Actually Simple
Behind the scenes with a stunning model, Kajira. Much of the time my setups are pretty simple. Although I usually have an assistant on hand for at least setup and tear down, most everything else is pretty much easy for me to do by myself if needed.
My surroundings obviously are very comfortable and roomy. I can reverse this room and have even higher ceilings. I also have tilt up sets that can create entire rooms outdoors in complete privacy. A very beautiful pool and spa with stamped concrete patios and decks recently all redone just before Summer. New landscaping going in now that will allow for garden and tree scenery. Plenty of room on hand for full makeup and hair styling as well and wardrobe changing.
I do depend on the best equipment to make sure I have not only great results but also no failures or problems. From heavy duty Matthews stands to Broncolor lighting and a Hasselblad digital camera system. I make no excuses for wanting to make sure that each photo shoot works every time. Only the best!
Kajira Behind The Scenes In Our Photo Shoot
Add A Vintage Turban
Photo shoot with model Kajira was just so very fun! Tall, slender and so very well poised! I cannot even begin to tell you, but I have the photos and some great video! But for now I loved her look with such a simple wardrobe addition as this vintage turban. Made my day!
Photo shoot notes… Hasselblad digital camera system and Broncolor lighting. Only the best!
Elegance Of Posing
Working with professional ballet, dance model Viktoria “Viktory” Hofstaedter. A photo shoot filled with her elegance of motion as part of her posing. Each and every pose a work of art.
Photo shoot notes… The beautiful makeup and hair styling by Natalie Lyle. Hasselblad digital camera system. Lighting by Broncolor. Only the best.
My Selfie
I haven’t shot a selfie since I was in Budapest. This time at the March Air Field Museum. Think I look good?
I Don’t Get It
So the sign is right there! But when I used it everybody got so upset. At Moorten Botanical Garden.
I Was Just Standing There
I was just standing there, taking this nice photograph of this little mountain when this airplane got right in my way! I have identified it as a C-17 Globemaster III departing March Air Reserve Base. Think I should complain?
Up Close
Like nowhere else, you get up close at the Palm Springs Air Museum. That is where you find me with my favorite Hasselblad cameras. The cameras that orbited the Earth and went to the Moon.
This plane coming in from a flight demonstration is the North American Aviation T-28 Trojan… I have been told that it, in many ways, actually outperforms the famed P-51 Mustang of World War II. The T-28… “a basic trainer that was ordered in four advanced versions, the T-28A for the U.S Air Force and T-28B and T-28C, by the U.S. Navy, with the latter version designed for carrier training operations and the AT-28D. It was the first trainer designed to transition pilots to jet aircraft. In its second life, the AT-28D was used in counterinsurgency missions and later as a ground-support fighter in Southeast Asia. It’s a remarkably strong, fast, and capable airplane, and the big Wright radial engine makes that wonderful music that only a round engine can. The Trojan was the first American fixed wing attack aircraft lost in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.”
“Specifications and Performance –
T-28B Engine: One, Wright Cyclone R-1820-86 radial piston Engine. Horsepower: 1,425 hp., at sea level with auxiliary supercharger. Dimensions:Wing Span: 40.1. Length: 33 ft., Height: 12.8 ft., Weight Empty: 6,424 lbs. Maximum Speed: 343 mph Service Ceiling: 35,500 ft.”
Skyward!
I was at the Palm Springs Air Museum the other day and all the talk is the excitement of flying again for this season! This is a flying museum along with all kinds of great programs. You can watch historic aircraft take to the skies, sit in cockpits and see incredible one of a kind programs. Yes and you can fly too! Check it all out on the Palm Springs Air Museum website here at http://palmspringsairmuseum.org
And you will see me there with my favorite Hasselblad cameras. Hasselblad cameras were the choice for NASA taking into Space and to the Moon. So my first choice too!
“I’m Not Going To Move…”
“I’m not going to move until I get your attention” says Maria Bertrand. You got it Maria!
Photo shoot notes… Superb makeup and hair styling by Blanche LeBeau. Hasselblad digital camera system and Broncolor lighting. Only the best!
Movement Ballet
Wonderful to see, hard to describe. A photograph that shows the movement from start to finish. The wonderful professional Ballet Model Viktoria.
Photo shoot notes… Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle. Hasselblad digital camera system. Broncolor lighting with the Move 1200L pack and Para 133 reflector. Only the best!
Every Pose…
“Every pose she does is a work of art” said Natalie Lyle who did the wonderful makeup and hair styling yesterday for our photo shoot. The incredible ballet dance model Viktoria. Extensively published and world traveling, I am more than thrilled to have her in front of my camera. Originally from Austria and having danced on the stage of the Vienna Opera House, I am without words to describe seeing her work. So I will let the photographs speak for themselves.
Shoot notes… Hasselblad digital camera system. Broncolor lighting with the Broncolor Para 133 reflector. Only the best!
Simplicity
Sometimes I prefer simplicity. A 45 year old Polaroid instant film camera and one of my favorite models, Aristodeme. I think I will do more of this in my photo shoots. What do you think?
Like She Was Walking On A Yacht
She walked into the party, like she was walking on a yacht. And they all dreamed that they’d be her partner, they’d be her partner… Ashley Owens-Gulina. Sounds familiar, do you know from where? From our photo shoot. Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle.
She Gets Naked
Seeing that my photography sometimes includes nude women, I am occasionally asked “How do you get them to take their clothes off?”. It is a question I find perplexing. It shocks me to think that people would surmise that these beautiful women are somehow tricked out of their clothes and that they are not freely being part of the art or creation. It truly befuddles me.
To that point I just read this wonderful story in “The New Yorker” magazine. “The Opposite Of A Muse” by Anna Heyward. I am not going to try to summarize but merely use a few quotes to explain the story of Isabelle Mage. Click on the photograph to read the entire feature and see more photographs.
“At the time she came to Paris, she had never met an artist, and had been to few museum shows, but she collected record covers and postcards of images that appealed to her. One Saturday in mid-July, she went alone to an exhibition by the portrait photographer Jeanloup Sieff at the Musée d’Art Moderne. Stunned by the images, which depicted anonymous and ordinary, as well as famous, subjects, she wrote to Sieff, telling him that she liked his work. To her surprise, he telephoned her a few days later. She wrote in her diary, which she kept from 1986 until 2008, “He calls me, I’m extremely moved, surprised, I feel drunk.” She asked him if he would consider making a picture of her.”
“She began looking at photography books, buying magazines, and keeping track of the names in the exhibitions she visited. Methodically, and recording her activities in brief, elliptical diary entries, she sought out other artists, explaining how she had encountered their work and asking to be used in it.”
“By 1990, Mège’s collection had grown to around sixty images—most of them black-and-white, and almost all nude, as she preferred to be photographed.”
“Nègre’s Fetishist,” a image from 1990 by Joel-Peter Witkin, whom Mège pursued for years before he agreed to work with her.
Autumn For Only Minutes
Only a few minutes into Autumn and I am already looking back at Summer. I can’t help it, I had such wonderful models in my pool for photo shoots like the breathtaking Noel VanBrocklin.
Shoot Notes… The wonderful makeup and hair styling by Blanche LeBeau. Hasselblad digital camera system. Lighting by Broncolor. Only the best!
Not Fall Flowers
This is not Fall flowers, this is Amber Flowers and she is just perfect. And wardrobe styling by Amber as well. She is so good!
Shoot notes… Hasselblad digital camera system. Broncolor lighting with the Broncolor Move 1200L pack and one strobe head in the Broncolor Para 133 reflector. Only the best!
Low Clouds
So many of you have been photographed in the pool in my backyard and seen nothing but bright hot sunny blue skies. Today is a very unusual day of rain and look how low the clouds are against the nearby mountains. I have friends over there who are probably completely fogged in. Very fun! Here in Palm Springs.
Hasselblad Demo, Samy’s Camera & Noel
When Hasselblad needed a model for the demo at Samys Camera, I sent them my latest great model, Noel VanBrocklin. Who better to show off the new 100mpx camera and the latest Hasselblad X1D! Of course Broncolor lighting with a Para 88 and Siros L. Perfect!
Scenic Imagination
So great fun doing photo shoots in interesting and scenic places. Sometimes they do not seem scenic at first, but then just use your imagination. The imagination of knowing what something will look like in the photograph. One of my favorite photo shoots, this time with bodybuilder Daniel Hill.
Shoes and Atomic Bombs
Shoe shopping in Rice California along Hwy 62. Rice was formerly named Blythe Junction. Now a ghost town, it was the home of Rice Army Airfield. It was the 2nd choice for the world’s first atomic bomb test in 1942. This is the somewhat famous Rice Shoe Tree. On a photo excursion and location scouting yesterday.
Wouldn’t you like to know who and why? I would.
That Way!
Sometimes these photo excursions and location scoutings are not much more planned than going ‘that way’. At Rice California with Arizona straight ahead.
Unseen
How often do you not see what you see? Driving along you look over and there is something over there in the distance. Driving up a road that seemingly does not take you to a destination. This is one of those. On a photo excursion and location scouting yesterday. What an amazing thing to see in the middle of nowhere.
The Metropolitan Water District Eagle Mountain Pumping Plant. Just look at that incredible building probably dating to around 1938. I do find it all fascinating.
“While water flows through much of Metropolitan’s service area powered by gravity, it takes five pumping plants along the Colorado River Aqueduct in the California Mojave Desert to ensure its final destination to Lake Mathews.
These pumping plants move water supplies from the Colorado River Aqueduct with a total lift of 1,614 feet. All pumping plants have nine pumps, and each of the nine units has a nominal rated capacity of at least 225 cubic feet per second. Each pump is driven by a vertical, three-phase, 60-cycle, 6,900-volt synchronous motor, which is totally enclosed and water-cooled. Each Intake motor develops 9,000 horsepower.” – MWD website
Instant BTS
Fun shooting behind the scenes photos with instant film cameras. This one with the Fujifilm Instax. Of course no one really cares because I know you are staring at the magnificent Noel VanBrocklin. Model, actress and the stunning creature in the blue lagoon of my pool. Shoot notes… lighting is a Broncolor Move 1200L and Broncolor beauty dish. The actual shoot with a Hasselblad digital camera system. Often overlooked, the stand and boom are Matthews Studio Equipment. Wonderful and sexy makeup and hair styling by Blanche LeBeau.
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