I love unexpected surprises. Three years ago I shot for the first time during WPPI with Meli and again in 2013 in the desert. Her husband Shayne, was my assistant holding a reflector in the desert with wind blowing and sand kicking up while Meli was doing her best to avoid the glare of the sun and not fall in the cracks of the desert floor.

I like to balance between working with new and repeat clients for a variety of reasons. Funny enough, I had actually planned to work with one repeat model from last year and she was a no-show one hour before shoot time - you never know. Meli noticed, through the power of social media, that I was going to be in town and reached out to me to come by. After some texting, we worked out a small window of time to swing by.

I had some other plans on the night we chose so we needed to make it quick. As soon as she came in the door, I got her in front of the camera and started shooting. To her credit, we managed to get a variety of images in about 30 minutes (which is super short for me). Meli is a very experienced model that needs no direction. She just knows how to emote these great expressions and move each time the flash goes off to vary the look each time.

This one below was my favorite! This one has been added to my portfolio!

And a few more with the pink fuzzy coat. Thanks Meli for swinging by.