Have I mentioned my admiration for social media? Fashion stylist, Laura Hunt, and I have been virtual friends for a few years. Her online personality is both inspiring and positive. I’ve admired and followed along her career and travels and hoped to one day have the opportunity to work with her. You can imagine my excitement when recently, she reached out on Twitter and complimented our work!

Laura, who currently lives in L.A. was asked to be a style expert guest on the air with host, Jerry Penacoli, on the Daytime TV Show here in Tampa to discuss the Pantone “IT” color of the year, “emerald green”. She shared how to wear this color three different ways on three separate models on the television style segment, and I was there to document the fun that happened behind the scenes at the NBC Daytime Studio!

It was an absolute pleasure working with Laura, and her personality is even better in person. As a bonus, I was able to connect and work with a couple of additional Facebook friends that morning (it’s definitely a small online world)!

Here’s a peek behind the scenes:

In addition to shooting weddings and creative editorials, senior sessions are among our favorite type of shoots. The creativity, fashion and unique personalities make for an awesome combination.

Khaled and I are always honored when other photographers book our services. We see it as one of the highest compliments, so you can imagine our excitement when Chelsea contacted us for her senior portraits. Chelsea is a graphic designer/photographer graduating from the same university I attended, the University of Tampa, and is already making things happen! Her sweet personality and infectious smile  are beautiful attributes and we had an amazing time getting to know more about Chelsea and her future aspirations. We look forward to working again with her…maybe in DC, right Chelsea?? ;)

The beautiful light, weather, and location couldn’t have been more perfect for this session! Enjoy a selection of our favorite images:

One of my favorite perks of living in Florida is the Summer weather almost year-round! Melissa & I shot these beautifully bold and feminine looks this past November and surprisingly, I never featured the shoot on our blog! Well, there’s no better time than the present to share, especially with Summer officially starting in just a few weeks! Holly Nazario of Collective Creations did Melissa’s gorgeous hair and make-up and I had the best assistant in the world that day-my daughter, Karina. Although, she’s never really volunteered again to hold reflectors, change lens, stand for hours in the hot sun, or ward off mosquitoes. Something tells me she likes helping out from the air-conditioned office instead. Either way, I love working with my little one!

This Summer is going to be an eventful one for Kismis Ink! We have unbelievably-great news that we’ll be sharing very soon, a new look, launching a much-needed intern search, a fun contest, and some new Kismis Ink goodies for our awesome clients! Stay updated with all the happenings on our Facebook and Twitter pages and if you just can’t wait to book your portrait session, engagement or wedding, contact us here!

What can I say about this sweet 16 year old, in addition to the fact that she stands at a stunning 5 feet, 10 inches and is absolutely gorgeous? Probably enough for 100 blog posts! Shooting with Elise was such a great experience! When Elise’s mom, Trish called me up about shooting Elise, I was excited to finally work with both of them and Ashley of Integrity Model Management. Ashley had contacted me a few months back about shooting some of IMM’s models, including Elise, but with mutual busy schedules, we had yet to coordinate a date. Hopefully, we can meet Ashley in person sometime in the future!

Elise is a young and super-determined model already rocking the modeling scene! You can be sure to find her gracing the runways during fashion weeks, most recently in Miami, walking exclusively for Zula Studio and Jacksonville. IMM is currently booking her appointments for NYC and Europe and we can’t wait to see all the exciting events in store for Elise! We had the pleasure of spending the day with Elise, her mom and her yiayia and we felt we were with family! Elise is definitely blessed with much love and support! The day was full of laughs and creative ideas! Elise truly worked hard and was open to trying some creative poses that I am sure left her a bit sore!

We were excited to get to work again with Holly Nazario of Collective Creations and she did an amazing job with Elise’s hair and make up! We puffy heart Holly! Elise and Trish brought some fabulous wardrobe pieces and we combined some of the looks with jewelry from my personal collection. I must admit, it was fun having a life-sized barbie to dress-up! ; )

Elise, we had a great time with you and your sweet family! We know your journey is full of success and we look forward to seeing your dreams become reality! Big hugs to you, Trish, and your yiayia. Hope to see you all very soon!

To get to know more about this beauty and stay up-to-date with her news, be sure to check out Elise’s page.

Unbelievable that Thanksgiving & Christmas flew by! In a few short days, we will be welcoming 2011! Part of me is ready with fireworks to bring in the new year-fresh & motivated! But part of me is SO not ready, there is just so much to get done before then! I even have a few more blog posts before the year ends to get in and lots of gorgeous images! ;)

Such as this rockin’ shoot! I am absolutely thrilled to finally share this session with you! Brandi is such a talented model & sweet friend, we were so excited to work with her again! You may recall Brandi from one of our first shoots, a Grease inspired shoot at the Tampa Fair earlier this year.

I had this creative concept in mind for a while & couldn’t wait to shoot with Brandi, she has the perfect look for it! I am in love with ALL of her tattoos, they are stunning, and I wanted them to be a big part of this shoot! This is actually one of my favorite shoots this year. It helped us grow in many ways-challenging us with lighting, location scouting, & timing and I am super happy that everything came together in the most perfect way!
This image below was definitely not expected! We were wrapping up (thanks to daylight savings time our shoot was cut a little short) but we were determined to get in a few more shots! Khaled & I played with the cameras, flashes, and reflectors and Voilà! One of my favorite images!