I love men's hairstyling and fashion. For this collection I was inspired by men's hairstyling from the past: 1950's and 1990's and the energy of big city life. With every photoshoot comes an amazing story but they are not without their own set of challenges that is always a learning curve.

For this collection I booked photographer, Steve Squall. I hired Steve last year to photograph another collection and worked on several published editorial spreads in the past. Steve does a fantastic job doing fashion photography and was a perfect fit for shooting a men's collection. I had on board make up artist, Isidro Valencia and Genna Yussman Greene on styling. I met Steve to discuss my ideas for the shoot and he loved the concept.

This is one of several collections I did for NAHA although it was not nominated, I was honored to have it was released exclusively by Bangstyle.

As I had mentioned earlier, photoshoots have challenges. I had all models booked and all was a go however I had an issue with a model that overbooked himself with his agency so I could not use him and on the day of model prep one of my models no showed. Fortunately I had lucked out and I was able to rebook both. I swear I have a photoshoot "Guardian Angel". Through it all you persevere and make it work with the team.

I practiced some of the looks on mannequins. I did some highlighting and tapered cuts along with various styling techniques. This would all help for the prep day with the models. I would be more inspired on prep day where I did both color and cut on the models and could work with their bone structures and skin tones.

The prep day was set a day before the shoot and lasted for seven hours. Ellis arrived and I decided to do an all over lightening process. I used Redken Flashlight with pH bonder. After getting him to a pale yellow I glaze his hair with Shades EQ glosses 07P, 09P and 09T.

I did a shear over comb cut on his sides and back and left the top length longer for styling.

On the day of the photoshoot I styled his hair with Hardware Gel 16 to create the finger wave.

On model, Justin I did a soft highlight using Redken Blonde Icing combined with pH Bonder. After processing I glaze the hair with 09T in Shades EQ gloss.

For his cut I did shear over comb on his sides and back and left a visible weigh line to build the silhouette.

Styling on the day of the shoot consisted of flat wrapping his hair with Thickening Lotion 06 with the Sam Villa Paddle brush. Hand styled with Move Ability 05 and finished with Control Addict 28.

On Micah's hair I did a heavy highlight with Blonde Icing and pH Bonder followed with a Shades EQ gloss in 07P.

For his cut I decided to do a faded mohawk using my Andis Clippers "Envy" and layered the top with my Sam Villa 7" shears.

The styling for the shoot day included paddle brush combined with hair dryer and Hardware Gel 16. Once hair was dry it was hear styled with Iron Shape 11 and 2" curling iron. For handstyling I used Mess Around 10 finished with Control Addict 28.

We shot early morning at Steve's studio. Lots of coffees and bagels kept us busy and content for a six hour shoot. I staggered models arrival times to give everyone enough time to prepare. We did wardrobe tests with each model to find the right look.

For make up Isidro did a fantastic job keeping the make up real clean with soft contour cheeks, lip balm and lots of highlighter to enhance model's cheeks and brow bones.