LA Photographer's Day at the Office

A day at the office for a LA photographer looks something like this. A bunch of light gear, camera, funky location and someone in the entertainment industry. Actors, musicians, directors, writers, producers...you get the idea.

Sometimes you get 2 minutes and other times you get 3 hours. Luckily years of gorilla style shooting around the world allow me to pull off a shot in seconds. There have been times when I have been waiting all day on a movie set for my 5 minutes to find out that "they" need to redo make up and I have "maybe 2 minutes" to get the shot needed for marketing. "No sweat, I got it!"

Yesterday I shot Gaby who is a singer, actor, writer and accent coach. She needed shots for her new website; rather than do typical headshots I said, "Let's do something you might see on the cover of Hollywood Reporter."

Gaby loved the idea so I told her to bring a bunch of props, jackets, hats, etc. to give us a variety of looks. If I can pull off one image that a client can use to help them get more work then I have done my job.

Unfortunately LA has been rainy the past couple of weeks and it was soupy out. That's when there are so many clouds the light is completely flat. I had to break out the lights which makes for some very dramatic shots.

Being a photographer you get hit with a lot of technical or weather challenges. You just have to plow through it and make it work, there may not be another opportunity so you have no choice but to pull it off.

I'll dive into the shots and be sure to read the story at the end...something bizarre happened while shooting yesterday.

This is a light test shot. We walked up the 4th Street bridge with a view of downtown LA in the distance. Cars were zooming buy, I would wait for traffic to slow down, jump into the street, fire off two or three shots and then jump out of the way. A little nerve racking.

I used a beauty dish for this shot. It's a hard light with a fast fall off, but it was windy on the bridge and I didn't have an assistant or sandbag; a beauty dish a good choice for windy conditions. The last thing you want is your $2,000 Profoto to take a spill on a shoot.

Once I dialed in the right exposure for ambient and subject light, it's time to play and get a variety of expressions. She wanted something more serious but I pushed for high energy in this shot.

That serious shot. It's not heady shotty looking because of that dramatic light on the face and I killed the ambient light (cloudy city behind) by about two stops.

LA is rarely gloomy, but yesterday my city reminded me of shooting in London or NYC.

We were shooting in the middle of the road in the Arts District downtown; Damon, a delivery driver, popped into the shot. I can't tell you how many times a delivery guy has jumped into the shot. Roll with it.

The shot by the old Ford. I wasn't feeling it, so we moved on. If you're gut says no, just move on. Notice the gear in the shot, I don't mind showing the equipment, but this shot the wires look a little too messy

Sometimes your client insist on wearing something not so flattering, a big coat. Make it artsy. A grid spot and go wide! Man that Profoto is sexy.

"An old barrel full of rotting trash will work!"

We shot a variety of backdrops but the bridge shots I think were the best shots from our short shoot. Here's an initial light test; I like getting the light up really high and point it down on the subject. But as you can see in this shot the eyes disappear in shadow. I didn't have a second light for fill on the bridge so I had to bring the angle straight on.

In this shot I put the light off to the side to create somewhat of a hot spot on her face. It works.

Here I am making Gaby laugh, not so serious fun shot. The black and white really works in this case.

A day at the office,

LA Photographer

PS I mentioned I had a story to tell from yesterday's shoot. I was finishing up shots on the bridge about to call it a wrap and this duck plops into the middle of the street right on the bridge. Cars are whizzing by and the little duck is about to get run over.

I stop traffic, run out into the middle of the bridge and grab the fucking duck. He obviously was in bad shape, so I told Gaby I would try and save the duck. Well, ducky looks really bad, so I said let's take a picture with you and the duck.

I snap off a couple of shots and he just died in her arms. She started crying and I wasn't sure what to do but just put my arm around her tell her it will be okay. I said, "we can't just leave this little ducky on the side of this bridge." So we took him to a nearby park and we buried him under a giant bougainvillea tree.

Sad, I know.

Okay! I'm out!!!!