When I moved out to California and was apartment hunting, I met Nikolette Noel and her mother over some cookies in the leasing office of the building that we would end up occupying. Nikolette was a student at a nearby university and we wound up staying in touch after we both moved.  Of course the thought photographing her was on my mind from that first plate of cookies, but I’m usually not one to impose without getting to know someone first.

As it turns out, Nikolette Noel began building her portfolio (as almost everyone seems to do here in Los Angeles) after graduation and we began to discuss getting together. After several months of back and forth, we finally found some time to see what we could pull off. I called in a favor with a friend that lives in a beautiful house in Redondo Beach, California and asked Nikolette to bring a white collared, button-down shirt. The result…