Bringing 2014 to an end, I want to share the story  behind the Coast Redwood photo  some refer to as “The Lady in Red”. The print was released  20″ x 30″ with another moniker … but that name sounds good too.

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I wanted to capture the beauty and size of it  just in case more people learned it’s whereabouts and possibly “altered the landscape” around it. Or … before some  storm might take it down in our generation.

I decided to find a woman up north to photograph with the tree because I already had 100s of photos with men.

Native American female was my original hope, because  local tribes like the Yurok  had a connection with the Redwood Coast. But a Native American  from Klamath  failed to show up for a test-shoot, and later in Oregon, I found darker skin of Black and Native American harder to photograph in  shade. Otherwise  I would gladly have gone down that road.

The next step was finding someone near north Del Norte. I found one model listed for Crescent City, on a networking site for models and photographers.  I sent a message to Kiera (Lady in Red) the night before driving down, and was surprised by an immediate  reply  expressing interest. When I arrived  the next day, it seemed such short notice, so I decided not to call about a test shoot . Then passing through,  I noticed a “beads”sign  in a store window near  Hy. 101 x 3rd Street, and stopped.  Story made short … I talked with a man working there about photography and websites. He suggested talking to a woman in the next room, and she points to yet another woman whose daughter apparently models. The 2nd woman said her daughter’s name was Kiera …. Surprise …

What are the odds of traveling 325 miles through 1,000,000 worth of population and being pointed to a person I never met, but messaged less than 24 hours earlier? So I contacted Kiera, and we did a couple of photo sessions …  3rd time is when we got the huge redwood photo done.

The “connection” aspect is something that Kiera fit  unexpectedly well …  In recent years, she  worked on trails in Redwood parks. She loves the redwoods too. That closed full-circle my hope to photograph a huge Coast Redwood with someone whose life was connected to the redwood forest.

The thought behind the dress …

I found two women through the same networking site, who tinkered as models  around  Humboldt county. One of them, during one photo shoot, selected a long dress, and I liked the elegant look it gave next to a huge redwood trunk. The length of color worked excellent  in several ways … getting attention, artistic, elegance, illustration.

Kiera helped with other redwood photos. And the other two women near Eureka helped with another giant redwood photo and more. The red dress or “Lady in Red” photo may go down as one of my most iconic photos. I have other photos that are technically better images, but the first giant redwood shot with Kiera  may remain one of the most meaningful images.

The redwood photo with Kiera holds memories that others won’t realize. Not long before that photo shoot, Kiera’s stepfather passed-away.  And we did a memorial photo shoot at another park  weeks prior to the coast redwood photo with the red dress.

The image below was experimental, the same day …  a closeup of the “Lady in Red”