monday in la, 3 shoots down!

today was crazy.

i didn't sleep well last night and woke up at 7:30ish after only 2hrs of fretful sleep. the first shoot was at 11am and since chloe's house is on the complete other side of town (which in la time means 45min+ by car) i hit the gym in her neighborhood instead of mine. i must say, a personal tv on each cardio machine made my morning much better than trying to read tiny subtitles on a faraway screen.

the first shoot at 11 went well. we shot at a nearby gorgeous park and i learned a bit about working with what i got. i didn't pick the location and i decided to make something beautiful out of any environment. i think i was fairly successful and i enjoyed the non-pressure of a 30min shoot with only the wardrobe chloe's friend brought. it was somewhat uncomfortable working with a non-model and all of her realism while trying to get beautiful images, but i think i did pretty well and the next time will be easier.

the second shoot at 3pm was spectacular. the girl was drop dead perfect and brought excellent garments. it was fun to do both a lay-person shoot and a professional model shoot on the same day. i used my experience from the morning to inform my shooting of the afternoon. i decided not to force an external location on the shoot when chloe's apartment was just calling to me to shoot there. i think i succeeded in working with a professional model without completely defaulting to my standard commercial/fashion mentality and instead thinking more along my polaroid mentality. it wasn't perfect because i could feel my brain trying to force myself into my old way of thinking, but i did make some progress.

the last shoot of the day was at 8pm and we only shot for about 15min but somehow i got a usable fun image. who knows if it'll pass muster since it was working completely out of my element but hey, that's what this trip is all about!

it turns out that i have to go home early so tomorrow is my last shooting day and i leave on the last flight out of lax tomorrow night. we have 3 more shoots planned with a possible 4th - i'm looking forward to all of them. my test tomorrow is to practice finding the sweet spot between my "idealized fashion portrait" and real people subjects. i need to learn how to make the same stylized beautiful images that i'm used to with less control over the subject, clothing, etc. i believe it can be done! stay tuned.