2016 Kauai, Hawaii

Nothing like running out on stage, yelling, “Hello Los Angeles!”, dropping the mic and jumping on a plane to Hawaii. But that was pretty much the beginning of June for me. Setting up shop in LA before heading to the stunningly gorgeous island of Kauai, consisted mostly of me unboxing the barest of essentials, putting together my location camera kit, and back-burner-ing everything else before I returned to California in mid-June. But if there was ever a happy reason to put off getting settled in, ten days of photographing lovely models in Hawaii, certainly was it.

It was my return to Zoefest XIII after far too long of an interlude. For my Gentle Readers who may not recall, it’s an invite-only artist retreat of sorts. Zoe Wiseman, a wonderful Los Angeles photographer, organizes the very nearly annual fest, bringing together about a dozen photographers and an equal number of models from all over the world to create art in a ridiculously beautiful location.

As much as I’ve traveled, I had never set foot on any of the Hawaiian Islands before this adventure. Nearly a few times, but never quite made it. The closest I’d gotten to Kauai was watching Jurassic Park and Lost, both of which used the island for filming locations in the past. But as is usually the case, being there is beyond what you might imagine. Even the hour drive from the tiny airport to our oceanfront suites on the other side of the island at the Hanalei Colony Resort, or a run in to one of the small towns to pick up supplies was always a magnificent visual inspiration.

And my return also meant reuniting with good photographer friends and models, many of whom I hadn’t seen in a few years. Along with new faces as well. Lovely faces. Which brings me to Meluxine.

It’s pronounced, Mel-uh-zeen, for those of you frozen in your tracks at the end of that last sentence there.

Meluxine continues the trend of every Australian I’ve met in the last few years, being off-the-charts brilliant. I do love the Aussies. Always a higher than average fun quotient, intelligent and well-read, engaging, and quite often stunningly gorgeous. Meluxine ticks all of those boxes with indelible ink.

And if that weren’t enough to make you take notice, she writes her own science blog called, smashingly appropriately, Another Bloody Science Blog. No, that head of hers is not just a pretty place to put a hat. And she’s hysterically funny. I could go on.

The photograph above we made only minutes into our first collaboration together. One of those planet-aligning photoshoots when both of us were working at the top of our game. I often use the phrase, an embarrassment of riches, to describe an experience beyond expectation, and working with Meluxine yielded just that. Four shoots over as many days, and we now have our work cut out for us to try to narrow down what we will end up putting out into the world. That riches thing I just mentioned.

You’ll be seeing much more of our art together going forward.

Oh, and more about this LA thing as well!