Growing up in St. Louis with nine brothers and sisters, escaping Midwest cold to Florida for Spring Break was the light at the end of the tunnel starting the day after New Year’s. “Only 77 days until Florida…” type talk.

We’d ride bikes around the town, grab sandwiches from the food trucks, and ask people if the Truman Show was really filmed here. The beaches were white, sun was hot, and I would always, always burn. I’ve been blessed with a lot in my life, but I got the short end of the stick in my family when it comes to tan-able skin. Coming from Italian and Greek parents, you’d think a nice olive base would come as easy for me as it does for my siblings, but nope – takes a science experiment of SPFs, a taste of sun poisoning, a good base burn, and aloe vera to get a little glow for ol’ Jimmy. I digress. 

Despite all that, Florida is and always has been an escape for us, and for lots of people in the Midwest. We love it.

So, when picking a spot for the Spring 22 photoshoot, Florida was top of the list. Great beaches, nice people, close enough to home, and the best weather. For this photoshoot, all of that was true except for maybe the most important part, weather. Since The Normal Brand started in 2015, we’ve probably had 50 photoshoots. We met our man G (@shortstache) through a random Instagram DM. He had never taken pics of people and we had never taken pics, so it was perfect. Since then he’s become a great friend to me and all of my brothers and sisters. A key element to a good photoshoot besides G is good weather. We’ve been extremely lucky in that regard but that all ran out for our Florida shoot. Torrential downpours and fifty degree days don’t scream “spring” to many. We did our best, made some changes, had some fun, and got some shots (about a third of what we wanted to get but all good).

We tried to get some footage of what a photoshoot is actually like. It’s a lot of holding racks of clothes, dodging law enforcement, arguments, and being willing to look pretty silly in public. Not sexy at all. Hopefully the clothes look cool. We love them.