FitExpo and Photo L.A.
Tomorrow, Friday through Sunday, find me in Los Angeles for Photo LA and the FitExpo Los Angeles. Time to just meet and/or talk about photography and my work in shooting magazine features, advertising, your portfolio and more. It would be great to meet you! Just send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com or text to my cellphone at 213-712-1929. And Thanks!
Vintage Muscle Beach!
Here it is! Only at the real Muscle Beach/Venice! Bringing back that wonderful look and feel of Vintage Swimsuit. I am planning to do some really cool photo shoots for this huge Memorial Day weekend happening. So if you are thinking of doing the show and are interested let me know ASAP. My e-mail is SecondFocus@mac.com.
Here are the competition details…
“VINTAGE SWIMSUIT”
Swimsuit: 1pc. only “Vintage” (circa 1940-1950’s)
One Class for all heights
Poses: Front relaxed “fun” pose & side “over the shoulder”.
Shoes will be pumps, open or closed toe.
Vintage jewelry/hair accessories allowed.
No crossovers allowed to other classes.
The Muscle Beach Int’l Classic, Memorial Day, Monday May 30, 2016. Any competition questions, reach out to Joe Wheatley at joesmusclebeach@yahoo.com.
By the way, this is the only show anywhere that opens with a flyover by the United States Air Force! Top That!
A Good Way To Start Monday
A good way to start a Monday. With Ashley Owens Gulina and Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle. I stayed out of the water, not good for the cameras!
Never Enough
I can never get enough of photographs with Maria Bertrand. So I thought I would try four of this one!
Model Maria Bertrand. Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle. Photography by Ian L. Sitren.
She Sprinted To The Top!
I have to say Thank You and also post another photograph from one of my shoots with Randalene Sergent. Her photograph on my Blog here yesterday became the top viewed post upsetting another that has been the top viewed post for a year! And that other post is a series of nudes of someone else entirely. Super Duper!
Model Randalene Sergent. Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle.
Not Much To Say
The photographs of Randalene Sergent from our photo shoots are just fine without saying much about them. What do you think?
Randalene Sergent with Makeup and Hair Styling by Natalie Lyle. Photography by Ian L. Sitren.
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.
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.
Muscle Beach Only Weeks Away!
July 4th at Muscle Beach had a very beautiful Stephanie C. Ramirez standing on the stage that the entire world thinks of as the place “Where Muscles Were Born”. Yes Stephanie went home with a well deserved trophy. She truly looks gorgeous and photographing her with a Hasselblad camera makes for those perfect skin tones, the wonderful colors and a radiance that is so much what you expect to see in that Southern California beach sunshine. Only the best!
The last Muscle Beach show of this Summer is coming up on Labor Day only a few weeks away! The Muscle Beach Championship will find me photographing bodybuilding and fitness competitors on stage and backstage in the world famous workout “Pit”.
But if you want me to photograph you, you need to sign up ahead of time so I can make sure I get you in front of my camera. I have made it very inexpensive so I can shoot photographs of as many of you as possible. Truly my purpose is to get great photographs for you who have worked so hard to stand on that stage and have come to Muscle Beach. Many of you from around the world! I do share in your enthusiasm and excitement.
I am also offering mini photo shoots the day before the show on Sunday, September 6th right there at Venice Beach or nearby on a beach in Marina Del Rey. Available to individuals and couples, you do not even need to be a competitor at the show the next day. Again I have made this very inexpensive so as many of you as possible can get some great photographs.
So please sign up now or as soon as you possibly can. Here is the link for online sign up, prices and more information. And Thank You! See you there at the real Muscle Beach! https://squareup.com/market/secondfocus
Only Made More Scenic
The scenic road along Mulholland Drive made much more scenic by Maria Bertrand. From our photo shoot. The dress, so very beautiful on Maria is Guess by Marciano. Photographed on Hasselblad.
Another From The ProSolutions Tour
Another photograph from the Hasselblad Bron ProSolutions Tour at Edge Studios in Los Angeles the other day. Model Kristen Dugas looks incredible in this shot I did with a Hasselblad H5D-50c camera with a Hasselblad HC 100mm lens. The lighting was a Broncolor pack and head with the Broncolor Para 133 reflector. Truly amazing lighting and the skin tones and colors are perfect. Then there is the sharpness of details and an almost three dimensional feel to the photograph. I am very happy I am shooting Hasselblad and very impressed with Broncolor! 
Beautiful Model; I Say Use The Best Cameras And Lighting
Wonderful fun the other day at Edge Studios in Los Angeles, trying out and courtesy of, Broncolor lighting equipment and Hasselblad Cameras. Here I photographed our model for the day, Kristen Dugas with a Hasselblad H5D-50c camera and a Hasselblad HC 100mm lens. The lighting was a Broncolor pack with their very unique Para 133 Reflector. The photograph gives you an idea as to why lighting from equipment like Broncolor and the Para Reflectors is called light shaping. The dimension, detail and overall quality are equally only best interpreted by Hasselblad cameras. I am so very truly impressed with Broncolor and Hasselblad. Ok I am pretty impressed with Kristen Dugas too! Thanks!
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!
First We Contact The Mars Rover…
First we contact the Mars Rover. Then we turn it around and light you up for my camera. And then I make you look so good! Try me! Send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com and Thank You!
Hasselblad Reality
When I announced that I had added a Hasselblad digital medium format camera system to my equipment, it generated a lot of interest. I received lots of messages and have been asked about it personally from photographers, models and people generally.
My decision to go Hasselblad, after trying out pretty much every high end camera system, came back to this one photo I shot of bodybuilder Travis Elywhen I first tried it out on a real photo shoot. Click on it to really get a look. The completely real colors, skin tone and definition were exactly what I wanted. It is more than a photograph, seemingly a duplicate of reality.
There are other reasons I chose Hasselblad. It is a legendary manufacturer of cameras made famous when chosen by NASA in 1962 to be the cameras to go into outer space. And of course used by so many famous photographers in the past and today. So who is next in front of my Hasselblad?
Saw Randalene In A Coupe de Ville!
Oh wait! That was Maybellene when Chuck Berry was singing about her. Randalene Sergent would look good in a Coupe de Ville! I am thinking if he had seen her, that very first rock and roll song would have been “Randalene”. Actually Randalene looks good everywhere and especially in front of my cameras. And she will be in front of my cameras again on July 4th weekend. You can too!
I will be shooting at the big Muscle Beach show on July 4th. However even if you are not doing the show, you can shoot with me at the beach in Venice or Marina Del Rey on Friday July 3rd or Sunday July 5th. I will be working with a few people each day to keep it as inexpensive as I can for you. I would love to shoot with as many of you as possible but there is only so much time. So please sign up as soon as you can, it is right around the corner. For more details and sign up click here and Thanks! https://squareup.com/market/secondfocus
Dark Corners In The Sunshine
Behind the scenes yesterday in my photo shoot with Randalene Sergent. I must tell you that Randalene is one of the most beautiful women I have ever photographed. Standing to the right is Natalie Lyle who did the most wonderful Makeup Styling on Randalene. It was perfect, exactly what I wanted and more! The heavy lifting and set up by my assistant Clyde Sawyer. From daylight poolside to dark corners we create it right here. Is that too fun!
“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!
SecondFocus Blog 