monochromatic portrait

Right now I am working on a project that explores the theme of monochromatic portraits. The first one I shot was of Jen Turner, as was posted earlier on my blog, and the second one I shot is of Carrie Gifford, the illustrator. After I made her portrait for the book, I had her put on all white, of which the only white she had was her wedding dress. The wedding dress ended up being perfect!! It has this somewhat gothic quality to it that I really enjoy, and the light that day was perfect for the shot. I like the dreamy, angelic quality to the images, right now I'm not sure what direction I'm going, I'm just having fun exploring the concept. This shoot, really sort of took a different turn than I expected, but that's what I really like about it.

Jeff Lipsky

Last night I had the opportunity to meet photographer Jeff Lipsky, in Michael Kockman's class. He came in to give a guest lecture and to talk about his work, as well as how he got his start. Jeff is a really lovely guy, and takes gorgeous photographs. He has a very distinct sensibility that comes through in his images, which convey a real sensitivity to his subjects. It is immediately apparent that he has a very gentle touch, and a sweet demeanor. Meeting him was no let down. I've been a fan of his work for a while, and he first really caught my eye, when I saw the cover of Los Angeles Times Magazine, with Ellen Page on the front cover. There are some celebrities who get f*$#@! over by having incredibly bad photographs taken of them. I think that can happen when someone thinks, oh they're good looking, whatever I shoot will look good. Anyhow, I digress, the photos of Ellen Page are really gorgeous, and she's one of those celebrities that I think often gets photographed horribly! When I saw what Jeff did with her, I couldn't believe how gorgeous they were.

Annenberg Space for Photography

For those of you who don't know, there is something really exciting happening in Los Angeles right now, regarding photography. On Friday March 27th, The Annenberg Space for Photography will be opening its doors to the public, and will be exhibiting the works of 11 Los Angeles Photographers including: Julius Shulman,Tim Street-Porter, Douglas Kirkland, Greg Gorman, Lauren Greenfield, Carolyn Cole, Lawrence Ho, Kirk McKoy,Genaro Molina, Catherine Opie, and John Baldessari. On their website, they are excited to state that they are the first photographic cultural destination in Los Angeles. I think its going to be a really great venue for seeing new work, and they will be having ongoing lectures by different photographers throughout the year.

Annenberg Space for Photography
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Red Cap Cards

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of photographing my dear friend Carrie Gifford. She and her Husband Hal Mertz are the owners of the greeting card company, Red Cap Cards. They make incredible illustrated and letterpress greeting cards, and they are very lovely people. Carrie is going to be illustrating a children's book and needed a photo for the book jacket, so she asked me to do it, and they turned out really great.
This is a sample of what we did, and it's really fun because she is wearing the top she wore on her first date with Hal.

Brooke. The new new.

After being in school for so long, you have to remind yourself you stay fresh and always check yourself. It's not just being in school though, as an artist you always need to refresh yourself, and push to work in ways that are different than your usual regiment, which is what I am trying to do right now. I went over to my girlfriends house the other day, and just shot while leaving everything in its place. Instead of trying to control everything and rearrange the whole house, which I would normally do, I just walked in the door, saw her crazy outfit and the messy room, with the amazing color palette and shot. It was liberating and the results are beautiful. I really love these photos because they are out of my comfort zone, but I still think they are quite elegant, even amidst all of the chaos of the house.

Black Hearted Love

As I have mentioned before, I am mesmerized and inspired by PJ Harvey, she never ceases to amaze me!! She has just put out a new album with John Parish called, A Woman a Man Walked By, and it's perfect! I was just talking about how I wish her videos were as good as her music. I've checked out a lot of the music videos for her songs, and I always feel like they are not as good as they could be. Days after I said that, this video was released and it's gorgeous. The slow shots are mesmerizing, and haunting, and I'm so glad to see someone pushing for making great visuals to accompany her music. Lastly, I have been working on thinking up what my dream job would be, and it would be to shoot PJ, and to make a music video for her. That's what I really would love to do!
I'm just puttin' it out there.

Shoot at Art Center

So I have started the shooting process for Cecilia's movie debut. This image is a still from the hilarious shoot we did on Saturday on stage 1. Teresa looks so awesome!! Everyone dressed up, and it was too funny! By the way, this was shot on the Canon G10, and I love it!