Greetings,

Welcome to March already. Summer is approaching fast. But, until it hits us, the days out there are amazing. I hope all of you are taking walks and enjoying our weather. Linda and I certainly are.

This month I’m featuring Courtney Tilla. Amazing lady and wonderful life coach. And, obviously beautiful, as if I have to point that fact out.

So, yesterday I returned after spending the entire weekend shooting with Elley Cat on the Dunes in California and then at the Salton Sea. I’m still a little exhausted, but I couldn’t possibly be happier with what we created. Over 1600 images.

First the dunes. I was worried about the crowds. The weather was amazing with blue skies and slight breezes. The perfect crowd attractor. BUT, the weekend before was a 3 day weekend and I hear it was packed. I expect that was the reason very few people were there last weekend and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I need to make note that the weekends after a holiday are best for normally crowded locations.

Since the dunes have been on my photography bucket list since day one, I felt the pressure of grabbing all I could while we were there. We have a 4 seater sand buggy and Elley’s Fiancé was our driver. So, we are flying around on the dunes and he was waiting for me to play Spielberg and point and yell ‘stop!’ when the exact location was spotted. And I did.

The first spot and first set was enough to make the entire trip worth it. It is always a good feeling to knock out a perfect shot (my opinion) within the first hour. The takes a lot of the pressure off, but it doesn’t reduce the creativity. On that spot we did 4 or 5 sets. We kept the foot prints to a minimum and shot in one direction, then changed and shot in another, and kept at it at the same spot for 2 hours. The first image in the gallery is the dune shot that made my whole trip. What do you think?

The blue sky and the perfect brown dunes just blew me away. I will include that ‘killer shot’ on the dune in this week’s edition as well as a couple others. I haven’t had time to go through them and select the best ones. But, from what I could see, I finally learned to light pretty well on location. In the past I would tend to over light the subject and it was obvious they were lit. On this trip there is a little of that, but in most of the images she is lit up perfectly and you have to really look to see where the light is coming from. I’m sure excited about how they came out for that reason. On top of that, the clarity and composition is so dead on for most of them that all I really need to do is slap my logo on them and toss them out there as finished images. Really. More of my work will be as the camera saw it.

The next day we went to the Salton Sea and Bomb Bay Beach. Great place to film the end of the world. Abandoned buildings and loads of graffiti everywhere. I was apprehensive about getting anything really good from that location. I was wrong. Not the same kind of art as the dunes of course, but some wonderful art indeed. Elley also Brough a couple looks that worked well with all of that. And we shot in the rocks and did Laura Croft and then angel wings at sunset.

So, last weekend was one of those all to rare epic times that was great fun and super creative. And as some may have noticed, I shoot with Elley a lot. She’s a wonderful actress, important to get amazing poses and expressions, and she’s ready to do anything I ask for whatever idea that pops into my noodle. Being beautiful, bright, and a great friend has nothing at all to do with it. Oh no, not at all. (grin)

Lots more art from that weekend will be here over the next few months or even years. Oh, and let me know what you think the body scape, last image in the gallery actually is. It’s a mind twister.

Until next week. Stay warm, dry, happy, and healthy. Please!

Dave

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Enough about me. Enjoy this month’s art and let me know what you think.

Until next week, enjoy!!! And stay safe.

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