoot with an AWESOME sunflower field that popped up in our hometown. Danielle just married in March, & so we used her wedding dress for our impromptu shoot. (Somehow I managed to fit myself into her tiny gown!) I brought along my flower crown I made for my graduation party, and with some makeup and hair touchups by Anna Williams, we set out and were "on set" by 7:30, or was it 6:30? Mornings that early tend to be a blur :P No one really warned us that mosquitos swarm at sunrise...but all was okay since Danielle came armed with bug repellent, right? Would have been had the can not mysteriously lost its spraying powers. We made it through like troopers with a surprisingly minimal number of bites- success!

It's awesome to see the fun images that can come out of a simple shoot. I've been glammed up for bridal before, but even with just simple hair, makeup and wardrobe we took some of my favorite bridal images so far. Tomorrow I have a fitting for Central Florida Bride Magazine which I'll be shooting Friday in what I'll call "full glitz" (Toddler's & Tiaras is a guilty pleasure). I'm sure I'll post all about it, and it will probably be lots of pictures of diamonds and makeup- all necessary for full glitz ;) It's cool to see the polar opposite ways bridal can be shot, it all depends on the bride and her vision for her day! I adore going full glitz for shoots (dress-up!!) , but I have to admit I see my future bridal portraits being more down this alley: simple and elegant.

I've been told I resemble Kristen Stewart?!

A bite at b.b's

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE to find awesome new restaurants. So, when business conveniently brought me to Jacksonville last week, my boyfriend and I decided to make the most of my extra time and go exploring downtown.

Aside from working at the WJCT studio on the outskirts near the stadium, I had never been to Downtown Jacksonville so I didn't know what to expect. As adventurous as we are, Sean & I still made 8pm reservations for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse just incase our search ended badly- I'm hypoglycemic, so our adventures have to have certain precautions...I'm not very pleasant when I'm hungry! After driving around downtown for a few minutes we soon realized it was no downtown Orlando. We saw a place called Jacksonville Landing right on the riverfront so we decided to walk around there and see what we found. Awesome location, awfully dated. It had a boardwalk vibe and was probably an awesome place 20 years ago, now not so much. So we picked a restaurant on the upper floor and sat outside right on the water, after glancing at the menu we realized that this place was not what we were looking for and we weren't ready to settle just yet! So we paid for Sean's coke and headed back to the car, pretty hungry at this point! We weren't ready to give up just yet so we jumped over the bridge to check out the "other side" of downtown inching our way closer to Ruth's Chris. We were just about ready to head over to our reservation when we passed this really cool looking building seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Image from www.bbsrestaurant.com
View from the street

From my iPhone- view from the parking lot, love the vine covered wall!

Jessica Castro for Derrière de Soie

Late last March Jessica Castro and I headed up to Daytona Beach to shoot some exquisite little numbers for Derrière de Soie- a high end lingerie boutique out of  Charlottesville,Virginia. I'm a firm believer that the best images come out of working with talented friends. Jessica is an amazing friend (we both love Harry potter and hate roller coasters) & and absolutely PHENOM photographer. Sadly, I'll have to journey up to Atlanta now to see her since she's getting a change of scenery while finally being with her longtime Boyfriend who's working on the set of Drop Dead Diva (yes, he met Kim K haha)

So, when Jessica told me her client wanted me to model some of their items for their upcoming website launch I knew it was bound to be a great shoot. But not all great shoots are without their obstacles & that morning was a full fledged Wipe Out course. My 5:30 am alarm was actually set for pm, advice: don't set alarms while half asleep. I woke up in a panic and rushed to Pick up my boyfriend Sean who miraculously agreed to bring your boyfriend to work day. After some chaotic breakdowns which ended in me calling McDonald's Walmart & Winn Dixie... Sean made the well minded decision to take the wheel. It wasn't until we reached our exit that I realized I had forgotten all of my extra clothing items Jessica had told me to bring just incase. But when we pulled up to this awesome old vintage home I knew it would still be an awesome day..

Not that the rest of the day was without hiccups- I actually also sat in an old chair and broke it, & also attempted to lay in al already broken hammock resulting in me on the ground!
Apart from all that our shooting space was great. The home had awesome wall papers and 3 stories to play in. The top loft was my favorite with its natural lighting, light wood floors, multiple windows & awesome bookshelf. The area actually used to be a yoga classroom and I could definitely see why! The only other person in the building that day was an awesome life counselor who was busy in her office with clients all day, so we were basically on our own! We didn't have a hair or makeup artist with us so we went with natural hair and light makeup that I did myself- sometimes light powder & some mascara is all you need! I'm really happy with how they came out and even happier that the client loved them too!

See? Awesome wood floors!

Be sure to check out Jessica's other awesome work & follow derrière de Soie on twitter.com/silkybottom if you liked the pieces- they'll be launching their website soon for orders, & I'm pretty excited to get my hands on some of these pieces for good :)