One thing that I’ve learned over the last few years is that you can’t ever get hung up on shooting one location or one model in a certain way. Things always change.

For this photo, I was in Las Vegas with my favorite model, Kristina N. We were traveling throughout the southwest and ended up in Vegas for a couple of days. We decided that we were going to do a photo shoot in our hotel room at sunrise. We were staying at Mandalay Bay in a room facing northeast. It was the perfect setting for it.

Kristina is an avid poker player and had planned on hitting the tables and returning by, at the least, dawn so we could shoot. As is the case in Vegas, things changed. There was a winning streak, the world’s worst poker player (me), a married airline pilot with an affinity for blondes, a free breakfast and before we knew it, it was 10:30AM and the sunset had long since come and gone. With checkout time at 11AM, we needed to move fast. We pushed everything in the room to the side and moved one bed to the window. Then we shot. Lord only knows what the maid thought when she opened the door. I hope the $20 tip helped.

If you want to know what a photo of model looks like after a somewhat drunken all-nighter in Vegas, this is it; gorgeous, composed, sultry and beautiful.