Stormy Day

Looking at all of these amazing traditional prints is making me really want to shoot some film, so today I shot a polaroid of the amazing stormy sky in Los Angeles.  I love the  silhouette of the skyline, with those amazing clouds in the background.  

Late Bloomers and Lucinda Williams

To delve a little deeper into last nights highlights, I wanted to mention two of my favorite parts of the evening.
First of all Danny Clinch is a great contemporary music photographer, who has really great stories to tell about all of his images, and I have to say that goes a long way! He really seems like a lovely man, and his photos are super inspiring as well. Secondly, Lucinda played a couple of songs last night as well, and that was really a treat!! She is truly an amazing, inspiring, and genuine woman. I actually had the pleasure of meeting her at a party last weekend, and she was so fun and super warm, with an incredible sense of humor. Everything has taken on this strange kind of serendipity lately, and has been closely linked to each other, like meeting Lucinda randomly at a party, and randomly being invited to this event that she was going to play at. Anyhow, what made meeting her really special was her excellent words of advice, she said to me in her raspy southern drawl, " You know, I'm kind of a late bloomer..." This concept of the late bloomer has been coming up a lot lately, which has been somewhat reassuring. On http://www.aphotoeditor.com/, Rob posted this video of Ira Glass talking about how long it took him to get good at what he does, so I feel like I have been getting these reminders from great people all around, about the fact that things take time, and to be really great at what you do, takes a lot of time.

Music In Focus

Last night I was invited to attend the Music in Focus event put on by The Grammy Foundation. It was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, which is an amazing old theater. My new mentor Jeri Heiden, of Smog Design invited me to attend with her and her husband. They really are a great couple who own their own graphic design firm in Silverlake, and have worked with some of musics heavyweights for more than 20 years. They mostly do album cover work, and have done designs for Tom Petty, Madonna, K.D. Lang, and the Silversun Pickups, to name a few. The night was really fantastic, and featured some of rockn'roll and jazz musics great photographers that have captured the spirit of music throughout the years. The photographers they featured were Herman Leonard, Danny Clinch, and Robert Knight. It was amazing to see Herman Leonard kicking about at a great event, partly in his honor, since he is somewhere over 85 years old at this point. Not only were the photographers there, but some really great performers as well including: Sara Bareilles, Tyler Bryant, Daniel Lanois, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and Lucinda Williams. The show was really fantastic, and super inspiring!

Greg Bojorquez Exhibit

The second show I went to was on Saturday night at the O1 Gallery, downtown. The show had an amazing turnout for photographer, Greg Bojorquez. The Los Angeles native photographed his friends and neighbors of East L.A. over a period of ten years, documenting the lives of his fellow Latinos, and gang bangers. The images are gritty documents of life as a cholo/chola living in the colorfull backdrop of the mural laden East side. Bojorquez was interested in shooting as someone from the inside as a means for creating a true portriat of a community, rather than having it be represented by an "outsider". I think that that's a really great place to be coming from because the idea of the "outsider" providing a document of a community can sometimes be a miscommunication of sorts, while Bojorquez attempts to make an insider portrait.

Lillian Bassman Show

This weekend I attended two really great photo exhibits that inspired me. The first one was the closing show for Lillian Bassman, at the Peter Fetterman Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. She was one of the main photographers for Vanity Fair magazine from the 40's and 60's, and brought a beautiful and unique vision to fashion photography. She did a lot of darkroom manipulation, which gave her the effect seen in her imagery, using bleach to make the images very contrasty. Anyhow, looking at the giant black and white fiber based prints was amazing. There really is something about traditional darkroom printing that is magic.

The Shoot Location

This is Zanda's house, wherein we shot musician, Weston Hudson.
We cleared out this half of Zanda's living room and used it as a simple and graphic backdrop. We used a pro-photo 7b to light from the outside, the only modifier we used was a reflector. We also set up a a shoot through umbrella from the inside to provide some fill to his left side. I speak in we terms, because I shot with my friend and often times, assistant who is crucial to the success of my shoots. I also assist him on many of his shoots, and we are a perfect compliment to eachother, because he is more technical than I am, and he is more easy going. That makes for a very harmonious relationship. His, moniker Toky, is always accompanied by the title of his profession, i.e. Toky Photography. Everyone finds this a little strange at first, but most people get used to it.