Excited to be booking models for my upcoming tests in NYC!
Last summer, I met with ex Avon CD, Fiona Ip, to talk about testing. Over lychee cocktails (nothing better on a humid NYC day!), we started the conversation that has now become three shoots in five days. More soon on that…
On a recent trip to NY, I played photojournalist down at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Having read so much about the movement, I thought I would go down and see for myself. It was an inspiring day. Documentary photography was my first love.
Here are the results, which I am making available through non-commercial, Creative Commons: Occupy Wall Street, NYC – Image Gallery
A Fox News reporter at the Occupy Wall Street protests.
From Wikipedia:
Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of demonstrations in New York City based in Zuccotti Park, formerly “Liberty Plaza Park”. The protest was originally called for by the Canadian activist group Adbusters; it took inspiration from the Arab Spring movement.
The participants of the event are mainly protesting against social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government, among other concerns. Adbusters states that, “Beginning from one simple demand – a presidential commission to separate money from politics – we start setting the agenda for a new America.”
The protest’s organizers hope that the protesters themselves will formulate their own specific demands, expecting them to be focused on “taking to task the people who perpetrated the economic meltdown.
It’s Memorial Day weekend, and I’m reminded about the haunting places of memory where I’ve been fortunate to shoot.
Something about this image, with its adobe and flowers, seems appropriate. Everyone know that flowers aren’t supposed to last, but even the walls will one day crumble into the past.
Who are you remembering?
Photo:
Model: Ciara Christensen/Elite Models
Location: Tumacacori, AZ
See more from this shoot
Love this recent composite of the beautiful Davina. Shot at Shoot Digital in NYC during my recent sojourn.
You can see more studio pics of Davina here.
The lovely and spirited Kylie Prusack, from our recent shoot in Central Park. I first cast her for a test in Arizona last year. She’s now an up-and-coming Ford model so she certainly didn’t need me to “discover” her — but I’m glad I did.
As some of you know, I just spent 6 weeks living and working in Brooklyn. Why did I leave my happy home (husband and cat) and move 3,000 miles to live in a noisy studio apartment?
It all came from a car ride taken down the frozen West Side highway last January. My agent, Lewis, was driving me home from a client dinner. We were talking about how a West Coast photographer could start making stronger inroads into the NYC photo world.
He laid it on the line: My occasional visits to NYC were just not enough. To really make a mark, I had to be on the ground.
So, I rented a Carroll Garden apartment (Smith Street) and spend a big part of the spring immersing myself in doing more of what I do every time I visit NYC: show my portfolio to PEs and Ads, meet and learn from amazing NYC talent and crew, and be part of the fabric of the best photo town in the world.
On this trip, I had the added advantage of time. I met stylists for coffee. I visited every model agency in town. I did portfolios shoots for my book.
The test shoots have been the best part of the trip! I’ve worked with some really great models and crews, and it has been a lot of fun bringing my West coast visual sensibility to Brooklyn and Manhattan.
The locations are amazing and so different from my usual California spots. I have been very inspired by the brownstones, the cobblestone streets, the iron railings, the people. The studios are super-professional, and leave nothing to chance. They make your job so much easier (a shout-out at this point to Shoot Digital on East 4th!). And the City of NYC and the Park itself have been super easy to deal – one result, I’m sure, of there relentless use in film and advertising over the years.
Far and away my favorite shoot was the day I spent in Central Park with up and coming Ford model Kylie Prusack. So much fun.
Listen, I am not the first photographer to shoot in Central Park (nor the last!) but I have always wanted to have my chance. I’m heading home soon, but I’ll be bringing lots of NYC back with me. (And I won’t be gone for long.)
So excited to share some images from a recent collaboration I did with stylist Peggi Jeung, and hair + makeup boy-wonder Brynn Doering. We shot on a private estate in Woodside, one of the Bay Area’s most spectacular locations.
After a long, dark and rainy winter, spring in a place like Woodside can make you positively giddy.
I’ve written in the past about my interest in the desert — and particularly the Sonoran Desert, where even in the winter, shooting is an intricate dance with the burning sun, crisp air, and vivid colorscape.
I was back in Tucson recently for a test with one of the Southwest’s bright talents, a gorgeous young Phoenix-based model named Kylie.
Together we roamed the Barrio Viejo, just off Convent Street, and imagined a fantasy world of mystery, reflection, and melancholy.
Enjoy….
Credits:
Model: Kylie Prusak, Agency AZ
Wardrobe: Peggi Jueng, ArtMix
With the first rains of autumn heading our way this week, a fond so long to sunny days seems appropriate. Here’s a fleeting glimpse from a lovely summery fashion shoot we did in the Napa Valley.
Tacked onto a wedding we’ll attend in England, Robert and I have been planning a two week trip to Spain this fall. We’re renting an apartment for five nights in Barcelona and then flying south to Andalusia for a week and a half.
The planning for this has been a treat. Nearly all my favorite places in the world are in the Mediterranean southern Europe or the Muslim world. In Spain, and especially the southern portion of the peninsula where the northern-most outposts of the Arab world lived and thrived, these influences come together brilliantly.
Along the way we’ll see the grand cities of Sevilla, Granada and Cordoba, as well as Arcos De La Frontera and Ronda, two gems with incredible aesthetics. Strike that, it seems like all of Spain has incredible aesthetics.
How can I have missed this place all these years?
Now if I can just track down some gorgeous and available Andalusian models who won’t mind my broken Spanish.
(Images courtesy Flickr CC & Wiki Media)
