High Fashion Photo Shoot in the Sun

Last October, I got the opportunity to work one-on-one with a famous, incredibly talented photographer named Nicole Van Valkenburg. (You can see my post about it here and you can go to her website here).
I finally was able to go out with my good friend and photographer extraordinaire, Jessica McAllister to try out some of the techniques I learned. I didn't have all the same equipment that Nicole had, so we made do with what we had. I think the results are quite beautiful. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot. (Jessica had other favorites, and you can see them on her blog here).

 These are a couple of my favorites that Jessica took of me. I did the cropping and editing.

Mrs. Colorado Pageant 2012

This year I was able to sponsor my friend, Valentina Anderson, in the Mrs. Colorado Pageant. This is the third year I have sponsored her, and her best year ever! The pageant was held at the Buell Theater in downtown Denver and was hosted by Richard Ortner (local weatherman) and Emily Stark (for Mrs. Colorado and pageant director). The funniest thing happened very early on when Richard Ortner's pants almost fell to his ankles in front of the whole audience! Luckily, he noticed his excessively loose pants and grabbed them before we all got to see what kind of underwear he had on.

The rest of the night went off without a hitch :)
Here's Valentina coming onstage for the first time as all the women introduced themselves:

She made the Top 17! (Top 15 plus two more because there was a tie):

Here she is strutting her stuff in her swimsuit:

Walking onstage in her evening gown:

In the end, she did not win, but was very happy with making the Top 17. After the pageant was over, we had a mini impromptu photo shoot. For more pictures from the pageant, including images of the winner, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/BluePrintsPhotography

Congratulations Valentina! You are amazing!