An Office Day For Me
One of my typical days in the office. Here with bodybuilders Grant Pieterse, Jake Sawyer and Xavisus Gayden. I wonder how many times and for how long I made them hold that bicep curl.
Bodybuilders Grant Pieterse, Jake Sawyer and Xavisus Gayden at Power of Fitness.
Forget The Rain!
Nothing better than Randalene Sergent in front of my cameras from one of our photo shoots to make me forget the rain from the last two days. You can be in front of my cameras too. I am also available for all types of photo shoots for magazines and advertising from fitness to fashion, bodybuilding to travel and more. By the way, I will be in Los Angeles for a few days this month for the FitExpo. Send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com and we can chat. Thanks!
Randalene Sergent in our photo shoot. Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle.
The Power Of No!
In follow up to my post below about getting paid for your work and not working for free or cheap. This is a quote from top model Patti Hansen from 1975. It appears in the book “Arthur Elgort, The Big Picture“. A photo essay of this most famous and respected of photographers. Sometimes you just have to say No!
$75 Mostly Naked Booth Babe, Is That You?
I have talked with so many of you about my opinion of working for cheap or free as models for supplement ads or magazine features and more. Basically if someone is making money using you, then you should be paid. And not in $50 of supplements or standing around mostly naked for $75 as some booth babe all day. A company making like $40 million a year can afford to pay you. Time to just say NO! This is what top models are making for the last year per Forbes Magazine 2015. Yes they are at the very top but hey, this is a very very long way from free. In between would be much better for most of you I would guess. If you want to chat about it, just send me message and I will try to help you out. My E-Mail is SecondFocus@mac.com
A CPA To Keep You Afloat
My idea of a CPA! My buddy Greg Barton know his business and is smart enough not to be uptight about it LOL! Great guy, great fun and the go to CPA for sure! His firm has also been named as one of “Intuit’s Top 20 Firms of the Future”. Is that too cool or what! From our photo shoot. Thanks!
The Mask Behind The Shoes
The masked woman behind my photographs for Shoe Envy, Maria Bertrand. In front of one of the mesmerizing unique art works by Emma Ferreira. I love the Shoe Envy tag line… “Because Finding The Perfect Pair Should Be Easier Than Finding Your Perfect Date”. Shoe Envy from Envy Inc., “The Data Platform For The Fashion Industry”. The Booties and Poncho courtesy Skingraft. Art and Mask and Studio courtesy of Emma Ferreira. Thank You!
Photographed on Hasselblad digital and Broncolor lighting. My choice for superb detail and accurate colors. Only the best.
Legs, Shoes, And Envy
I love the photographs we did for Shoeenvy, so very fun! A few have been used so far and there are many more yet. These are the photographs used on the App. What does the App do? “We make shoe shopping convenient and even more fun.” And my favorite quote… “Shoeenvy – because finding the right pair of shoes should be easier than finding the right guy.” By the way, the parent company Envy creates “The Data Platform For The Fashion Industry”. Very cool and my photographs are on their website as well.
By the way, the photographs were shot on digital Hasselblad and the Move 1200L lighting system by broncolor. Nothing but the best producing the best possible details, accurate colors and skin tones.
Black Belt At Venice Beach
Alexandre Michel Franchini came all the way from Saint-Mihiel, France to stand on stage at Muscle Beach. Too much fun having him in front of my camera on the beach in the surf. Truly an amazing, talented and physically accomplished individual. And I must say, one nice guy with a superb sense of adventure. Photographed on only the best, Hasselblad.
I Am Down With Shoeenvy!
Getting down at shoe level for a shoe fashion photo shoot for Shoeenvy. I love the Shoeenvy statement on their Instagram page, “Because finding the right pair of shoes should be easier than finding the right guy.” Too fun! You have to check them out and download their App. You will be seeing some sexy and fun shoe fashion with some sexy legs in those shoes.
Yes this is me crawling around on the floor of an artist’s studio in Los Angeles, for the last of three parts of our photo shoot. The first of the day was around a pool in a garden setting. The second was in an upstairs crowded fun art deco looking apartment in the Melrose area.
Shooting Hasselblad and Broncolor was a huge advantage for a number of reasons. I was using the Broncolor Move 1200L lighting system which gave me a lot of portable power that could be moved around and the strobe actually being held by one person easily because it is so small and light. In the garden and by the pool it made it easy to move around quickly without being encumbered by power cables. In the other settings just one light stand made it simple and convenient.
The Hasselblad medium format digital camera was ideal for this shoot because I wanted to see the detail in the shoes. You see a lot of photos out there that are supposed to be fashion, but when you really look, you do not see any of the fabrics, stitching and so much that goes into it’s creation. Hasselblad and Hasselblad lenses gives you that detail. Adding in the color accuracy, real life skin tones, and exposure latitude combined with the very consistent Broncolor lighting and you have the right tools for a no compromise photo shoot. And I always want to give my clients and models and everyone involved a no compromise photo shoot on my part, no matter anything else.
So Thank You to everyone involved on this photo shoot! It was a lot of fun and the results are superb. And now go check out Shoeenvy and download their App. This is going to be the fun way you buy shoes! And there will be more real soon! But probably not a convenient way to get the right guy. Thanks!
A Helping Hand
Photo shoots can be so busy that it is always good to have an extra hand. Especially when we could not let a totally gorgeous and very fit Katie Madden participate in getting us in trouble on Social Media. Makeup and Hair Styling by the Notorious Natalie Lyle. Photographed on a Hasselblad camera. Only the best!
Thank You Dennis!
“Special thanks to my good buddy and amazing photographer, Ian L. Sitren, for photographing my recent paintings. Incredible detail and accurate color taken with a Hasselblad H4D-40 camera. He’s a pro! Thank you Ian!” www.dennisjohnsondesign.com.
My Mulholland Drive Tour Guide
My Mulholland Drive tour guide for the day. Maria Bertrand told me she had some good photo shoot locations in mind and wow was she right. And wow is she gorgeous! We did a few different looks for a few different themes to go with magazine feature stories and more. Here she is in a Guess by Marciano dress that was just made for her. Or maybe she was made for that dress! Just perfect! All photographed on Hasselblad which is why you are seeing so much detail in the fabric of that dress, the perfect colors and skin tones and the looks like you are there feel to the photograph. Also just perfect!
Girl Just Gotta Have Fun!
Behind the scenes, as Maria Bertrand and I went off to do a photo shoot along Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles last week. Maria is just too much fun! I am so lucky to have this woman who has been in the pages of Vogue and more in front of my Hasselblad camera! Keep watching here for a few photographs from this shoot. We did back up traffic along the highway for sure!
I Want It!
I don’t care what it is, if Ava Cowan is promoting it, I want it! Cell phones, posing suits, swimwear, hair style, supplements, whatever! When you look this gorgeous I am all in and there! A selfie from just the other day from one of the most respected and admired women in fitness, Ava Cowan. Go visit her website to get more of a look… AvaCowan.com
By the way, I Do Love Selfies! If you want to send me your selfie and a paragraph about you to be published across my social media and be seen by a huge audience, please do. I will try to publish as many of you as I can, but I do get quite a few, so I may have to stretch them out and pick and choose. But please do! Send them to my email at SecondFocus@mac.com and Thanks!
My Secret To Working With Gorgeous Models
I am often asked by newer inexperienced photographers how to get the most out of models during photo shoots. It can also be especially intimidating for new photographers when working with tall, gorgeous professional models like Maria Bertrand. I will tell you my secret… Cookies and Milk. Yes that’s it! You can get the best photo shoots ever with a model if you give them Cookies and Milk.
“Legs Forever” – This Is Her!
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!
As Perfect As It Gets
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.
Tonality As In Black And White
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?
Yes I Photograph Men…
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!
Wind Direction
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! 
You, Me And My Camera….
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!
My New Selfie…
I always say I like selfies so here is a new of me. Oh… that other person is model Bailey Daniels.
Bikini Weather
I saw a swimsuit ad yesterday about getting ready for bikini weather. It is always bikini weather for me and my cameras. Especially with Ashley Owens Gulina! Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle.
I Can’t Help It!
Can’t help it! I have to do photo shoots that just surprise you…. and me actually! I have to hold back some really fun photographs from this shoot because they are exclusives until they are published. But this is fun for now! With Jamie Lovelle. Thanks!
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