Chantal and her red dress takes first Place

I entered this photo into the contest at the fair.

First time entering in a professional division. Before, I’ve always done it in an advanced amateur. Since I’ve been shooting for a while, shot a bunch of weddings, been published a few times… had my photo on a magazine cover (that was cool) so now it was time to step it up and test the skills.

The Story

Like always this was a random spur of the moment shoot in the middle of July. It was 100 degrees out, and it was one of the five times a year it was cloudy out and not windy. One of the cool things about where I live in SoCal is the natural wind machine we get every day, so you never need a fan. Since I wasn’t doing anything that day, I thought I’d text one of my favorite models Chantal in hope by some off chance she didn’t have anything going on today.
We didn’t have a full on idea on what we were going to shoot and but we know we wanted clouds and I wanted to use some studio lights outdoors. So off to pick her up…

The Red Dress

We shopped at almost every Goodwill store and Thrift Shop (second-hand store) and found some cool things but nothing I was really like “wow!” over. Then Chantal found a perfect red dress. The best part was that it was under $3.00 WINNER!!!

We Are On Our Way

We headed out to the far east side and a little off roading in a car that I should really stop off-roading in. It didn’t work out so well once before.
Even though it was super hot and humid, we were getting some amazing photos and did not want to stop but.. we were hungry, and I was craving In N Out.

The Post Production

I had just made the switch from Aperture to Lightroom, and I had a fresh new set of photos to use. Believe it or not, I really did not have to do much editing on these.

The Final

Turned out pretty good.

Prints are available HERE!

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More from that hot but amazing day in July

Donte Tidwell Photography is a Los Angeles Photographer.

Donte Tidwell Photography specializes in boudoir, portrait, fashion, and fine art pictures.  To see more work from Photographer Donte Tidwell, check out his website at  http://www.dontetidwell.com or visit the facebook http://www.facebook.com/dontetidwellphoto or instagram http://www.instagram.com/dontetidwell. Contact Photographer Donte Tidwell by email at