Good evening, Steemit. Just got home from @caffetto after some intense aggro MTG rounds against @tarotbyfergus. I crushed him and @vermillionfox yesterday, three times in a row in multiplayer games with Liliana’s Zombies […I’ll be posting that deck list soon along with my red and white aggro deck, which may have my best win/loss ratio]. Had a chance to sit down with a friend and walk him through setting up his Steemit account […thanks to @timcliff’s Busy.org account creation tool]. If you get a chance, follow @bukone. He’s an old school hip hop lover from Queens. Not a typical web aficionado or crypto-enthusiast so I love that he made the time to sit down with me and learn. He’s going to make his introduction post this Friday. I’ll be resteeming it and looking forward to him sharing his beats with the Steemit community.

I wanted to share some photos of a gorgeous, talented and sweet Minnesota today named Maria Kochetkova. I’ve featured some of our photography together in an older blog you can still read, “Porcelain dark beauty and 360º VR ballet video!”, but before that big collaboration, I met Maria casually when I hosted a small, private photography session in uptown Minneapolis called Lé Confidant. As you can imagine, February is a struggle for freelance artists as the weeks leading up to the holiday’s strain the wallets of all potential clients. Events are a good incentive for bookings because there’s a momentum you can create that is hard to achieve with private sessions, and it’s usually a better deal. Maria contacted me the day before Lé Confidant and booked the last session I had available.

She’d added me on my personal Facebook the same day, so it was clear she was beautiful. She’s extensively trained in dance and gifted with incredible flexibility. She’s more or less a contortionist, which is a fun idea for any photographer. She’s shot with all the best photographers in the Twin Cities, including @jeffheideman so I was really excited to finally capture her in my own unique voice.

What I wasn’t excepted is how kind, courteous and genuine Maria is as a person. She was an absolute delight to meet and I’m happy to call her a friend. Her work ethic during our first shoot together was remarkable. @mada graciously allowed me to shoot in his home […which he’s done for me a few times], which made for a dark, ethereal backdrop for a beautiful Russian woman. It was a side of Maria I haven’t seen captured at that point, which is a privilege.

It was this first shoot with Maria that made me choose her and my friend Abbie, for this ambitious porcelain dolls shoot that came a year later. I knew Maria was capable, talented and dependable for such a demanding concept. I see Maria’s Snapchats these days. She’s engaged and in a different city each week. She’s doing big things and making the most out of life. I do hope we can find time to shoot in Minneapolis before the end of the year. She would make a perfect addition to the Dark Pinup book I’m doing with @wcpublishing.

Thanks for reading. I post daily. For more photography, art, illustration and the stories behind the work, follow me @kommienezuspadt!