Nicci 010 - 011

Here is a novelty in my weblog - a guest appearance by an excellent photographer from the Brighton area. In early 2013, Mike contacted me with a special request - could I persuade "the Mona Lisa in glasses" to do another photo shoot? Fortunately, Farishta and I had always kept contact about other topics than photography and to our delight, she kindly agreed to pose for me again on two occasions. Mike and I kept corresponding on a regular basis and after my retirement there was more time available for traveling abroad. So we agreed to meet in the Brighton area and Mike was my untiring local guide during the five day visit. Needless to say, we talked a lot about photography and it dawned to me that it would be nice to contact Nicci and ask her if Mike could take some photos of her and myself at work, without interfering with the actual photo shoot itself. Nicci - bless her heart - kindly agreed with his presence and role. It was a special experience for me, working with a model in the presence of another photographer. The same thing happened some weeks earlier in Athens when I did a photo shoot with Xenia at Alimos beach. Her life partner Stavros (a professional photographer) requested if he could join in during a part of the photo shoot, leaving all directions to me. Sure, be my guest. The difference was that Stavros simply took pictures of his life partner without aiming at publication. The same setup was chosen in Brighton when Mike joined us from a distance. After seeing Mike's excellent photos, it dawned to me that squeezing some of them in would greatly add to this documentary of Nicci's photo shoot. All in all, I selected a dozen of Mike's photos and sent a special request to Nicci about posting them as part of the documentary. Thank you Nicci for giving your blessing to this request, much appreciated!