usually i work with my client/subject to style the shoot (as far as hair, makeup and wardrobe go)… but this one was all on amanda. and, as you are about to see, she rocked it. let’s start…

some of these may as well be photos someone finds from when the salton sea was in its heyday way back when…

i hate/love how much things constantly change out there. some of my favorite things are just completely gone now, as the renovation of the area is underway. but, then there are places like this abandoned house that have collected some new art on the walls:

ok… i admit… you have seen this warehouse before with jessica & mike and even here with brenna, when she added some art of her own. that didn’t bug me because i knew amanda’s visit there would be different and original. so we did our best.

this one on the left is a rarity (which is not to say she doesn’t smile a lot…). it makes me smile… so i had to include it.

a completely different take for me on this little bit of tomtrickery i like to do with photos here and there:

after losing maybe 30 minutes of dwindling sunlight, all thanks to an overzealous policeman visit at the warehouse, we headed to our final location, salvation mountain.

we had some hilarious conversations with people there and a few people even snapped photos of amanda. y’all best recognize the power of this supermodel. shazaam! (or something)

as the sun was just starting to set, with an enormous moon overhead, one last wardrobe change was in order as we closed out the day:

i cannot wait for my next opportunity to work with this not only amazingly talented model, but overall extremely lovely person. stay tuned… we are already brainstorming   :)

another great day of shooting with a truly lovely girl, inside and out. thanks, again, alexa for teaming up with me for some great photos and good fun! and who knows what your hair will look like next time  ;)

there was just no way for me to narrow down shoots to “just one favorite” from them… so sit back and enjoy this. and this is set to complete random mode for your further enjoyment and to keep your eyes on their toes. or your toes on their eyes. or something…

i went into 2011 completely unsure of what was to come. i come out of it completely surprised. i go into 2012 with a couple of new tricks up my sleeve, a couple of definite goals and open arms for even more of what 2011 brought.

here’s to a fantastic year for all of you, whatever it may bring… may it be good! happy new year, and thanks for everything y’all have done for me.

my models, olivia and malia were awesome, though, and made this so much fun. enough talk, pictures. here we go:

when i saw what the wardrobe designer had picked out for malia and then stumbled across this sign it was kind of like fireworks in my brain. perfect coincidence.

the 90 minutes was up as i shot that last frame above and we were quickly escorted off the property. such a quick rush of a shoot… something i am kind of getting more used to. again, my thanks to everyone involved. i may actually be shooting here more than once in the next year or so and i am looking forward to going back and seeing what kind of different things i get out of it.

again, alexa… thanks for being so much fun to work with. i hope you enjoyed the day and the photos that came from it as well. and a happy early birthday to you!  :)

they told me while we were shooting that 3 other photographers who had been on the island (just like me) has actually asked if they could do a photoshoot with shaniqua. she had worked with all of them and never heard a word back from them, never saw a single photo. i felt bad for them both and assured them i wouldn’t let them down that way and off we went. here are just a few of my faves from our extremely rushed photoshoot that day.

quick preface here… i am usually not one at ALL to use or show both color and B&W versions of the same photo. however, i think because of the beauty of the island, the color one beckons to be seen… on the other side of the coin, it all yields itself so well to the black and white that i couldn’t deprive you all of either of these, now could i? i’m a giver…

kind of a fun little 30-40 minute shoot. i almost took this as a challenge to myself. to shoot with someone i had barely just met, with zero preparation… to see if her natural beauty, my skill and the awe-inspiring gorgeousness of the island could all come together to make it work as is.

so you all can be the judge and jury.   :)

i’ve had to do a lot of scouting of the area for for some future fantasticness to take place and i hate driving all the way out with just me and my camera. after being able to photograph amanda at lou’s workshop she was the first person who jumped into my mind. i figured things out for months with my other friend and photographer amanda, who formed her own posse to shoot out there as well. so what began simply as a possible solo scouting trip turned into a two car, three model entourage to the sea.

which is good. because let me specify: the salton sea is not for everyone. the constant wreak of dead and decaying fish from the shoreline is hard to ignore. there can be some fairly sketchy and dangerous areas out there as well. also makes knowing where you are going all the more handy and important.

oh did you read all that? you want some pictures now? okay…

so first, (ha… i tricked ya… more words first… but they are important) we stopped again at this gem of a spot i discovered on a recent shoot. after having to use my charm (ha!) to not get us kicked out, we shot there for a while before heading off to the sea:

amanda inside a junked ragtop oldie, me standing on the hood to shoot (sorry guys who told me not to do that. i failed to mention i am a born rebel).

we bid adieu to that location, drove thru a starbucks and it was off to the sea.

so this dress is a vintage dress that the other amanda brought for us to use (thanks, maendi!!!) and because of that, we kept amanda away from these trees here. otherwise, she would have been closer to it, leaning on it, etc etc. well it was a saving grace for her/us because photographer amanda had her model on the tree and they came to find out that  it was a hotbed for ticks! so they all had ticks all over themselves after they took over this spot. one more thing to love about the sea, right?

while waiting for the other half of the entourage to finish, we tried some other stuff where we were stopped.

after a long drive around the sea, the time came to hit the magic place that was pretty much a must for photographs with amanda. i think you’ll see why…

during all of the planning we did for the day, at some point amanda suggested i bring a watermelon. i jumped on the idea immediately, with thoughts of this trailer area. seemed perfect for it. thinking outside of the trailer shaped box. or something.

not much room inside. but we made it work.

time was starting to run out on us, the sun was quickly setting behind the nearby mountains so we made a dash to one last spot nearby and took our chances…

and we finally let it all loose at the very end… sun having set, wind blowing very hard and we had some fun!

i cannot thank amanda enough for such a long and amazing day of shooting. we had to split up the entourage at one point, and very sadly amanda’s car broke down out there, but started up again later. a long day for them too.

i never ever do this for models… but i know how much we both loved these photos. so if we can get 20 comments on these, i am gonna give some free prints to amanda. 30 gets her double. so leave her (and me?) some love   :)

can’t wait for our next collaboration, amanda!!!

photographer workshops. i just sat here for a minute after typing those first two words. pausing over them. so, i have been hearing about workshops for some years now. i have come close to signing up for a couple, here and there. every time, i bowed out for one reason or another before sending in my payment. i have heard lots of stories from other photographers as well, about workshops they have attended: the good, the bad and the very ugly. i have always tried to be very selective about ever attending a workshop based on these things. well, lou noble is a photographer out of the LA area that i have known about for years. lou works a lot differently than i do, using a lot of polaroid and medium-format gear (though he does also shoot digital). when a very good friend of mine (hi, zara!!) attended his first ever workshop in seattle, i was so thrilled that he was actually doing workshops and knew immediately i would sign up for one if he ran one locally. zara emailed me one day to let me know he had released details for an LA workshop and i was all over it.

the workshop took place right at the front end of the so cal storms from december, on a rainy sunday.  i love incorporating sunflare in my shooting whenever i can, and was hoping to see what different takes lou had on flare during the workshop. the rain would kill that plan. drat.

so there we were, maybe 20 or so of us in this little studio, listening to lou speak at first, the rain pouring right outside (off and on). the models started to arrive and i just kept hoping for breaks in the rain…. desperate to not be confined to shooting only inside.

one thing i absolutely loved about this workshop was that we were on our own with the models. lou did not set them up for us, like many workshops do. i am not saying that is wrong to do, but i loved not having the models at point A and all of us on the other side, shooting them in their pose, trying to not elbow each other while we tried our best to get at least a slightly different angle on what was essentially the same shot for 20 people. we got delegated a model and we took them wherever and shot with them for anywhere from 5 – 15 minutes and then went back to being with the group and lou while someone else took that model out to shoot. and so on. when nicole and i got paired up, the rain took a little break.

the photo above and the one below speak a lot about the way i see people. and i try to portray this in my portraits of people. to me, a person’s hands can sometimes tell as much about them as their face. i tend to watch people’s hands a lot, whether they are speaking or listening.

another thing i noticed from the workshop was discussion on negative space, and the center framing of a subject. when i first started taking photos, i became a fool for negative space. it really tickled me to have it in portraits when i could… it was kind of like how textures became for a lot of us (those were the days, right people?). i have toned that down a lot, but sometimes i find myself panning my camera slightly left or right if it feels right to me. so this photo below was kind of my rebellion shot from the day  :)

it was a pleasure to shoot with nicole, even if i was uncommonly nervous as we started. i definitely felt almost under the gun since we were kind of given ‘assignments’ to use what we had already learned from lou as we worked with the girls.

so i came back to the room, listened some more and then jumped at the opportunity to start shooting with amanda. i knew that zara had worked with amanda at the seattle workshop and she had told me she was amazing to shoot with. so i introduced myself, told her that zara said hello and we went outside for some photos.

as soon as amanda started moving around, even in the most subtle ways, i knew this was perhaps the bigger reason for me to be at the workshop. to learn how such seemingly simple movements and expression changes can mean to an individual photograph. still blows my mind a little as i go through these and made it difficult to not love nearly ever single frame.

one last frame from our time together… in a style that i think just fits her well…

back inside we went as the rain started to fall again. some more ‘workshopping’ with lou, as he taught and spoke some more.

and during another brief break of rainfall, i was able to run outside with erika. we literally had about 6 minutes of dryness before the rain chased us back inside again.

the shots above and the ones below are more examples of how i see things… and how i enjoy presenting them in my photography. I try not to be too “snapshotty” with my approach to people. so, sometimes, i will take more than one photo of things to adjust your focus… almost my way of using still images to convey what moving pictures might do for you.

the rain started and we ran back to the studio space. i saw some of the models talking and amanda started putting on this big jacket and i thought about how many times i have wanted to go out with a model into the rain and just shoot. here was a great opportunity for me, even though i have left my camera’s “raincoat” at home. i couldn’t let that stop me. i asked amanda if she might be game for it as well. we went out there ever so briefly so i did not ruin my camera, but… you be the judge if it was worth it:

i loved how into a puddle jump she was. not the biggest puddle around, but i swear… jumping in puddles is one of those magical gateways back into your childhood. look at that smile on her face  :)

i thanked (and thanks again!!) amanda for braving the rain with me. and there was some last discussions taking place before we all milled about a bit before taking our leave.

i asked the three girls (one of the models had a very limited time there and i never got to shoot with her at all) to pose together for some photos. they were all so friendly and helpful…

and at the very last moment, there was a little bit of fun to be had (even though we got reprimanded for going too far up on the ramp of this… i’m a rebel…)

so much gratitude to lou and all of the models. i learned more than i expected to that day and came away with some ideas more solid in my mind than they had been before, and some new perspectives as well. maybe i will be able to use some of these new views with some of you as this year moves along (dun dun dunnnnnnn…)   ;)