fun!

from a fashion test shoot late last month...



















model: marie-lyn deja
makeup: inara lopetaite
stylist: amanda richardson
special thanks to taslimur! :)

A Favorite Place

Faery Hunt at Griffith Park

Not too long ago, my friend Rosanna invited me to go to a "Faery Hunt" in Griffith Park with her sister, two nieces, and her friend and her friend's daughter. The Faery Hunt is an interactive play, where the kids (mostly little girls under the age of 6)  follow a faery guide through the "forest" (aka: picnic area of Griffith Park) as they searched for the Faery Queen, encountering trolls, gnomes, and a weird hybrid bird-beast. It was an insanely hot day, but all the adorableness made up for it. :)

the bag and the beach

i've heard of photographers using baby diaper bags and even lunch boxes to carry their cameras discreetly.  i'm not really into that, and after searching endlessly for a cute bag big enough to hold my camera and a lens or two, i found one at urban outfitters. i really wanted a leather bag, but i realized that would be much too heavy when i have all my stuff in there... so this one won:

yes, i realize it's gigantic (though not quite as gigantic as this photo makes it seem. the model is super tiny!) and because of its size it's not exactly incognito, but... it doesn't look like a camera bag, does it? :)


anyway, this means that i can now bring my camera everywhere, like i want to, and not feel like a dorky tourist with a gigantic, manly camera bag. it's a gigantic, CUTE camera bag! i still have to figure out how to pad it properly so the camera is totally safe, but i've got a couple ideas up my sleeve. :)


anyway, i took my "stealth" camera bag to the beach for an early morning picnic with chet over the weekend, and got a couple fun pics. 

grandma

i drove up to san luis obispo over labor day to visit my aunt and 91 year old grandma. it was a great time-- we went to an apple orchard, watched lots of fun old movies (i think it was the first time i've seen "the wizard of oz" since I was a kid...what a trip!), and took a beautiful drive through the canyons of wine country.

here are a couple shots of g-ma looking through some old photos and getting her hair done.

(on a side note, i finally figured out how to post bigger pictures. hooray!!)

headshots :: emma

vacation!

well, a mini-vacation, anyway. last weekend's getaway to the montage laguna beach was AMAZING. i was so busy relaxing by the pool that i almost forgot to snap some pictures. almost. :)

here's my new favorite spot in southern california-- the montage's fire pit where you can order marshmallow and s'more kits. yum!

Studio Lighting!

So, I've always fancied myself a documentary photographer, but I realized that if I wanted to get anywhere in this industry I should know how to do studio lighting, too. My good friend Tas has a little studio at his house and he was nice enough to let me play around. (Check out his work at www.taslimur.com-- he's SO talented!) My model had to work at the last minute, so Tas was brave enough to be my guinea pig and put up with all sorts of crazy suggestions.

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out-- much more dramatic than anything I've been able to do in natural light. While my first love will always be documentary photography, I have a serious crush on studio lighting... I can't wait to go back and do more!

Thanks, Tas! :)

a string of hits

Here's a photo I took yesterday outside the Rite Aid at Franklin and Western. I just finished a hike up Mt. Hollywood and went to pick up a Rx on the way home when I came across this man playing a broken trumpet outside the store. As I left the store, I asked him if I could stay and listen and take some photos, and he seemed quite content to let me do that. I asked him where he was from and he told me instead where the woman who wrote the song he was playing was from. "...mumble mumble mumble...She's from Nova Scotia. It was a string of hits!" O-kay. "What's your name?" I asked, and he replied with chuckle," Earthquake. My name's Earthquake." O-kay again. He continued to play this garbled "string of hits" as I watched him-- and the people around us.

What I found most interesting was that, a half hour earlier when I walked into the store to pick up my Rx, few people were stopping to give him a second glance, much less any money. (The honest truth is that he isn't a very good trumpeter.) But when I came out and started talking to him and taking photos, all of a sudden that changed. People started walking more slowly past him, and 90% of them dropped dollar bills into his Thrifty Ice Cream cup. I wonder if, because someone was paying attention to him, they thought that he was suddenly more interesting that he was before? A little more deserving of their dollars? Or they saw that a young woman was interacting with this man, so he couldn't be too crazy or too much of a threat? I'm not sure, but it was certainly fascinating.

It reminds me of a great article I read a while back by Gene Weingarten about virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell, who played unnoticed in a Washington Metro station for 45 minutes. This man sells out concert halls with $100 seats, and yet less than a handful of people stopped to listen to him play outside of the subway. Again, fascinating.

joshua tree

a couple weeks ago, i had an assignment to take a picture of a tree. uh....what? and not just any tree, but a tree with feeling. the happiest tree i've ever seen, or the most melancholy, or the most inspiring. I was at a complete loss-- where should i even begin? this was by far the most challenging assignment i've ever had to wrap my little mind around. mostly because i am not a nature photographer. and i don't particularly like landscapes. i rarely think landscape photos are interesting-- at least the landscape photos i take, anyway. so this was a big problem. how do i take an meaningful picture of a tree?

luckily, it dawned on me that this would be the perfect time to visit joshua tree national park, something i've been wanting to do since moving to southern california. if i couldn't take an interesting photo of a tree, gosh darnit at the very least i'd have a photo of an interesting tree. so, i rounded up the troops-- my buddy tas and his gorgeous wife jamie-- and we headed out to the desert.



after all my complaining, i have to admit that i was very pleasantly surprised. joshua tree is an amazing place, full of strange landscapes and a strikingly beautiful desolation. i've never seen anything like it. i want to go back and camp, wake up early for the sunrise, and spend the day among the yuccas. maybe go rock climbing, or do some hiking through the desert forests.





the cactus is making babies!



a cactus baby stuck on jamie's finger.



spring was on its way... pretty wildflowers everywhere and flowering yuccas:




gorgeous:

East LA Mariachis

A couple weeks ago my friend David and I went out to East LA to see what we could find. We stumbled upon this group of very friendly, jovial mariachis. They played a little for us, and though I don't know much Espanol (at all!) they were so nice to me. I wish I knew their names so I could go back and give them copies of these pics!