Mandi

In 2008, I decided I wanted to build a photography portfolio. Unfortunately, I wasn’t confident yet and didn’t want to produce bad photos for anyone. My friend Marilyn said “Just start taking photos!” She was a hula teacher in Arizona and invited me to come take some photos of the dancers during one of their performances. It was here that I met a 14 year old Mandi. Mandi was dancing around wearing a cowboy hat and spent the time she wasn’t dancing looking up Hawaiian names for the audience. I was still so self conscious asking people to take their picture, but I asked Mandi and she said “ME???” As if to say “Why would you want a picture of ME?” That day, Marilyn introduced me as a photographer and I felt pathetic with no portfolio and no clue what I was doing. I went on to build my portfolio up with these girls over the next year and Mandi has stayed my favorite model. Now, she is 19 and I am happy to say that she is entirely awesome at modeling for me and I can’t help but also be happy that my photos have completely improved since photographing a 14 year old Mandi in a cowboy hat.