A Mighty Flame

Photos of Dani
“From a little spark may burst a mighty flame.”
- Dante Alighieri

My friend Dani stopped by to visit for a couple hours after driving from Florida to Colorado. She was exhausted and probably wasn’t in the mood for having her photo taken, but she trusted me and allowed me the privilege of shooting a few interesting shots.

Dani is such an inspiration. I first met her in the late 80’s and I’ll never forget the first time I saw her.  She was wearing bright blue spandex pants and a black t-shirt with some rock band featured on the front. She looked exactly like what a teenage 80’s rocker chick should look like. Since then she’s done so much in her life that it makes my head spin just thinking about it. She was an exotic dancer, then joined the Army and was stationed in the middle east for a period of time, then went back to school to learn about biological things that I can’t even pronounce. Now she lives quietly in Florida with her loving husband taking care of her father.

To honor her strength and sense of adventure I chose to try to make the shots as edgy as I could with lighting that could be described as harsh and unforgiving. She had recently colored her hair with henna and the red was a great contrast against the bright yellow shirt she was wearing.  I pushed the ISO low and tried to rely on two external flashes placed close to her to get all the dramatic red to show up in the shots.

I think the drama of the shots is very cool. None of them would qualify as glamorous, but she still looks beautiful in them all.

I guess it’s now my turn to travel to her for the next shoot.