Behind the scenes the other day on a photo shoot at City Athletic Club in Las Vegas. An incredibly gorgeous Shawn Towne complemented with Chaun Williams providing the right atmosphere in the gym. And a huge Thank You to Jennifer Chamberlin who was a wonderful photo assistant, modeling coach and wardrobe advisor. A really cool gym and a huge Thanks to everyone!
Yes I still shoot some film. Here I am in Las Vegas earlier this week. Along with all my digital gear I brought along a film camera and some Kodak Professional film. I like the look!
If you had been with me at the Palm Springs Air Museum yesterday this is what you would have seen. One of the very few, of maybe six or seven, still flying World War II P-38 aircraft in the entire world. I don’t think I have ever seen one before in person for real. How very exciting! And even more exciting that I got to photograph it as it flew by! Just WOW!
You have heard the description “Legs Forever”. Well this is her, Natalie Lyle. More than just legs, she is also abs, arms, sexy and beautiful. Would you believe that when she first started working for me as my photo shoot Makeup Artist she had never even been in a gym in her entire life! I think all of the bodybuilding and fitness photography I do has rubbed off on her in a very good way. You can see Natalie on stage this Saturday at the NPC Grand Prix Bodybuilding, Figure, Physique and Bikini Championships in Los Angeles. Or you can just keep staring at this photograph from our photo shoot the other day. I won’t stop you, I am staring at her too!
My day with Sasha Brown, photographing her around the Salton Sea, was as perfect as it gets. Beautiful weather and great scenery, even our Starbucks stops were fun. And as I looked at her through the camera and see the photographs today, I can say that Sasha is indeed as beautiful and scenic and perfect a woman as it gets as well.
I woke up feeling a little old the other morning. Then I saw that the Rolling Stones were going on tour this Summer, criss crossing the country playing 15 stadiums. Wow! These guys started out in 1962 and are still rocking hard! I think I remember first hearing them in 1963. OK! Forget the feeling old stuff! If they can tour stadiums, I can get out of bed and keep at it too!
I am all in! I can’t help it! I continue to be a huge fan of the Carl’s Jr. commercials. And this latest with model Sara Sampaio is no exception! Does it sell anyone on going to Carl’s? Well they are way up on the top of my list for “fast food”. Did I tell you I once had dinner with Carl and his wife as their guest at their home? Very Fun!
I keep seeing color digital camera photographs converted to black and white and wonder why I do not like them very much. I prefer the tonality created by actual black and white film and most of the black and white conversions I see miss the smoothness of the changes from the whites to the grays to the blacks. So I do prefer to shoot film for black and white or if I do a conversion from a digital created color photograph I try to create that tonality. And that is what I did here for example.
This is model Maria Rogers during an advertising photo shoot I did for Bodybuidling.com. Maria of course is nothing short of incredibly beautiful with a body that is just totally breathtaking. And a wonderful model that day for sure. This is actually an outtake but the ad itself ran in endless magazines for quite some time. I got a lot of e-mail from women who told me that they had torn this out and it was on their refrigerator for motivation. I also got a lot of e-mail from guys, sometimes the word motivation was in those too.
A side note you might find fun, Maria is wearing my underwear! Well not really mine and they were new. I try to carry extra new wardrobe pieces in a bag on all shoots. Odds and ends or some things I just happen to buy or that get sent to me by clothing and accessory companies. In this case we needed a matching thong. And I had one in just the right color. I would say it saved the day! What would you say?
Yesterday I got an e-mail that I do get every now and then… “Do you ever photograph men?”. Well yes! Actually, I have had more magazine covers and features with men than with women. The same might be the case for advertising. But I am working on more new magazine features with women recently. That is why you are seeing those photographs from me.
I am always happy to hear from new guys for photo shoots, so if you are interested send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com. And you do not have to be a bodybuilder like Jake Sawyer, not everyone is! Thanks!
Talking about Maria Bertrand yesterday. Long list of modeling credits including the top fashion magazines and fashion houses around the world, and acting in movies opposite the most well known stars, and top name brand television commercials; now add writer for West Hollywood Magazine! Chronicling “nightlife, dining, shopping, art, design, celebrity” Maria makes the magazine all that more classy! And more classy in front of my cameras is obvious like here from an excursion with me to Venice Beach. Click on the photograph to see it bigger and better full screen on my Website!
This is my favorite way of telling wind direction. Which way is the hair blowing! Actually I was just chatting with Katie Madden who will be coming back to do another photo shoot with me. Let’s see how the wind blows this next time!
The question came up yesterday about whether or not the United States Air Force might bring me another F-16 to Muscle Beach for the big Memorial Day show. Well maybe they did not bring it out just for me and Lisa Marino Sanders last year. But I think it is a good thing to do. What do you think?
Can’t you just taste it, smell it, feel it coldly touching your lips, mmmmmm LOL. Great food and beverage at Smoke Tree BBQ. I had to shoot some photos and this time with the FujiFilm XT-1 camera I was trying out.
The historic sidewalks of Venice Beach California, the place where you would expect to see the amazing built out body of bodybuilder Lisa Marino Sanders. Bodybuilding and fitness and muscles truly are words known around all corners of the globe as part of that history of Venice and Muscle Beach.
Are you looking good? Are you looking this good? Maybe you need to be in front of my cameras. Jake Sawyer in just one of our photo shoots along the way, which has helped him find his way into many a magazine and more. Send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com and we can chat about it. Thanks!
As I mentioned yesterday, I like seeing selfies, they are fun. The one I posted yesterday was more fun than selfie but I like the photography. Anyway it got me to thinking of famous photographers and artists who have done selfies long before they were selfies. This is one of my favorites from one of my most admired photographers, Helmut Newton. And that is his wife June watching the shoot session. Some people thought it so odd that she was okay with him being around so many beautiful naked women.
A weekend of photographing some fun flying out of the Palm Springs Air Museum. A Navy SNJ trainer with a likely very happy passenger on board. The SNJ was also known as the T-6 Texan. Over 25 years there were 15,495 made and ultimately flown by 34 countries. It also was used in combat in World War II and Korea.
It is not everyday that you see a B-29 Superfortress start up and taxi out. But you can in the video here. Mostly known for being the airplanes that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was actually in some ways a more ominous part they played in ending of the War with Japan and the end of World War II. Flying in darkness at low altitudes, on March 10, 1945, over 300 B-29’s dropped almost a quarter of a million incendiary bombs on Tokyo itself. Can you imagine air fields filled with these giant bombers all starting up to fly a mission. And then hundreds of them overhead! Seventy years later, you can go this last remaining still flying B-29, for it’s visit today at the Palm Springs Air Museum.