Hangout with Mona!

I've made some nice & ultra creative friends through a wonderful photo site known as Flickr. One special friend in particular I clicked with is Mona. We chat and comment on each others work through the site. She had been to Vegas before, but that was before we knew each other. One week, she let me know that she had came here on short notice to photograph her cousins wedding and would be here until Saturday. I met up with her near where she was staying at her aunts place. (May 8, 2009)

We met at Smith's (a grocery store) to be exact and I was firstly surprised that I was taller than her, haha! Because most of the time with my friends, I'm always a little bit shorter or about the same height. I also loved her outfit she was wearing! You'll see it in the photos below. She has such a fabulous sense of style. I think we hit it off well and to be honest, I was only a tad bit nervous for maybe the first five minutes upon meeting her.

We chatted about where she lives, Michigan, and how it was funny she got two job offers while being here for barely a week and has job troubles in Michigan. We then talked photography, of course and about what she's done so far while being here, ect. We took the Deuce down to older eastern part of the Strip and walked that for a while and she took photos of some of my favorite motels on that part of the Strip that I've shot before.

Finally we made it to the downtown art district area of Vegas and scouted a location to have a little photoshoot at. Once we got to some streets I've shot at, we noticed another photoshoot in progress! I thought that was pretty cool. I asked the photographer and model if it'd be alright to take a photo of them behind-the-scene style and they said they didn't mind at all. I assumed they were shooting for a local Vegas magazine or something promotional.





Mona took photographs of me first. I love them!













It was then her turn to be in front of the lens. Here are the shots I took of her.













Here's a cute candid taken right after the above photo:










After having a fun little shoot, we headed over to Main Street and started our way down to Fremont Street- her favorite place in Vegas!



On our walk, I just had to take a photo of her by those $3xY college girlz direct 2U magazine stands...since Mona is a college girl and all, I felt it was appropirate. (haha :D)


$69.00 special!!!

We passed by the huge slot machine store on the way.


Got down to Fremont Street.

Here are some photos I took before we went to McDonald's.






We got to McDonald's 'cause she was thirsty and wanted a Coke, and I was craving a soft serve ice cream!



Me in Mona's infamous red lip sunglasses! Taken by her.


A sweet headshot taken by Mona.



An awesome film photograph taken by Mona with my little film camera. I really love how it turned out.



Here are some cute digital & film photos I took of her in there.









After that McDonald's visit, we went back out on Fremont and watched a band perform some classic rock songs. You can look at the photos I took of them in my previous blog post.



Here are some shots I took of peeps that stood out to me in the crowd.


This woman was jammin' out. I just had to take her photo. She had so much spirit and a fannypack!








After watching them perform for a while, Mona and I walked around the gift carts and such. It then came around the time when Mona was to meet up with her aunt that wanted to take her to gamble later that night on Fremont Street. Yes, Mona is 21 even though she doesn't look it. :) She told me she gets asked to show her ID all the time in casinos.
Before she left, I made sure that we got a polaroid together so I asked a woman to take one of us.



We then said goodbye about three times and gave each other hugs before ending the fun day together!
Mona will possibly be coming back for another visit during the summer which will be super awesome if she can! I can't wait to hangout again with her. She is a very sweet person and has a lot to talk about. Oh, and she's such a good model! I was glad we had the little shoot we did 'cause the shots turned out extremely nice. I wished that she lived here so she could model for me more often! :)

Love ya, Mona!

- Nick