Marie

Last week I had a request for a post featuring the lovely Marie.  Marie and I go way back together.  She actually contacted me on a trip with her boyfriend at the time (since gone their separate ways) across the southwest.  She's a petite thing and a trained formal ballet dancer.  She has that dancer's body and is, I would say, very sleek and a natural poser.  She is one of many models from Canada, but comes touring through the US often.  She spent the night at our house, and we spent the day out at a new spot I'm exploring out by Cedar Pockets in Nevada.  There's a hiking trail out that way and although it's well used, you can find some secluded and not so secluded spots to shoot.  Marie and I got close to 600 photos.  At the end of the day we encountered some bighorn sheep and a couple of hikers on the trail.  I think they enjoyed their view.  They came up and spoke with us at the trailhead.  Nude models are a completely different breed.  They are more comfortable nude than clothed.  It turned out the hikers were parked right next to us and you could tell they were figuring out what to say to a lady they had seen nude just a few minuted before.  I and the models I work with regularly run into people while we're shooting and the models just chatter away while the people are a little taken aback.  I've only had one instance where we were reported to a ranger, and we were about to leave anyway.  I had a ranger wander up to where a model and I were shooting, and she (yes a woman ranger) just walked up and said to us to be careful.  There were some children headed towards us up the trail.  It's a little known fact that shooting photos with a nude model is perfectly legal on federal lands in the west as long as you're not in a campground.  Depending on where you're at, you may need a permit (Utah and some of the national parks), but the permits are usually easy to get.  You just specify that you're doing roadside photography.  This trail is a BLM-maintained trail in Arizona (I believe).  It's also perfectly legal to shoot nudes at most state-owned beaches in Oregon.

I hope you enjoy this posting with Marie.  Like I said we shot over 600 photos this day so there will be more of this beauty.  Thank you all for your support.  It enables me to shoot with Marie and the other beautiful models featured on this page.