An Afternoon at El Matador

They say if you want to take a beautiful picture, put something beautiful in front of the camera. I sure took a beautiful picture the other day.

I’d been wanting to photograph my spinning instructor, Cindy, since the summer. I was on a 4-mile run in Arizona listening to a song, the remix of “Unwritten,” that she sometimes plays in spinning and it struck me that she’d be amazing in front of a camera. It was sort of funny because to be honest, I really didn’t know what Cindy looked like… I usually sit three or four rows back, the room is pretty dark except for some blue or red lights, and even though at that time, I’d been going for just shy of a year, I wasn’t quite sure what she looked like, just that in that lighting and from a distance with my bad, old eyes, damn, she looked — how can I put this? — hot. It wasn’t until I got up the nerve to ask her if I could photograph her that I actually saw her up close. Yeah… perfect.

Getting her to agree to it was the easy part… getting her to actually set a date, well, that wasn’t so easy. But nearly four months later, there we were, on our way to the most stunning beach in Southern California — El Matador State Beach in Malibu.

Along for the shoot was my favorite makeup artist, Amanda Martinez, and Meghan, another photographer from my Maura Lanahan class, who was assisting me in carrying all the equipment down the long, steep path to the beach. Here it was, at the end of October, and it was broiling on the beach… it had to be in the upper 80s. And the tide was coming in and the sun was bearing down intensely on us. Not ideal shooting conditions. At. All. But I picked the time and I picked the place so I had to deal with it.

An incredibly fit woman, Cindy was game and gorgeous once she warmed up to the lens pointing at her. And even though most people are seemingly drawn to her awesome physique, I just couldn’t take my eyes off her face.

For this photo, which has become one of my favorites ever, I put on a neutral density filter to cut the light, slow down the shutter and open the aperture wide to blur the background. That let me use my flash in a brolly box for fill and the sun to backlight her hair. And it’s obviously not straight from the camera… it took about six hours of post-processing to create this image, probably the most time I’ve ever spent in front of the computer for one picture. But I’m besotted by the way Cindy looks… simply beautiful.

The Beautiful Beast

The other night, some friends of my mother’s were in town, a kind of last minute decision to travel from New Jersey to Los Angeles for a week. Their son, a childhood friend, let me know they were here and we made plans to meet for dinner in downtown L.A. At Ciudad, we talked about what they had been doing for the first few days they were here… Santa Barbara, Malibu, Hermosa Beach, San Diego. But they hadn’t yet explored Los Angeles and they were staying at the Westin-Bonaventure, in the heart of downtown. I told them the must-sees… the Central Library, the Bradbury Building, the Biltmore (be still my heart!), Grand Central Market, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chinatown, maybe even Pasadena, with its funky old downtown and beautiful historic homes. But there was one thing I wanted to show them… the most magnificent building in L.A. — Disney Hall.

I’d heard of Disney Hall long before it was built in 2003. Frank Gehry, the architect, finished his plans in 1991 and it took years before the funding was locked down. I remember seeing models of the hall, this bizarre looking building with few straight lines in sight.

Then the frame went up. It looked like the skeleton of a prehistoric animal. I bought season tickets to the first year of world music and was invited to preview the hall before it opened. It was spectacular.

So last Friday, we headed to my car and did a drive-by of Disney Hall. Wow. It still takes my breath away.

Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles

More Beautiful Light

So I’m taking another workshop at Julia Dean Photography Workshops in Venice, one with Maura Lanahan on studio lighting. I took a one-day workshop with her a while back so knew enough to jump on the opportunity of a six-week course. It’s been a blast so far. Last class, we tried imitating the light on a portrait of Julianne Moore in Vanity Fair, which is heavily Photoshopped and has a very painterly quality to it. One of the guys in our class has an Elinchrom Octabank, which he brought. The light is magnificent.

We had a model there, Tristyn Heldt, who was just awesome. We built a little ghetto set out of a table, camera bags, and some coats. We had a candle, like the Vanity Fair portrait, so we needed the f-stop at 5.6 and the shutter speed at 1/30 or even lower so that the flame appeared. We put a background light on the black seamless, gridded it and gelled it in yellow (as if the candle was casting the glow) and I think it was one stop slower than the main.

And this is one of my pictures I really like. A bit desaturated, lots of burning and dodging, some skin softening and cloning, and judicious use of the liquify tool. But gorgeous.

Looking for the Light

Yeah, yeah, I have lots of lights… an ample supply of strobes, including a ring flash, and three speed lights. Use them, love them… but sometimes, that isn’t the look you’re looking for. That was my problem to solve when I had the chance to shoot some headshots of an actor. I kept thinking, “Where can I shoot Ron that I haven’t shot before?”

I was pondering this question while on a bicycle ride. I have a sweet little 12.5 mile route that I like to do… it runs along part of the Orange Line busway in L.A. As I was heading under the 405, I saw it. Under the overpass! That’s it! I can shoot there. There’s a lot of filtered light there.

Later that same afternoon, I picked up Ron, a flinty Clint Eastwood type if ever there was one. Once near the overpass, I dropped off him and my assistant and a boatload of equipment, parked along the street, and went back to shoot. Didn’t need the extra lights at all. Just threw a little reflector back onto the dark side of his face and had some nice, headshot lighting. This is the first picture that Ron and his agent selected out of the couple hundred we shot that day. Me, it’s not my favorite… I like him with a bit more of a surly look although he is anything but surly. But this does catch him as a handsome, friendly guy.

Gotta say, Ron was fun to shoot, too. Since this wasn’t his first rodeo, he knew how to pose, which is always a pleasure. Every time he heard the shutter click, he struck an entirely different look.

Love that Color

Sometimes when I travel, I bring almost every piece of photography equipment I own and make it a point to take pictures. And sometimes, I bring the camera, two lenses and just go out and have fun. Such was the case on my trip to Seattle where I visited dear friends who had recently moved there. All I wanted to do was play in their new city and the camera wasn’t the main focus, so to speak. We had a blast over those four days and went to Pike’s Place Market three times. Loved it. But since I’m a sucker for farmers’ markets and fresh ingredients, I snapped pictures of fruits, vegetables and flowers. And though I’m not bringing anything new to the party with this image, I’ll just never get over the beautiful colors of fresh raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. Swoon.

Fresh Berries, Pike's Place Market

Chinatown at Night

My friend Joyce and I took out our cameras not too long ago, headed over to Union Station, then boarded the gold line for an evening shooting in Chinatown. The shape of Hop Louie caught my eye so I went around the corner to investigate this restaurant. I saw this man — possibly a waiter? — sitting outside, smoking a cigarette. It just struck me as so mysterious… and a little bit Edward Hopperish, don’t you think?

Chinatown by Night, Los Angeles

The Twins’ New Home!

A couple of my favorite clients just moved into an amazing new house with their toddler twins. So with them being in their new house less than a week, I came over with my camera and captured the two little ones as they explored their environs. Boy, was that fun! Izzy, the girl, was very wary of us, even though we’ve “known” her since before she was born. But when that girl smiled, she was absolutely radiant! And Free, the boy… what a tough little man. They’re going to have a handful with both of them, but what fun they’ll have. When I saw the images, I realized there was a definite narrative there with their exploration of the new place so I created a book for them called “Our New Home.” They were very happy with it and so was I.

Being a Lousy Traveler

I love to travel, I really do. But my god, I was challenged on my latest trip. To Ecuador. My sister lives there part-time… she’s fortunate enough to be “retired” while still in her 40s. Grrr… but whatever. She has a house in Guayaquil, the country’s largest city, and a beach place an hour and a half from there in a tiny town called Playas. So I visited her for nine days in early March. I live to tell, that was a hard trip. Don’t get me wrong… the people are amazing and friendly, with gorgeous, wide-open smiles. The food is incredible. Love the food, even as I ate fried pork with the rest of the pig it came from hanging directly behind my shoulder. And there is some spectacular scenery to be had. But there is also a lot of poverty, a lot of crime, and let’s not mince words here, a lot of trash. Plastic trash strewn everywhere. Ecuador is a poor country, to be sure. But if it ever wants to attract tourism, which I get the impression it does, it’s really got to clean up its act. Literally. Walking on the beach in Playas made me feel like that old ’70s PSA with the Indian weeping at the polluted land. There was so much garbage everywhere. And don’t get me started on the street dogs. Dogs everywhere. Honestly, between the garbage and the dogs, my heart hurt. And I hand it to the people there… life seems so hard, my hat is off to their way to survive. I guess it’s just what you’re used to. But it just seemed like if you wanted to do something that was normal to you, whatever that might have been, you couldn’t do it. Our new expression became,
“Forget it, Jake… it’s Ecuador.” Bonus points if you get the “Chinatown” reference (“Forget it, Jake… it’s Chinatown.”).

On the plus side, and, okay, there were plenty of pluses (the Andes were amazing), the photography there is excellent. Excellent. Worth the price of admission.

Here’s my Ecuador gallery.

Me Love!

I don’t know about you, but I have about a gazillion camera bags. Some actually have cameras in them, some are just empty waiting for their proper usage. Most are quite unattractive, shall we say. Oh sure, they’re very utilitarian. Black. OK, or gray. Ripstop nylon. Maybe canvas. Can’t do without my Lowepro Mini Trekker. Or can I?

My latest find: The Jill-e fashion camera bags. If you’re a woman, maybe, like me, you get just a little bit tired of the style-less bags offered for, let’s face it, mostly our fellow male photographers. Girlz, we have options! When I was in Boston recently, I carried my 5D and my equipment from Los Angeles in my Mini Trekker. God bless it, but it does fit a lot and I’ve gotta say is fairly comfortable to carry. And it’s carry-on legal. But, ladies, am I right in saying it lacks a little pizazz? It’s great for the field… you can hardly say you need something of stark raving beauty while shooting on a hike. But the Mini Trekker doesn’t seem quite so mini when you’re touring a city, now does it?

Ah, that’s where Jill-e comes in. Here I was banging around museums and restaurants and all kinds of places with my 5D over my shoulder and my flash in my purse. Just didn’t seem right. Now had I had a small Jill-e bag, which I now do, I could have replaced my purse with it and had a stylish camera bag to boot. I love this thing! Mine is red leather with a brown strap… with a polka dot interior. Uh-huh, that’s right, polka dots on the inside. Awesome. So when I am touring a city, my Jill-e is going to be right over my shoulder. It’s great for just a casual day around town. You don’t want to bring everything with ya… you know you’re not going to need every lens you own. It fits another lens, a flash and all kinds of stuff. Very functional. And did I mention stylish? Wow!

I liked it so much I ordered the medium bag. Love it, too! It’s now my bag when I have a paying job and I know exactly what lenses I’ll need.

The large one is next on my list. Suede. Yummy.

Is it so wrong to love a camera bag this much?

Chasing the Light

Last year, it was a rare sight indeed for me to be photographing a human. This year, I’m crazy for it. And it all has to do with lighting. I’m not even going to pretend I know much about lighting but in the last couple of months I’ve taken two daylong workshops at the Julia Dean Photography Workshops in Venice. The first, taught by Julia Dean herself, was the Crash Flash course. The second was taught by Maura Lanahan, a Los Angeles-based photographer who does really great studio lighting.

Ah, where to begin? Julia’s workshop gave me the confidence to begin using my new Canon 580EX flash… I’d been a bit intimidated by it, I confess. And Maura’s workshop taught me about using light modifiers for studio strobes as well as pearls of other lighting wisdom.

Friday after the day job, I went with my friend Mollie to El Matador State Beach in Malibu to shoot a few portraits. I brought my 580EX, stuck it on a lightstand and attached it with a Gorillapod and put on a Gary Fong Lightsphere. What great lighting… I mean really. No big hotspots, just soft lighting in the Malibu twilight. And it doesn’t hurt that Mollie is a beautiful model.

These images were shot at F4 at 1/60 in order to capture the ambient light while at the same time keeping the background blurred so it doesn’t distract from Mollie. Hope she likes the pictures!
So this is with flash… next time, it will be adventures in strobe lighting, more specifically, with my Alien Bees and softboxes, beauty dishes and all kinds of fun modifiers.

I’m having a great time experimenting with lighting and shooting people. Who knew?