Good morning, Steemit! I’m sitting here with you on what is sure to be an eventful day. This world of STEEM and crypto occupies my thoughts from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. I think about it, and how it’s going to disrupt everything, and how fortunate I feel to have discovered Steemit while it’s still in beta! I also think about the technology. 2/3’s of it is over my head, but I’m still fascinated how blockchain technology works. I’m currently reading “The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order”, which is surprisingly thorough. I also think about how this all effects me, personally.

Today will be one of those days, where the gravity of a crpyto-revolution will shape me life and my career. I’ll be going to the Apple Store in a few short hours. I’ll be testing and likely purchasing the new 12.9” iPad Pro and I’ll be doing so with 100% STEEM rewards! I’m a freelance artist, so these kind of purchases are rare. I’ve got a few credit cards, almost maxed, so without Steemit in my life this trip would be window shopping. Today I’ll be walking out with a tool that moves my creativity and career forward. I’ll get it home, set it up and post an unboxing video and review […and if I earn rewards from that, you seriously can’t come up with a better ecosystem than Steemit].

If you were to ask me “…what was the most important shoot of your career?”, only a few would come to mind. In the top three would be the photos I’m sharing today. Not that they’re particularly my best work, but there was a story behind them. The story is more important than the photos.

It was 2011 and I was frustrated with a photography career that I felt should have been further along. I was getting some work, but nothing “meaningful”. I hadn’t entirely found my voice as a photographer. I had a trip to Germany coming up to visit my Great Aunt in Weinheim. While I was there, I set up shoots to aide in pushing my career to the next level. I used Model Mayhem to find one or two models in Europe I could collaborate with. These shoots wouldn’t make me money, but they’d support my confidence that I was still climbing this career ladder and not stagnating.

I contacted a gorgeous legitimate agency model named Julie Henry, living in Paris. She agreed to a TF shoot and I’d begun researching trains from Germany to Paris. The make-up artist I reached out to […also living in France] was also a model making waves in the tattoo industry. Always trying to make my time on this earth it’s most efficient, I asked her if we could shoot together as well if I were to hire her for make-up. Some years later, she exploded on in the alt model scene gracing magazine covers I saw sitting on the shelves of my local gas station. Her name is Lady Diamond.

The trip came that March. I flew to Frankfurt from Philadelphia with my late Grandmother, and immediately after arriving at the airport I parted ways and made my way to the train station. I wasn’t able to sleep on the flight. I was tired and fatigued, awake for over 30 hours by the time I found a seat. I was physically, mentally and emotionally strained to the point that my joints hurt and I felt like I was going to throw up. I hated feeling like this, and I remember talking to God or whomever was orchestrating my fate “…please, just allow me to make one perfect shot on this trip!”.

I arrived in Paris, blurry and disoriented. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t find my hotel. I walked aimlessly for hours, now away for 36 punishing hours. Eventually, I found my hotel…two blocks from where I originally emerged from the Gare Du Nord. I met Julie in our tiny hotel room, but within minutes, I was face down, passed out for what seemed like an eternity.

I woke up excited and refreshed. That resilience has been one of my greatest assets over nearly two decades of freelance work and travel. Julie was exceptional and sweet. We discussed the photos she’d like for her portfolio and I did the same. We began shooting, taking advantage of natural window light, interesting, dramatic costuming that was made by a designer friend of mine in Boston named Harley O’. The nudes I took of Julie were a different calibre than anything else I’d shot. Previously, mostly for Suicide Girls, these were art, and I knew it when I looked on the back of my camera.

Julie made her way in to the shower. It was small, with purple tiles. I was shooting with a 50mm lens on my old Nikon D300s. She moved slow and her body showed off dynamic angles in each post; a signature flag of her high level, professional experience. It was during this part of the shoot that I got it. I actually took the photo I asked for. That one perfect shot, and still today some six years later, I still feel it’s absolutely perfect. It’s the photo that represents the personal cost, the money I spent that I really didn’t have, the physical exhaustion and the desire to challenge myself to that next level. This is the photo.

We did continue shooting. Many of the edits I made from that afternoon aren’t my best. Some I don’t even like to share. Julie and I left together and got on a train, making our way to Lady Diamond. She was outside of Paris by some 45 minutes. The directions she gave us were vague and we didn’t have a phone number. It’s amazing we made it at all. Lady Diamond did a dark, dramatic look on Julie and we continued shooting in her home. At the end, I did a few photos of Lady Diamond herself in the backyard, but fatigue was again setting in. I had a train to catch back to Germany and I left with these images from one of the most important shoots of my life.

Thanks for reading this story. This one was meaningful to write as it was a chance to relive the trip and be reminded of it’s significance in getting to where I am today. I post daily so for more photography, art, illustration and writing, follow me here @kommienezuspadt.