Adventures of a city day

Debs park. A nice little hideaway in the mist of the big bad city. Not much traffic. Really nice scenery. A lovely view of downtown LA and highland park. Definitly a nice place to go and check out. Just maybe not in hella hot heat when the sun is blaring down on your face, you are sweating out all the water in your body, and you are running on maybe 6 hours of sleep. Seriously though, it was the first time Elias and I have shot in the wilderness. We always do city scapes, so this was something different for us. No fences to jump or alleys to hide in. Just poison oak, an abandoned car, and the city view for our taking. Photos to be posted next weekend (hopefully).

Photos of Little C

Little C aka Courtney. These are a few of the results from our little adventure in Echo Park. This was only her 2nd time modeling. So enjoy!

Headshots

Headshots. The goal: To bring out his eyes. My challenge: To bring out his eyes. We walked. We test. We reflect. I surrender. Surrender to what? Failure. My only hope. My lone brick wall and photoshop. So how do people do it? How do people bring out eyes? Like eyes that don't automatically pop. All I can say is argh.

The bright side: Laughter. Even if you are failing colossally. If you can laugh, it makes it better.

Jenie

This is the result of my last minute I gotta find a model now shoot from last Friday. I'm very happy with the results. I think this has been my best shoot with Jenie yet! The photos have a definite vintage feel and Jenie seems like a lady ready to take on the world whether through silent film or being a kitten with a whip. It was hella hot out there and bunches of bees. Glad we survived! The lovely Caroline Jaynes did the make up. The clothes are Jenie's. I "styled" them. Enjoy!

The Weekend Challenge

The Challenge: To tell me a special way that you are going to enjoy the last few weeks of summer. You can tell me either using words or uploading a photograph. Your creativity is up to you. Challenge ends on August 21st at 9pm.

The Reward: Any person who responds will be in a drawing to recieve a 8 x10 photo. This photo can either be the photo of your choice or one of my choosing. It's up to you.

Requirements: You have to either follow my blog (click the follow botton on the right hand side) or you must "like" my photography page on Facebook.

Happy Challenge!

Little C

Saturday. The day of fun, relaxation, and the whoohoo I don't have to work day (unless of course you do have to do work). I picked up little C at her house for her second ever photo shoot. I think she was a bit nervous. C is a sheltered child. You would realize it with her purple mohawk, but she is. Kind of shy, doesn't like a bunch of attention. So where did I bring her? To Echo Park of course! I told her it's a place full of either Hipsters or Mexicans. She was like oh boy. She wanted to do an alley shoot. And they have some great alleys off of Sunset. So in the mist of having a man who doesn't speak English wanting to tell her how to pose and random sleeping homeless people, we got our shoot done. C was a anxious at first, but once she hit the mark of actually getting comfortable, the photos started to come together. The highlight for me was the dude who was in some band playing at the Echo, asking us if we would mind if he peed. Why was that the highlight? Cause he was cute of course! Why else?

When I am out there, in the sun, the cold, or the wind taking photos, my mind is all over the place. I shoot fast. It's just what I do. I prolly take like 100 photos in half an hour or so. That means I am watching for lighting, model pose, expression, and photo framing all in these short little amouts of time. I think it's amazing I get any good photos at all. I know people visualize me standing out there, telling the model actually how to pose, and then having that model stay in that position for minutes at a time while I get lighting and framing right. WRONG. I tell the model to stand, I test for lighting, I say are you ready? They say yes or no. And then I shoot while not saying too much else. I may say stand, sit, hold that pose, or move more. That's it. I know. Not quite as glamorous as you thought huh? Well, that was a little peak into my world as a photographer. If you are curious about other parts of the process let me know by leaving a comment or message. Ciao!

Tell me do you like that?

I figured, maybe today was meant to be. The complications of today started 5 days ago, when I realized that I was on jury duty all "on call" all week. I knew I had set up a shoot for Friday, but in my head b/c I don't work on Fridays, then I couldn't do jury duty on Friday. Totally forgetting that the rest of the world doesn't work like I do. So there I was, thursday afternoon, calling the jury duty number, and crossing all of my crossable body parts so that I wouldn't have to go in. And YES! I didn't. Step 1. Then complication number two happened. I wrote the model to verify the shoot. No answer. Wait. Wait. Wait. There I am, 7 am Friday morning, wondering what on earth to do. I knew there was a chance she couldn't come b/c of transportation, but she never told me whether her transportation worked out or not. So, thanks to an early morning like on facebook, I knew that the lovely Jenie was awake at some early hour of the morning. I text her, once again crossing all of my crossable body parts, are you available today? And YES. She was. Two hours later, we were pulling into Griffith park ready to get styled and shot. I feel like it took all of my faith to make today work out and it did. Sometimes, positive things happen. I have been very fortunate this week and I hope that all of my hard work continues to pay off. So until tomorrow. =)

Ali

Maryna

My first sunset strip shoot. The first outfit is inspired by old school hollywood glamour. The second outfit reminded me of prom night. Ha. Enjoy!

xlordashx's photostream

xlordashx's photostream on Flickr.

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