Who’s In Transit: His + Her

Photo Credit | Danielle M. Sabol

By Tamara Devers

It was like watching two best friends when I sat down for a chat with the fabulously chic Eddie and Angelee Fortuna of the Dallas style blog, HIS + HER. Their love affair began ten years ago in college when Eddie walked into the shoe store where Angelee worked, pretending to buy sneakers. They were immediately smitten and have been practically inseparable ever since. This dynamic duo recently celebrated their 1^st blogiversary and got me up to speed on how HIS + HER was born.

Photo Credit | Yesi Fortuna

Eddie explains, “We had a Tumblr blog that we dubbed His and Her blog and we put a bunch of fashion, home, architecture, design stuff that we were inspired by. We started it when we were wedding planning. We wanted to brand us becoming one through the wedding process. We developed the name and the idea of HIS + HER, together.” And even in its infancy, HIS + HER is getting noticed. Eddie and Angelee have been featured on the GQ website, the winter issue of Bungalow Magazine and on InstaDFW.

Photo Credit | Angelee Bravo Fortuna

For the pair who share a love of fashion, working on the blog together adds a deepening layer to their relationship. "Reaching outside my comfort zone, as far as styling goes, is what's exciting to me," says Angelee. "By collaborating certain pieces with one another, I'm being not only pushed by myself but also by him."

Photo Credit | Eddie Fortuna

Raised in a small rural town outside of Lubbock, Texas, Angelee always dreamed of trading the town’s one flashing yellow light for the flashing lights of D-Town. With Eddie’s Master’s in Architecture and Angelee’s Bachelor’s in Retail Merchandising they felt Dallas was big enough for both of them to grow in their respective fields. As they grow, they’re excited to see the cultural and artistic community blossom here, as well.

Photo Credit | Yesi Fortuna

“There’s definitely a hunger here. Because Dallas is a smaller city, it’s not L.A., it’s not New York, it’s not Chicago. So there’s a hunger here that is unique for Dallas because we are trying to make our way toward the top and be a global city."

Photo Credit | Yesi Fortuna

As surprising as it seems, Eddie and Angelee don’t have an ultimate goal for HIS + HER blog. “Obviously we have the dreams and visions of where it could be, but again, we just want to be part of the conversation. It’s vague, but I think it’s vague by design. We don’t want anything specific, we just want to be there.”  If being a part of the conversation was their aim, Eddie and Angelee have gone above and beyond that. They’re not just a part of the conversation, they’re the subject of it.

Who’s In Transit: M Knight

By Tamara Devers

M Knight wants to be clear.  He does not do booty photography. Period. “I like racy shit. I’m not a booty photographer. You can take a selfie for that. Do I love shooting women? Yes. Do I love shooting nude stuff? Yes. Do I want to push myself into the booty realm? No. It’s a fine line. I’ve crossed the line, I mean everybody has, but I think it’s a matter of where you want to set yourself. What is your marker for taste? Some people shoot booty really well. I like their booty shots, I just don’t want to be that guy.”

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about what guy M Knight is. Born and raised in a serious church-going family in Jackson, Mississippi, he had a conservative upbringing. But M Knight craved what every young person craves. Freedom and money. So, when he got out of high school, he made his way to Mississippi State University where he majored in Computer Science but graduated with a B.A. in Partying.

Photo Credit | M. KNIGHT

Despite not having a college degree, M Knight moved to Dallas where he started doing IT  work and after years of working for local companies, he went independent. These days M Knight splits his time between being a self-proclaimed IT nerd, a party pumping DJ and a no holds barred photographer. He’s always been fascinated by cool imagery and has trunks of magazines to prove it.  Surprisingly enough, M Knight’s interest in photography grew from the shadow of his DJ career and now is surpassing it.

Photo Credit | M. KNIGHT

“I like being an opening DJ. I can rock a party. When you’re opening DJ you always have that two hours to kill at the end. Either I can sit there and drink myself stupid or I can put something in my hands,” says Chris.  “I decided to put something in my hands. Plus, I was going to parties and all the pictures I saw were horrible. There were a couple of photographers that took great party pictures and we were all friends. I said ‘Hey, let me pick up a camera.’ So, I would pick up a camera and I would take pictures of my friends in low light without using flashes. So, I would kind of catch pictures of them. And I would just run around and I learned how to be real sneaky with a camera. People kept telling me I was good so I just eventually tried something else.”

That “something else” has since evolved into the racy, funky, sexy, crazy, stylish, fun, simple, erotic, complicated and sometimes nude images that populates M Knight’s world. He names German-Australian photographer, Helmut Newton as one of the main influences in his photography career. “His book sits at the front of my house. I don’t know how he did it. I wish I could have sat in on that man’s shoots. His stuff was classy as hell and yet racy as hell. And I don’t know how he thought up all these situations but he did. And the stuff that isn’t racy at all, it’s beautiful. It’s art.”

Photo Credit | M. KNIGHT

The craziest thing about M Knight is that despite being published in magazines and online publications practically every month, he considers his photography good, but not great. Humble to the extreme. If this is M Knight’s version of good, I can’t wait to see what great will be.

"Are You In" Launch Celebration

This past week we launched the new site for our blog and to celebrate we played some music, poured some drinks, and invited a few friends over.  We got a chance to talk about the new site and share our thoughts on the cultural landscape of this city.  A good time was had by all!  It was a beautiful start to what we hope is a great new chapter for us and all readers.  We'd be remiss if we didn't thank our sponsors Epocha and Deep Eddy Vodka.   If you didn't get a chance to party with us don't worry, you can check out all of the pics in their entirety right HERE!