Danielle was the second person involved in my latest duo super session, along with her friend Shelley. These are her images and story.
I love helping people see themselves in a new light. I truly believe we are our own worst enemies when it comes to our self image. When we look at ourselves in the bathroom mirror at 7 am all we see are the “flaws” and “issues.” We never see the truth, the good.
Shelley was part of a duo session. She and her friend Danielle teamed up to do a super session as part of their work-up for a local fitness competition. Danielle’s images will be posted later. This is all about Shelley.
Therefore I’m going to let her talk first.
“I was absolutely blown away by Mark’s professionalism and amazing photography skills. We did the shoot one week prior to a bodybuilding competition that I competed in and it was the greatest confidence boost that I needed right before stepping on stage. Mark truly captured the rough and hard beauty for the fitness photos and then we ended our session at First Landing with the most unique sunset I have ever seen. I have never felt so beautiful, confident, and feminine. Mark is truly an amazing photographer and I would recommend him to anyone. I have already started to plan my next shoot with Mark!”
I have known Jinelle for a while now. She’s a fashion model in the local scene but I know her as she was part of my Power project over a year ago. We’ve remained in contact since then. She is a budding photography enthusiast and has been taking lessons to improve her imagery and editing skills.
She is a Renaissance woman. She works on her own truck, does woodworking, and goes camping almost every weekend among other things. She’s also, at almost six feet tall and in great shape, a classic beauty. There is no doubt in my mind that, if she was alive at the time, she would have been a model for a sculptor like Michelangelo.
I recently met up with Sarah and Jordan at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach on a warm, breezy May day. It was cold and rainy for almost a week beforehand but it all went away on the day of the session.
I’ve known Sarah for a couple years now but never had the pleasure of meeting Jordan until our consultation day. It was apparent from the moment we all met that it was going to be an epic session. We agreed to a beach session, made plans, and counted the days until go time.
Britany and Dalton are a fun couple. They reached out to me to photograph their engagement photos but they warned me they were looking for something a little different. They had me at “different.”
I’ll let Britany explain:
I’ve loved to run since I was 14. It’s a part of my life. Dalton has always hated running and would never go with me. I attempted to get him to go with me at least once a week.
Valerie is no stranger to the local modeling scene as she has walked in numerous shows and worked with several, very talented, photographers. Sadly, I wasn’t one of them. We have several friends in common and but our paths never crossed until I got a message from her recently.
During our chat she revealed that she had never done a beach portrait session. It was something she has always wanted to do but never got the opportunity. Talk about a match made in Heaven. We quickly set up a time to meet up.
A typical conversation between someone looking to do a session and myself involves several texts, phone calls, and/or skype sessions to establish a rapport, cover topics like expected outcomes, limits of exposure, outfits, make-up and hair style appropriate for such a session, availability, and so on. I then get everything set up, go over last minute issues and such right up to the start of the session.
The whole point of that is to point out that setting up a session takes some time. Days. Weeks even.
When people like Carrie contacts me, our messages typically go like this:
Carrie: Hi Mark, I was wondering…
Me: Let’s do it. When are you free?
