Monday's Shoot - Amelia

Yesterday I spent the day with Colleen shooting two sets on one a ridiculously hot day (see blog: "Today's Shoot - Colleen"). With Amelia shooting today I sent her a text last night to tell her to prepare for an equally hot day, according to the weather reports. Amelia wasn't happy about that, but she was still eager to shoot nonetheless. We planned for this day more than a month ago and I was just as eager to have her posing again.

I picked Amelia up at 12:37 p.m. this afternoon which is funny because when Amelia asked me what time I wanted to shoot last night, I replied, "11:37 a.m."

"What? Really?" she said questioning my odd time. "Just make it noon."

"Only if I get some extra time rubbing your feet," I told her.

"Deal," she said.

As you can see by the 12:37 p.m. pick up, neither of us were on the ball this morning, but it all worked out good. Minutes later we were on our way.

When we pulled into the first one - a large park that features a massive lake - we had to park in the overflow parking lot. People were everywhere, but most of them were having cookouts and out on the lake in canoes. It is Labor Day, so I counted on there being the possibility that places might be crowded.

We made our way down to the trail that circles the lake to see what we could find. When we came on a long footbridge, we decided to go with it. We could have kept going, but we had already walked quite a bit and didn't want to spend the whole day circling a lake. Plus the bridge looked neat.


Amelia with her legs up on the bridge.


Without anyone around we began taking pictures. Every so often people would come by and we'd stop for a second or two. At one point, however, someone was coming up on us and Amelia's feet were up on the railing (like the in the sample picture above). I just kept shooting and I could see Amelia smirking, but to her credit, she just kept putting her feet in various poses and I kept snapping away. There is no way the person passing us couldn't tell what I was focused on.

Once we finished up the set we began our long walk back. Both of us were glistening with sweat and couldn't wait to get out of the sun.  When we got back to the car I pumped the air conditioning and we decided on our next location - one with numerous spots I've used in the past with the likes of Emerald and Mandy.

After a quick stop for some beverages we made our way out onto another lake, this one, however, we ended up in the middle of on a long pier/landing. The times I shot Emerald and Mandy in the past, this area was under construction, so I wanted to use it.

As we walked out on the pier there was a woman already sitting on one of the many benches on the landing area. She quickly got up and we had the area all to ourselves. Back on land there were numerous people, but we were all alone on this pier/landing. The closest people were the ones on the paddle boats that came by every so often.


I love Amelia's toe spreads!


After rubbing Amelia's feet for a bit it was onto taking pictures once again. I was quick to notice how awesome the setting, colors, and poses were in each and every photo I took. I started to show them to Amelia as we progressed. She was loving them too. This is when I remembered to grab a shot for Instagram (@SolesofSilk). Talk about an awesome sole shot!

I could have honestly shot at this location for hours. We were secluded, there was a nice breeze blowing off the lake, and I played with Amelia's feet numerous times in the midst of all the pictures - talk about perfect. But all good things must come to an end. We shot a fun video clip with her feet perched up on a piling and then made our way back to the car.

Amelia really wanted to shoot three sets and I was having a blast (as always when we shoot), so I began searching for another place we could use. When I began talking about a park I had used many years ago with Wendy, Amelia told me it sounded like a good idea.

When I shot Wendy in this park we had used three different locations during two different visits. I knew the park was very large and recalled a few spots I knew of that we didn't use. But when we got to the park, we ended up finding a spot I didn't even anticipate.

After a long walk down a trail on a very steep hill, we found train tracks. And then we saw that the track went into a tunnel under the very hill we just traversed. I have shot on a train tracks a few times and even told Amelia that I've also been kicked off train tracks twice before - once with Carmen and once with Kimmie. We were so far away from civilization here, I didn't see that happening this time.

When Amelia and I finally got to the tracks we were both shocked by the tunnel. It literally looked like the ones you saw in cartoons where it was just a black void. You could barely see anything inside the tunnel. I sure wouldn't walk through there - even if I knew there was no train coming.


Amelia's VERY dirty soles on the tracks.


Speaking of trains, we were barely there for more than a few minutes when we heard something off in the distance. At first we thought it was a helicopter with the noise was echoing through the hills. Then as it approached, we decided to move off the tracks as it sounded like a train. And a train it was.

What followed was one long train. We had to stay back for a few minutes to let it pass. At least we knew which direction the trains traveled though and wouldn't have to look out for any coming out of the tunnel for the rest of the shoot.

Once we got moving with photos Amelia saw how dirty her soles were from walking on the tracks. Talk about blackened soles! She frowned, but I assured her that there are lovers of dirty feet out there, so we went with it. What followed was one of the dirtier foot sets I've done for the site.

I made sure to shoot a clip of those dirty feet before we left. Luckily for Amelia, there was a river only a few yards away to wash her feet. Of course once she cleaned them, they just got all dusty again walking back up that steep dirt trail in her sandals.

With the third set in the books, sore legs, and sweat dripping from the both of us, we got back into my car and began to head home. Even though the day kicked our asses at times, we had a lot of fun and loved the photos we were able to take. And don't forget to check out the other on set shots I posted to Instagram. I've been really trying hard to get more photos on there, especially while out doing shoots. You'll love the ones from today with Amelia!

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