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I met Jaqueline de Abreu through a friend of my wife's. I will let her introduce herself. This is from her own website Jacqueline Fonseca de Abreu:

You can click through to see more information about her various degrees, certifications, and general awesomeness that qualify her to help others to live life to its fullest potential. Jacqueline does this through coaching, lecturing, seminars, over a nice cup of herbal tea, and now also through books.

We happened to both be going to the wedding of our mutual friend's daughter in South Carolina when she asked if we could take the opportunity to shoot some images for the cover of her book. At the time Jacqueline was living in Iowa so this wedding was a somewhat rare occasion for us to get together (She has since come to her senses and moved back to Florida).

She knew what she wanted, which was one formal portrait for the bio section at the back of the book and a beach picture that she wanted to use for the cover of the book. As a Brazilian, specifically from Rio de Janeiro, she had a strong connection to the beach and wanted to show that in the book. We were all staying in a large rented home just a short walk from the beach in Charleston so this would not be a problem. What would be a problem was the temperature. We were in South Carolina and it was November. Not exactly beach weather. At least we would most likely have the beach to ourselves.

We shot over 2 days. The first day, we had just arrived the night before, we did not get up early enough for an east coast beach shoot. That made the formal portrait the obvious choice for the day's shoot. We chose a library room for the shoot given her extensive academic background. As luck would have it, the owner of the house we were renting must have been in the medical field as the room was filled with medical, and specifically psychiatry, textbooks. She picked her outfit as I arranged the books in the room for the shot. It was a simple, two light setup.

We did this very traditional pose, and she also wanted one where she was making the "I love you" sign with her hands. It's sort of a branding trademark of hers since the method she developed for living life is called L.O.V.E. Each letter represents a pilar of living a fulfilling life: L is for leadership, O is for optimism, V is for vitality, and E is for education. The hand gesture is a mashup of the letters I, L, and Y in American Sign Language in one hand. So we also ended up with this shot.

OK, so formal shot in the bag. We planned to meet very early (6:45 am I think) to get to the beach before sunrise. The weather was looking promising and was supposed to be a nice clear day, but somewhere around the upper 40s Farenheight that morning (or for my fellow Florida people, "20 below 70"). I asked my wife if she would like to come along, but made the mistake of telling her the time and expected temperature. She responded with nothing more than a look but I got the message.

The next morning we headed out as planned and the weather was also just as predicted, clear and cold. The beach was a short 5 minute walk from the house and it was beautiful. Just as we thought, we had the whole place to ourselves. The first order of business was to make sure the equipment was all working well. A test shot of the moon confirmed everything was in order.

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Now it was time to roll up the pant legs and get scouting. There was really no bad angle so it was just a matter of picking the best way to shoot given the angle of the sun.

We made several shots in that freezing cold water's edge. Props to Jacqueline for lasting as long as she did. I think it became a bit of a competition to see who could last longer. "Are you ok to keep going?" "I'm good if you are." I shot a good variety of exposures and angles so she would have plenty of options to pick from. And, of course, we had to have plenty of "ILY" signs.

When I was convinced we had enough shots to pick from, we quickly packed up and went back to the house. I was not able to feel my feet for a little while which is always an interesting sensation, but Jacqueline was super happy with the pictures so I didn't mind it so much. She has been using the pictures from that shoot all over her social media and websites, which is the best feedback you can get really.

Even though it was uncomfortable at times, overall it was a great fun and we shared a unique experience that only strengthens the friendship and gives us both an interesting story to tell.