"Ladies First", event w/ Shimmy!

What’s up, Hive? I have a long, long story to tell but I need to make the time and space for a freewrite. Tonight isn’t the night, so I’m going to share some photography. I’m going to do the very best to commit to the attention needed for this epic blog, but if you’re reading this, please consider following my friend Hive account@girlfromgaza. I’ve shared some of her recent posts. She is a displaced Ghazawi currently in Rafah. If you’ve kept up with the tragedy of Gaza you’ll know that more than 1.2 million Palestinians are there with an Israeli invasion imminent. I’ve been teaching her the Hive platform in hopes that she can teach others in Rafah, similarly to how the Venezuelan GEMS community has grown and prospered from Hive.

For now, I want to share some new work. This is photography from Viva Las Vegas one year ago. I was hired as a guest photography for an event called, “Ladies First”. I was brought on for this event several times over the last ten years so I was looking forward to meeting the clients that participated. One of the models was named Shimmy and we were scheduled first thing in the morning on Saturday during the Rockabilly Weekend convention. We were on the penthouse suite of the Rio hotel and she arrived with intoxicating energy, even for a weekend in Las Vegas when most people are paying the price for Friday night. I love working with professionals like her.

I’d shot in this space the day before, but it was in the evening. The sun coming up gave me great opportunities for lighting that lit the bedroom. My friend Jim Gavenus mentored me and one of his greatest strengths as a documentary photography that uses diegetic light is how black skin looks without a flash. It really is beautiful and thankfully, I’ve managed to capture those rich tones over the years. Darker complexion and a flash typically creates a bluish hue which isn’t always desirable. I love how this window shot came out with Shimmy’s elongated pose. This was one of my favorite sessions of the weekend.

This will be the first year in a decade that I won’t be attending Viva Las Vegas. Due to various changes in my life, I don’t know what my future even holds as a photographer. I have Hive account@guthrie full-time now, which limits my ability to travel. There may be occasional opportunities assuming I can still get bookings. I’ll be going with him to Texas to see the upcoming eclipse at the end of April, but for now, I’m catching up on outstanding edits I still owe from previous shoots and reliving the memories of a wild ten years on the road as a freelance artist. I’m open to the new chapters in my life that are slowly revealing themselves.