I was SOOOO excited when Jackie of Yallah Magazine asked me to shoot the cover and spread for the fall and anniversary issue!!!  I was even more delighted to find out that my dear friend Lacey of Florida Tribal Dance would be gracing the cover and we would get to work together yet again!!  I shot these back in July but I could not show them to anyone until the issue was published, got to have some kind of surprise….LOL. 

And back in May I went to New Orleans for a bellydance shoot with my dear friend Shamsi of Bayou Shimmy: www.bayoushimmy .com from Baton Rouge.  She was telling me about the dance meditation class that she teaches and I told her she should get in touch with Yallah as they might be interested in an article.  I put her and Jackie in touch and that article is in this issue as well, along with the images I took of her at Audobon Park in New Orleans.

And one more thing…my dear friend Liz who has been to all but one Big Bellydance Photo Shoot and has let us use her beautiful home on Ponce Inlet Beach as a backdrop several times had been interested in writing an article about her experience with bellydance and didn’t know who to talk to, so I put her in touch with Yallah as well and that article is in there too!!!!!!!

WOW!!!  All my peeps are in this issue, which makes it even that much more special to me!

Well I hope you enjoy!  And head over to www.yallahmagazine.com to order your issue right away!

Jim of HeSentMe.org is a good friend of mine.  We worked together at Walt Disney Imagineering for quite some time and he was laid off not long after me last year and he started this amazing organization that I will be traveling to Africa with very soon.  We are going to bring awareness of renewable energy via wind turbine to small villages that have no electricity or plumbing.  So in order to study the turbine and all of what it does and prepare to install one in Africa in 2010, Jim and his wife Holly bought one and had it installed on their beautiful property in Winter Garden.  It was pretty amazing to be there and a part of such a big event.  It was actually the FIRST wind turbine to be installed in all of Central Florida.  So there was media there and everything, and I was there to document of course =)  Congratulations to Jim and Holly!  You have come SO FAR in such a short amount of time it is just amazing!  I cant wait to see whats in store!

Love K

Danna is such a sweetheart!  I first met her at Leyla’s Bombshell Party back in March when she had first found out she was preggers….like that very day.  So it was fun to get her all dolled up and show her how to be a sexy pin-up.  Now it is October and she is well on her way to having that baby she first found out about back then!  I was so excited to work with her again and she is such a model!  I mean seriously…LOOK at her!  Gorgeous!  She was too cute when she told me over the phone that her hubby was a shy one and I said not a problem since my hubby can be too.  But we got him comfortable enough posing and everything that he was laughing right along with her.  I think he really liked me even more when we went by the train station and there was a TV playing his game and we could let him watch it while Danna and I took some pictures by ourselves….LOL.  We had a GREAT time and thanks for bearing the heat and change of location due to rain!!!  You all rock and cant wait to see the little one and take more pictures!!!!

Love K

I love hanging out with my girls from Hip Expressions in St. Petersburg!!! I had the opportunity to check out one of their many haflas when Onca and August of the Mezmer Society from Ashville, NC were there hosting a workshop weekend. They were nothing short of amazing! I see a lot of bellydance performances in all that I do but these two really stood out to me. August sings and plays the accordion and Onca dances and sings as well. They made an unbelieveable duo! They were so much fun to shoot and work with! I had never had the chance to check out my girls dancing on the beach as they do every Saturday on St. Pete Beach at sunset behind St. Pete Nights Russian Restaurant!! Onca and August performed on the beach with them and it was quite a show! I posted a small video as well from my little Flip Mino HD that I LOVE! I hope you all enjoy the images and the video and if you are ever near St. Pete, go check them out!!!!

www.hip-expressions.com

www.barakamundi.com/mezmer

Love K

Crimes of the Heart is a new play put on by the fabulous Beth Marshall of Beth Marshall Presents!  www.bethmarshallpresents.com.  I was delighted to come out and photograph the press shots for her and the performers.  I will also be shooting the dress rehearsal next month so  check it out!  And go see the show!!!!

Playing at the Winter Garden Theatre in Winter Garden, FL.  www.gardentheatre.org

November 13-29, 2009

Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm

Winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and playing on Broadway for over 500 performances, Crimes of the Heart is warm-hearted, irreverent, and brilliantly imaginative, teeming with humanity and humor as it examines the plight of three young Mississippi sisters betrayed by their passions.  The play tells how three sisters escape the past to seize the future - telling a slice of life so true that the story stands the test of time.

So I was excited to hear that I got ANOTHER NAPP Image of the Week/Editor’s Choice on the NAPP site!  I couldn’t believe it!  I have never really had any recognition like this before in the Photoshop world so I was really honored.  The first image I received Editor’s choice for was for one my favorite images from the Tribal Muses shoot last month.  This image however is MY FAVORITE image from Carissa’s Trash the Dress shoot when we went to the creepy hotel.  It will also be featured in Central Florida Bride Magazine’s Spring issue coming out in January 2010 so LOOK FOR IT!!!!  And thanks photoshop Professionals!!!!!

I have gotten to know the Canavan’s quite well this past year…..through Don saving my computer while I was shooting a wedding in Italy last Spring (I still owe you for that Don, you don’t know how much that meant to me!!!), Pam (who I have known for a while through bellydance) for having me come to the Moonlight Players Theatre to shoot “the Mikado” and soon to be “Sweeney Todd”, and their son James who I was amazed and awed by his performance in the Mikado and was first introduced to him at the 2009 Orlando Fringe Festival in “The Lighter Side of Suicide”.  This family is very unique.  Both Don and James are actors and Pam is the stage manager for the theatre and they have sooooo much character!  It was so fun to shoot their family pictures, I just gave them characters to play and they did it, then I photographed it.  Even though it was a really hot day, we met behind the theatre and beared through the dripping sweat for some really fun pictures!  The characters I gave them you ask?......a band….these were band portraits to put on their fake album entitled “The Canaband”…thanks James for the name…LOL.  Shane is working on the logo…hehehehehe.  The last shots we took, Don and James needed some headshots, so Pam and I gave them emotions to express for a series of shots, and then we did the same for Pam.  Too much fun.  Although I couldn’t stop laughing behind the camera so I wasn’t sure if my autofocus was reacting or not…hehehehehe.  Anyway, hope you all enjoy The CanaBand, album coming soon!  Love you guys!