Several years ago I met Eunice through a meet-up photo-shoot in NYC in 2009. Turns out her friend Melissa saw the images of Eunice and was curious what fantastic professional (I'm embellishing quite a bit here) took those images. We had been trying to connect ever since.

Melissa lives in the Boston area and back in the day was roommates with Eunice and competed in beauty pageants together and have been friends ever since. Melissa has picked up a few honers along the way: Miss Rhode Island Latina, Miss US Latina (where she met Eunice), and Miss Colombia New England. Very impressive!

A few months ago Melissa reached out to me via LinkedIn and I suggested we get together the next time she's in NYC. The next day, I received a response that said, "Okay, how about March 24th?". Wait, let me think about it - 'Hell yeah!'

I had a couple concepts I wanted to try out and Melissa was very receptive in collaborating on the ideas. I think it helped to bring this shoot to another level. I brought in a make-up artist, Nicole, that I worked with one other time and we were set.

Comparison of two treatments on this image

Last but certainly not least. This image was the very last one we did for the day and I'm so glad we tried it because I feel like this is my favorite image that I've ever taken. I was standing on a laddar with Alejandro (studio guy) holding it below. Two lights were on Melissa; one camera right (main light) and the other was camera left slightly behind her. I just asked her to twirl around with this great dress she had. We grabbed several like this but this was the favorite of the bunch. What you don't see here is all the clutter that was in the original image. A big thanks to Prerak for helping bring this image to life!

A good friend of mine, Jill, has started a business called "Wellness with Friends". It promotes the enjoyment of massage coupled with the fun of having your friends around all in the comfort of your own home.

If, for example, you were looking for a bachelorette party idea, you could call Jill to give her the details of how many people would attend, what types of services would they like, and what time do you want to start and then she would take care of the rest. Everything from the scheduling of the staff to provide the service to the food to the transformation of the rooms in your home along with communicating with your friends to let them know about all the details. That sounds pretty valuable to me if I could have someone take care of all the details.

For my part, I have two things I'm helping with. The first was to capture what a "Wellness Party" would look like. Everything from the food, to the attendees, to people learning about and receiving services, and featuring the robes and other elements that help set the stage for the party. I've put together a few images that help show you what I mean.

The second part, to come soon, is helping Jill setup a website to allow people to easily learn about and book a reservation for a Wellness With Friends party.