Way back in late April people swarmed the Vegas lifestyle to indulge in two things…maybe three, one for sure for most travelers was the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference. For me NAB was my primary purpose as well but my secondary purpose was to shoot a first time model to help on her way into stardom. The picture on the left was taken on the roof of the Jockey Club which sits on the strip right next to the Bellagio and Cosmopolitan casinos and has a great view of the water show. We had an “in” at the hotel that gained us access to the roof – I cant say who or how so don’t go asking around; your attempts will be feeble. This shoot on the roof may have been a once in a lifetime kinda thing that may never happen again.
Our shoot started below inside the hotel in a not so traveled part down a random hallway, I did this for a couple of reasons: 1) to get to know the model and have her feel comfortable working with me, and 2) the sun was still pretty high up in the sky it felt like high noon even though it was 4 pm, 3) for some reason I feel like I need to warm up my photography abilities – it takes a few to get into the rhythm/flow of the shoot. By the way, all of this is to ease our way into the shoot before we went 13 stories up to the exposed rooftop (i could literally roll a ball off the top there was no safety rail or anything – just flat and open). My setup was two flashes, one in my newly acquired Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox and the other was either bare, snooted or shot through umbrella. All in all it was a great shoot, Michelle is a fantastic model and really looks great in front of the camera, which some people can’t pull off – they look good in person but sometimes that doesn’t transistion to in front of the lens. That’s definitely not the case with Michelle – she’s just as good looking in person and i think she would be great for the modeling industry. So if you’re heading to Las Vegas and need a model for a shoot, there’s a chance she will be available. For the rest of the images check my Flickr.
