I started my week long Arkansas vacation in Joplin on the first day and night off, met a couple of my models from Fayetteville there and updated photos of one of my Joplin models as well while there. Joplin is the home of many things and I`m usually there in late September for the Rock and Gem Show as well, but some people have no clue that there is a very pretty waterfall there, guessing because its located outside the city limits just barely, but in recent years the county has adopted it and turned it into a county park, which is a good thing, believe me.

Grand Falls has the widest base of any waterfall at least in the midwest, if not the entire USA, and flows constantly, fed constantly by Shoal Creek which is spring fed and is as wide as any major river.

I have shot models at this beautiful waterfall for several years and I`m glad to see a police presence there these days. A  few years ago, I was fortunate to shoot a beautiful sunset there with one of my Oklahoma models, Tim Lee…we were actually on our way to dinner when we left the motel and saw the clouds forming up for a great sunset…so Tim ran and got his Aussie Swimshorts and I grabbed my camera and off we headed to the falls, putting dinner plans on hold. We got there with just a few minutes to spare and it turned out to be one of those sunsets where the clouds just seem to know you need some extra time and hang up there for a while…giving us lots of options on where to shoot, top of the falls, side of the falls and down in front on the rocks…we took advantage of the hanging light and made the most of it…while most people were leaving the park we practically ran to it.

…and here at the waters edge with the fading glow of the sunset…

While we didn`t get a great sunset two weeks ago there, we did get some great shots….and a cooperative crowd as well…which you cant always count on there…I took both of my Fayetteville models there, Crys Rae and Dane Adams, shot some pics of them separately and then together…

Crys is one of my favorite models to work with, shot him for the first time down near Lake Ouachita and Mount Ida two years ago, we found twenty seven waterfalls to shoot in that day in a tributary creek that flows into the Little Missouri River and then wound up at the end of the day at Little Missouri Falls nearby.

We were upstream about a mile from the Albert Pike Campground, where the twenty or so campers, many of them children, lost their lives in the tragic flood several weeks ago. Our prayers go out to their families and to the rescuers and recovery personnel as well. We can only hope that the government will do the right thing and install some type of warning system to keep it from happening again. The canyons in that area are deep and narrow, necessitating alot of warning time to get oneself up and out of there and to safety. I pray the Forest Service will do the right thing for the sake of those lost and the sake of all who go to those pretty areas to hike and camp each year.

As I was saying, Crys is one of my fave models to work with, he is in very fit condition, nicely toned, and hot looking…backed up by all the gals that were in attendance at Grand Falls that evening we were shooting…not sure how long Crys has been modeling, but this boy knows how to move and show off his muscle tone. He looks like an art statue to me most of the time and so thats the way I normally shoot him, like a work of art.

He had jeans on and decided to get them wet, and he climbed down to the base of the falls and found a large rock down there, which was covered in this green goo, algae at its finest I`m sure, but like the trooper that he is, he didnt let a little thing like that stop him from creating works of art…

After shooting several pics of him reclining on the rock, I had him stand, and without any direction from me, he got into my favorite pose, which I call a twist and turn, which shows off guys and gals very well…again, the statue of art…

..he just had to watch his footing with the rock being so gooey and slick…and then after shooting several standing poses, he decided to climb into the base of the falls themselves…

and get soaked really good…so I tried some special effects while in the water and liked what I saw…so did he…here he is climbing out of the falls…

and then the special effects version is this….

almost gives it a posterized look…

Then I shot some pics of Dane, who was new to glamour modeling….he climbed down to the base of the falls and started out with some dryer poses at first…I gave him some direction at first because it is extremely hard for a model to hear when down at the base of the falls, even if I were yelling at them, its difficult to understand and so we went over some hand signals too…

Dane has what I call a slim toned build and a captivating smile, as well as smiling eyes…and is great to work with…he caught a lot of attention from the ladies there as well…one in fact, actually came over and asked if she could sit on the ledge above him and watch, and within just a few minutes started yelling at him and trying to boost his confidence and get him to do some poses of her own ideas.  He did his best not to ignore her, but like he said, he couldnt hear her due to the roar of the falls anyway, but she finally got the idea and stopped trying…he climbed up on the slimy log after getting wet down and did a great job of producing some art himself…

Dane has what I call a slim toned build and a captivating smile, as well as smiling eyes…and is great to work with…he caught a lot of attention from the ladies there as well…one in fact, actually came over and asked if she could sit on the ledge above him and watch, and within just a few minutes started yelling at him and trying to boost his confidence and get him to do some poses of her own ideas.  He did his best not to ignore her, but like he said, he couldnt hear her due to the roar of the falls anyway, but she finally got the idea and stopped trying…he climbed up on the slimy log after getting wet down and did a great job of producing some art himself…

Then we went up on top of the falls and shot a few up above…they decided since they were already wet and it was so hot, they would just remain wet…totally wet….

…so they laid down in the water, Crys the art statue, first…

Dane tried the same areas that Crys was reclining in but found that his taller frame just didnt fit as well in those little nooks and crannies like Crys did…but he looked just fine to me….

They then got back down by the log and rocks and did some duo poses in the spray, since they were good and wet already….

and then thinking we might actually get a nice sunset, the way the clouds were forming up, they walked out into the water at the top of the falls again. I decided to shoot with one of my sunset filters and see if I might be able to help things out a bit…not sure if it helped or not, but I liked what results I got from it…

and one last image….

The second day of my Arkansas vacation began with me driving down to an old water grist mill, located just west of Pierce City, Missouri and just south of Highway 60, called Jolly……its one of those water mills built before the Civil War that miraculously escaped the harm and wrath of the war and was restored by a group of concerned citizens a few years ago too. I photographed several old mills several years ago, and there are some websites and books devoted to old mills across the country and around the world. I like to photograph old mills and old barns that are well taken care of, they make great backdrops for modeling work too.

I had talked to a young guy who lives just south of there and he agreed to meet me there Saturday morning and shoot some photos with me, so I pulled in about 8:15 am and not seeing him there, turned Missy loose in the parking lot for a few minutes while I got my camera and prepared to shoot the old mill. There were a few fly fishermen in the stream, which is Capps Creek, spring fed and runs into Shoal Creek which feeds Grand Falls at Joplin, and is maintained by the Conservation Department who stocks it with brown trout for the fishermen. There is an old steel truss bridge on either end above and below the Mill and there is a high water manmade dam next to the mill that creates the millpond just above the mill…

…and a big ole Sycamore tree right behind the mill blocks pretty much any view from the millside of the stream below it too…the main problem with photographing the mill, I found out, is that the property on the other side of the mill is marked private, no trespassing, and that would be the ideal position to be to photograph it properly, but I decided not to put my waders on nor venture over to the other side. I`m big on getting reflections in my photos when possible, but opted against it this time. I settled for what I could get on the parking lot side of the mill. Due to the millpond there is a split in the creek so one can get some reflections of the mill itself in this smaller creek from the millside…

and then if you walk around to the east side of the mill, the group that restored the mill, built a concrete walkway to the dam and this is the view from the end of it by the dam…

..a nice view of the back of the mill…

About 8:30 am, Derek and his brother Nicholas showed up and found me phtoographing the mill from the little creek and using some of my filters on the photos….after talking a bit, we started shooting. I explained to both of them how I used to photograph old mills and would incorporate guys into the scenes in overalls or holie jeans, sometimes just sitting or standing next to the mill, leaning into the walls, or even sitting out on the dam or edge of the millrace by the mill, fishing with a cane pole and bobber…so Derek put on some overalls and we started shooting….

for someone who had never modeled before, Derek took to it like a duck takes to water…

the reflections on the creek down in this light were a bit dull…so we walked over and shot some photos up against the mill building itself and around to the side…

then I took him to the downstream side and shot him under the old sycamore tree where there was a little stone platform sticking out into the creek a bit…Derek turned out to be a natural poser too, needing little direction from me…

 and then we walked over the upstream side where the walkway was…I knew that it would be tight up there due to the confined space there..but he pulled it off once again very well on his own…kicked myself for not having a cane pole and bobber on this trip….

 I had him switch back to his jeans and we walked up the little creek to a footbridge that had some beautiful light filtering down thru the trees to it…

and never ceasing to amaze me, Derek plopped down on the bridge and looked down into the water….

 and looked so good, I took a closer up view….

we quickly discovered tho, that the reflections in the water on the downstream side were a bit duller than the upstream side, so after taking a few more closeups….

…we moved around to the upstream side and shot from there, Derek of course had the easy job of just turning around to pose while Nicholas and I hoofed it upstream to set up again, lol.

and we started finding reflections all over on this side of the bridge…

…def should have moved up here sooner….

oh well, this way at least we were able to get a variety of photos and from every angle conceivable too…after shooting alot of photos up on this end, we drove down to the lower steel bridge, the old road bridge which is now a footbridge and picnic area even….

and this is where we stopped shooting at, although I hope to work with both of them again soon, I wasnt able to photograph Nicholas even though he had a hot look too, he didnt want to take away from the session with his brother……and when it came time to leave, Derek and Nicholas took me out to Neosho a faster and shorter route, saving me time and gas to get on the road on Hwy 71 south to Arkansas….

One of the highlights to my Kansas City trip in June of 2010, was photographing Ed, a hot Asian swimmer at a few of the fountains in Kansas City. I had contacted him and told him of my trip to KC to photograph some swimwear babes all day on Saturday and we decided to meet up downtown KC on Sunday morning before I headed home.

I got up bright and early at the swimwear shoot host residence, and took off after saying goodbye to three of the other photographers who were awake at that early hour and headed for downtown KC. I texted Ed that I was on the way and gave him a projected arrival time, but not knowing traffic patterns up there, I wound up being about fifteen minutes late, due to hitting some heavy traffic in the Shawnee Park area. Lucky for me, Ed is a patient guy and waited for me at Liberty Memorial where we decided to meet up. I spotted him after parking on the opposite side of the Memorial parking lot of what appeared to be a car show starting to organize.

Ed asked if I could take some casual dressed photos of him first, and I agreed, and he hopped up on the wall by the Memorial itself. Looking out behind him, I saw the clouds forming to give us some nice sunbeams behind him…

I then had him whip his shirt off and show me his very hot, toned build.  Ed is definitely one hot guy to work with and easy on the eyes too. I had him stand next to the Memorial Tower itself for a few pics so I could again get the sunbeams behind him…lighting was a little tricky and finally had to resort to the flash a bit…

and there was a steel door there behind him so he backed up to it and allowed me to get a nice shot of his hot build…

we then walked over to the north side building and he asked me to shoot him up against the blue tiled wall….

After this shot, he changed into his khaki shorts and we walked down to the fountains on the west side of the memorial…stopping on the stairs to get this shot…

…to get the Memorial Tower in the background with him…and then we walked down to the fountains themselves…

where I recorded my first beautiful smile from this hot guy…and while up on the fountain wall, he showed me his athletic abilities….

and then while standing still, I was playing with my shutter speed and trying to get the slow shutter effect I get with the waterfalls and instead came up with a high contrast image…

which I decided I like as well…and then he laid down on the fountain wall so I could try some more slow shots…

and while down there, we looked to the west and down the hill and spotted one of my favorite Kansas City fountains…Union Station has this fountain that has several water patterns on the jets, plus a really nice reflection pool surrounding the jetted area….we drove down and decided to shoot a few pics here as well….

and the reflections looked so nice…with him out in front, I asked him to wade out and shoot in the pool itself…

well after shooting at the fountains, we decided to get some breakfast and headed over to get some hot cakes…then he mentioned to me that he had some speedos and wished he had brought them to shoot in…by that time I was regretting not shooting him in my fire gear at the reflection pool, too…we went up to his apartment complex pool near Country Club Plaza and I was able to shoot some nice pics of him in his speedos before I headed home…

and he gave me another winning smile too…very innocent and sexy smile…

and looks great with flowers too…

in fact, he looked so good here between the flower baskets that I placed him in the flower garden too…

Sure look forward to my next shoot with Ed….