Took a two week break from shooting to design the new collection and was so happy to get back to it! It feels so good to be outside snapping magical moments. Shot this in one of my favorite easy local locations Barnsdell Park. I know I keep saying it but LA is so GREEN right now, it makes for the coolest photos, what a time to be alive haha!! Photography is basically a social activity where you get to hang out with new people while simultaneously making art together, I love it. This cute thing is Paris Verra (yes her real name!!), she's a young model & actress. Check out the shots below!

Also featuring girl-boss goodies from @im_with_the_band_headbands & @jay.nicole.jewelry. 

 Met up with Char downtown to shoot on some rooftops! Was very excited when she reached out to shoot while she was in town. She's a super spunky gal from Canada with hair that is to die for. We had a blast, she is such a cool girl with a unique take on life. Here's some photos and a few wise words from Charmaine :)

"The idea of unity is much different for me. To collaborate, to cooperate, is the fun, joy and love of being and doing things together. Whatever that may be." - Char

I met Kailee of I'm With The Band Headbands a few months into Dazey. I spotted one of her bands on instagram and HAD to shoot them with the tees! We met up at a coffee shop so I could pull some pieces and ended up talking for hours. She's such a sweet soul and amazing lady! We have become good friends and help each others business out all the time. That's what female entrepreneurship is all about :)

A collab seemed necessary. We have been working on these babies for MONTHS and production was super tricky for these speciality prints. But it was worth it and they are finally out! Hand drawn with love by yours truly @danidazey and printed on Kailee's gorgeous velvet turbans. You can shop the collab pieces HERE.

Of of course in natural Dazey Lady fashion we had to feature the BABE behind the bands Kailee. She is a super girl boss who get's ish done. Creep her Dazey Lady words of wisdom below and our little magical shoot featuring all her bands along with our collab pieces!

www.im-with-the-band.com #BABESINBANDS

Huge thanks to Victoria lady boss of Wallflower SF for hanging during the shoot, styling, and snapping some BTS instax/duo photos :)

1) Dani - Tell us about your company! How did it start? How long have you been doing it?

Kailee - My company, I'm With The Band is a headwear company that creates amongst other things, headbands! It started with a vision to combine all the things I love (music, fashion, health and wellbeing) into one and make it something rad and tangible. My IWTB journey started 3 years ago.

2) Dani - What inspires you and gets you excited!?

Kailee - I get super inspired and excited by the music, culture, fashion and attitude of the 60s and 70s. I also get inspiration from all sorts of things like hand painted tiles, architecture, color, texture, other cultures and a little nature reset always helps!

3) Dani - What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced?

Kailee - As a small business you wear a lot of hats, so it can be a bit tricky to manage my time super well. Aside from achieving brand recognition, I'd say my biggest challenge is production and all the ins and outs of managing it whilst maintaining a product I'm super proud of and thrilled with.

4) What’s your #1 piece of advice you’d give to a girl trying to start a business?

Aim to do something you love and are passionate about and start anywhere. If you're passionate and believe in what you're doing it will keep you going and inspired through all the trials and tribulations of starting and running your own business. It's never going to be the perfect time to do anything, it just doesn't exist. It always sort of re inspires me to know that you can literally start anywhere... you can start in the middle, beginning or end, but just start and put one foot in front of the other and before you know it, you'll be somewhere you've never been and you're on your way!

5) Dani -Where do you see your company going the next few years?

Kailee - World domination? Just kidding... I see I'm With The Band growing into a lifestyle brand of sorts, with more and meaningful offerings that inspire people and more collaborations with authentic and aligned brands. My goals for the company are ever evolving but one thing I know for certain is that I want to grow my business into something that nurtures the human spirit, helps people and gives back to things I believe in.

6) Dani - What does being a Dazey Lady mean to you?

Kailee - Well first of all, it's a real honor! It means strength, independence and unapologetically reaching for the stars. Believing in yourself through all the peaks and valleys of owning and running your own business. Knowing there's a group of badass babes that have your back when the the struggles of entrepreneurship aren't always all daisies is such a gift... so grateful for my fellow lady bosses! Most of all, it means doing what I love, spreading love, light, positivity and good vibes, following my heart and working daily to grow it into all I know it can be.

SPREAD THE LADY BOSS LOVE!!

Xx- Kailee & Dani

You can shop the collab pieces HERE

 I've said it before and I'll say it again, LA is a vastly different landscape with all this rain! The terrain is so lush it looks like a tropical oasis in the hills. The perfect backdrop for this collaboration shoot with Brazilian Beauty Julia. A model and hardcore surfer babe who just moved to LA to pursue her dreams! 

Was also so excited to have an amazing Lady Boss & stylist Maureen of The LA Look help dress up the Dazey shoot! There's really such a different feeling and impact that comes with putting a lot of thought and effort into the outfits. They are all planned to pair perfectly with the shirts, pull together the looks, and match the mood and location.

This was a special shoot we spent a lot of time planning and putting extra love into! Hope it shows :) Enjoy!

Model- @juliamunizbr

Stylist- @thelalook

Photographer- @danidazey

When I first moved to LA just 4 years ago the arts district was vastly different. It is growing like crazy as new condos, shops, and restaurants are popping up left and right. There's even some petitions out to change the name since artists can't afford to live there anymore! Gentrification is always bitter sweet. Sadly original occupants are forced out, but the neighborhoods do become more safe and quite lively. What I like about the arts district is all the old industrial architecture and old walls mixed with greenery. Since the arts dist is much less busy than downtown proper it makes it a photographers paradise. Plus the cool cars and motorcycles scattered around made great props HA!

I hope you enjoy the photos below captured with my favorite Lady Quigley! We always trade each other Dazey photos for shooting her other blog looks :)

 SHOP THE TOPS HERE

 This Lovely creative is Irene Luna. She attended my Dazey Lady event, and approached me asking to shoot! I thought she had such a unique and striking look; I couldn't say no. I think all the girls I shoot are beautiful and wonderful, but frankly I'm getting a little bored of always shooting your standard blonde California girl. Irene was different, and it was refreshing. Dazey is all about celebrating and empowering ALL women. When we met up to shoot I was delighted with how smart, funny, and confident this 20-year-old girl was. I asked her to write a piece for the new Dazey Zine and she KILLED IT!!! Read her amazing story below, and check out the magical shots we got.

Not your stereotype by Irene Luna:

From the moment my grade school teacher handed my class and I a box to decorate for back too school night, I knew one thing: I wanted my box to stand out, to be different. When people liked blue, I wanted red. When polka dots were in, I was into stripes. When the world was watching this, I was reading that. To me, standing out in a sea of very pretty fish, is by far the most intriguing opportunity. Not to say it was ever an easy option, not in the slightest. (read more below)

SHOP THE TOPS HERE

I always knew I wanted to be a performer, I grew up in theater, and in dance. Undoubtedly, the stage is my first love, and acting my dire passion. I can't exactly pin point the reason that I love being in front of an audience, but I just feel right when I'm in that “all eyes on you” position. So naturally being in front of the little eye of a camera came as a part of that deal. To be completely honest, I never saw myself as the “model type”, therefore I never really thought modeling was for me. I do not have a perfect taut figure (my thighs love each other too much), and I’m a brown haired, brown skinned Hispanic, far from what I grew up thinking a model was. In fact, growing up, being a model to me meant being in the secret society of perfection. Given such an ethnic background and lack of tiny waist genes, I very well knew I could not and would not be able to afford that membership. 

But like I said, I have always embraced my desire to stand out. It has successfully pushed me to strive toward being the odd one out, learning to love myself and the unique qualities of not only myself, but of every person I come across. It hasn't always been easy breezy cheesy toast, of course not. I can't say it's exactly pleasant or easy to be standing in a room full of beautiful girls similar in many ways to one another, while you stand with more resemblance to the chair in the corner than any of them. (continued below)

A healthy, positive, ambitious mindset is a very big part of having the ability to do what you want to do. Deciding to feel good about you, is what makes you feel good about you. Not the approval or fondness of people whom you don't know, if we were to let that dictate where our lives were going we wouldn't get to enjoy the world and the ridiculously awesome experiences it has to offer. And relinquishing those joys of life is not in the cards for this gal. 

I see not being the stereo typical model, as a great opportunity to represent the color of the world, because really if all fish were blue I'm sure we wouldn't be so intrigued with the sea. I know there is beauty in every face, ethnicity, and proximity of our thighs. Being different, and ‘not looking like everyone else’ is now a pretty trendy thing, and it’s quite a lot of fun to be apart of a generation that has such a rad outlook. 

Knowing that the confidence that everyone is able to bring to their own looks, craft, and passions is what is most important. Not being the stereo type, and embracing the things that make you different to the standard, is what adds so much color to the world, gives us all more reasons to connect with one another, and even more reasons to enjoy and strive on this cool little rock we live on.

Xx- Irene Luna  

 There has been an amazing amount of rainfall this year compared to your average dry California winter. It has been a HUGE help to our drought. The usually dusty hills have been exploding with green glistening grass. In between the rainy days it had been a photographers dream! This is the adorable little Jess. We shot this at the base of griffith park! 

January was just a crazy month I hardly had any chances to shoot! Excited to get back behind the camera and make awesome stuff 2017 :) When exotic beauties reach out to shoot it's hard to say no! This is Cherie and she is visiting LA from Amsterdam. She was scouted out here for modeling and acting while on vacation and is spending the next few months in LA taking classes and building her portfolio. I am obsessed with her amazing hair and striking eyes, a photographers dream combo, right?! 

She's wearing all goodies from our new resolution collection. Designed to make a positive impact on our future. You can shop it HERE!

  Quigley is no stranger to the Dazey blog and insta. She's someone who has helped me since the beginning :) I wanted to go a little deeper and feature her as a Dazey Lady!

She's an amazing blogger and model. We met right before I started Dazey on a shoot. She is possibly the sweetest human ever and quickly had become one of my best friends. She's also been a huge help in my business by collaborating on photoshoots all the time and cross-promoting. It's so crazy to think of the people I may not have become close with without Dazey! Read more able this lovely lady below:

1) Dani -First off what do you do!? Would love to talk about what you do for a living and what you passion is.

Quigley -I am a professional player of the game "Dress Up." For real though, blogging is my job... but playing dress up is my art. My excuse for not cleaning my room as a teenager was that I needed my clothing in a pile on the floor because I "needed to see my palette." No joke. Putting outfits together really is a passion of mine, and I love being able to inspire women to take risks with their wardrobe too. Clothing is so much more than fabric; it's a way to express your unique identity and make a statement! I also help brands with art direction and consult on social media... this is really fun because I love helping small business owners build an identity for their brands and visualize who their client is and how to reach her.

2) Dani -What inspires you and get’s you excited!?

Quigley -This sounds really cheesy, but runway shows really inspire me. I can get lost in a sea of screen grabs and Pinterest boards from my favorite runway shows. 

3) Dani -Where would you want to be in 5 years from now personally and professionally?

Quigley -In five years, I would love to have my own line and also be able to do a bit more traveling as a blogger! I will probably be writing a musical or a book or something like that. I definitely see writing and public speaking in my future! I want to do a TED talk too. :)

4) Dani -What does being a Dazey Lady mean to you?

Quigley -Being a Dazey Lady means wearing many hats! No pun intended. A Dazey lady does it all... she takes risks and lives big. She doesn't get in her own way and goes out of her way to help lift others up. She is a symbol of community and love!!!!

XXX Quigley

Have a bit of a personal post for you guys :) First off exciting news, my little sister Doma got engaged! Before me yes, but that's ok because her fiancé is an awesome guy and they are perfect for each other. Plus I'm probably destined to be a career-driven spinster LOL. Anyways last week we headed out to palm springs so I could shoot their engagement photos! My sister is a lady of many talents as well and dabbles with photography too, so I had her shoot some photos of me wearing the new Dazey. I'm also wearing gorgeous goodies from her jewelry line @stone.and.spirit. We come from a family full of creatives, in fact I don't think these anyone who doesn't have some sort of creative skill or dive. It really does run in our blood. 

I used to blog way back in the day, but I'm more used to being behind the camera as of late. It's fun to have my photos snapped for a change, so huge thanks to ya little sis!