Every boy huggles his pretty pussy, part two.

 As promised, I want to put up a collection of my favorite shots I did for clients last year. The year started off pretty slowly, which is always fine by me, since school makes it difficult for me to concentrate and get photos done, and then covid hit and I had to pull all of my ads, and then we felt a bit more comfortable with precautions and then we did a fuck ton of shoots, and then we had to move and turn shoot after shoot down. Which was a bummer, but I'm really pleased with the work we did last year. 

I won't be posting any of the derby shoots Derek and I did. Not because I don't love them, but because headshots are Derek's speed, not mine, and he did the shooting for those, I just edited them. It feels disingenuous. 

On we go!

I LOVE milk bath shots. I was really sad that we had to turn down a few, and ran out of time for others, but the ones we did get to do this year are my favorites so far. 

BLACK. BATH. BOMB. Pure magic. 

Doesn't she look like a newly born wood nymph?? 

I had had my eye on shooting in that location for a LOOOOONG time. Kee Kee made all of my dreams come true there. She's too fucking cool.

And now the absolute highlight of my 2020: mermaid photos. I did a few in 2019, and I had been waiting on doing them since....oh, 2018? Whenever I knew we were moving to Hawai'i, I knew I had to do mermaids. It took me a long time to convince Derek these would be popular or profitable enough to justify buying the tails (they are not inexpensive, and they do not last terribly long), but when I finally did, I jumped on it. I did some test shoots in 2019 with friends who agreed to model for me, and then I got my first for real paying merclient, and then I got so many more. Again, covid rained on our parade and we turned down a LOT of shoots, and I've gotten requests for them since leaving the island that I obviously had to say no to, as well. It's been too cold here in Missouri for me to look at the places I have eyeballed, and to find new places that I don't know about, but as soon as weather warms up, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can make mermaids work here, too. 

Here are my favorites from 2020:

And there it is. 2020 wasn't all bad, but I'm very lucky, in that regard. I'm hoping I can feel confident enough to get back into photography sometime soon, but if not, that's fine. I have personal projects I want to work on, I'm resolved to posting more thirst traps on instagram because I'm a snack and I need to, and I'm hoping to start grad school in the fall. If it isn't a busy professional photo year, I'm alright with that. The plague isn't over yet. 

Every boy huggles his pretty pussy, part one.

 I only have five more photos left to edit before I'm out from under all of the work that backed up during the move, and then I can get to working on my own photo projects. I have a pretty big one I've been daydreaming about for a few years now, I just need 300 bucks to make it happen. Which seems like nothing, but I'm also putting every spare dime I have toward a two week trip to Ithaca in May, and then a week in Colorado in June, and then a few days in NC in July plus another trip back to CO at the end of the month. It's a fuck ton of travel. 

Anyway. I wanted to compile my favorite shots from 2020 in here, I feel like I do that every year, but I'm too lazy to look. 

So, here are my favorite photos I took for me, not for clients, last year:

Caught this dude surfing at the beginning of the year, during a pretty mild storm. II'm a sucker for monochrome. 

Top of Crouching Lion, after the early ass AM hike. I really miss O'ahu. 

Marching at the George Floyd protests in Honolulu. 

An Empty Waikiki Beach, right after the covid shutdowns. I can't say I was sorry to see the island beaches so empty, honestly. Seeing Honolulu so empty was wild. 

Our second to last time at Ka'ena Point. 

I never did figure out what kind of lichen or fungus or mold or...air plant?... this is. But I loved seeing them all over the hike Derek and I did at...uh....fuck. I can't remember the name. But it was a five mile hike, it was a good one, and there are so many other photos from the hike that I loved, but I never got around to blogging about it. 

Lulumahu Falls. I really really REALLY wanted to do a mermaid shoot here, and I had quite a few people that were more than happy to make the trek to the location and be in the freezing freezing water to make it happen for me. However, each time we tried to set up a shoot here, it rained and I called the shoots off. Should have just gone for it, anyway, it always rains in Hawai'i. I deeply regret it. 

This was a small beach down by Kahe that I loved to take sunset shots at. These are from several different days. 

Makapu'u beach. I did Derek's mermaid photos here, and they turned out magnificently. I just wish I could have done the couples mermaid shoot here that was planned, but got rained out and rescheduled at a different location. Also one of my favorite beaches to photograph surfers at. 

Found this little bloom on the way to Maunawili Falls (which killed my knees. They grind now, very audibly, and the last mile is almost all stairs. It uh...it wasn't great. 

Pele's Well, Big Island. This is the first stop we made after arriving! I wanted to come back to get sunset photos of Pele's Well,  but we ended up packing the trip way too full.

The Painted Church! I gave the entire history on this in my Big Island recap. I truly was smitten with just how ugly this church is. 

Akaka Falls. OF course. 

Volcanoes National Park, which was pretty much fogged out every single day we went, save for one. 

Papakolea Beach! I know nobody notices, but it isn't lost on me that I'm not writing the phonetic markers on the names of everything. I am lazy and sorry. 

Various places around Volcanoes National Park. Which is massive. 

An adorable little saffron finch gets an adorable little nosh in the rain. 

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of this beach overlook. I also wrote about this in the Big Island recap, though...uh...I may never have published that one. Fuck, I really WAS bad about blogging last year. 

We drove by this gorgeous Japanese cemetery, I could have spent hours there. I felt very certain that the tree in the middle was either haunted, or the start of a mythical quest. I didn't get close enough to find out. 

Driving by the foot of Mauna Kea, a storm was rolling in. I really wanted to stop, the colors were so beautiful, but this was the best I could get from the car. 

And now we're in Missouri. No more new Hawai'i photos ever again, there are too many other places to see in the world. 

I fucking love my macro. 

I fucking LOVE my macro. 

I FUCKING LOVE MY MACRO!!!!!!!!

I was so annoyed at Derek when he bought one for himself. So annoyed that I promptly stole it and we had to buy a second one. Seriously, seriously, seriously...I love my macro. 

Aren't Lily Pads neat??? 

Obviously, I am a true artist and everything I do is original and good. 

This is one of the juvenile Ruby Throated Hummingbirds in our backyard. We moved in at the very tail end of hummingbird season, but we spent hours photographing them and being delighted by them. We even befriended a few enough so that they'd land on our fingers. They truly weigh nothing. 

Sleepy little bumbler bee!!! Did I mention I love my macro? I do.

I lied earlier. One more new Hawai'i shot. Our last time at Ka'ena, we took pictures of the salt collecting in the tiny tide pools on the big rocks. I am not great with my macro when I have to point down and keep my shutter speed low because it's getting dark out, but I'm not completely mad at this shot. 

So there they are. My favorite shots of my own from 2020. 

But 2020 was also a really good year for me, professionally. I am going to do that in a second blog, just because there are already 50 photos in here.