This Is Camille Kostek’s No. 1 Favorite SI Swim Photoshoot Over the Years

The six-time brand star says one particular photo from this location changed her life.

Camille Kostek was photographed by Josie Clough on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.Josie Clough/Sports Illustrated

We on the SI Swimsuit team would have a hard time picking just one favorite photoshoot from Camille Kostek’s six incredible features with the brand. However, the model and television host revealed to us during Miami Swim Week that she has a favorite, and it’s not even a close call: her 2019 rookie photoshoot in Australia.

“It really was like stepping into a storybook,” Kostek recalls. “It was the most euphoric day of my life, and that photoshoot ended up being my first ever cover for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, and one of the best years of my life.”

She adds that her photoshoot with Josie Clough on Kangaroo Island was the first time she’d ever been to Australia, and the experience ended up changing the trajectory of her entire career.

Camille Kostek was photographed by Josie Clough on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

Josie Clough/Sports Illustrated

“We shot about 16 or 17 suits that day,” she says of her time on location in South Australia. “It was the first shoot, it was the first suit, and it was before the sun came up and it was just kind of like a little test shoot and it ended up being on the cover. I remember MJ [Day, SI Swimsuit editor in chief] saying, she’s like, ‘It was just you. It was just effortless, it wasn’t over-posed.’ And that photo changed my life.”

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Since co-winning the brand’s Swim Search in 2018 and landing the cover as a rookie, Kostek has returned to the fold each year since. She’s traveled to the Dominican Republic, Hollywood, Fla., and St. Croix with the brand, and this year, she posed for the 2023 SI Swimsuit Issue in the Dominican Republic.

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