A friend of a friend; Maria, model spotlight series.

I had a friend with a gorgeous girlfriend. Maria. So I reached out and asked her to create. This conversation was almost 20 years ago. I borrowed a friend's Olympus E1 because I was still shooting with a film camera, a Nikon F5.

It was great to use a digital camera, and this was my first time. This was brand-new tech. I could see what I captured immediately before we had to wait a day or even a week to see what we photographed.

The Nikon D1 at the time was in the $10k range, and I could not afford that! But the opportunity to test one out, I could not pass, and this E1 was great, and I could see my shots right after I took them.

Maria had a classic California look and was the perfect choice for this bikini shoot. I met her through a friend, and she expressed an interest in modeling for me.

We worked together a couple of times, a couple of bikini shoots and a boudoir shoot, and because this was my first foray into digital, I could only do a couple of photo shoots with that medium with borrowed gear.