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Cora is a model represented by Next that has great proportions. We did a shoot about a year earlier when I first moved into my new space. These are one of the moments when the model fully trusted me. It was just the two of us making these great images on a Saturday afternoon. They have been published from Sweden to Hong Kong and even Maxim.
This was a typical celebrity shoot in which I had 15 minutes to do a 4-page spread for 25 ANS (Japan). So with touch ups I really had 12 minutes. I had met Jessica about a year before the shoot while I was still assisting. The photographer that I was working with had known her for quite a while. To my surprise when I walked into the suite at the Four Seasons she recognized me. Another cool aspect of the shoot was that Robert Ramos was doing her hair. Not only is Robert is one of the nicest guys, but one of the top stylists in the city. Since I'm a fanatic about time I nailed it. About a week after the shoot I ran into Jessica at a party and we talked a bit.
These images were shot in Malibu in a secret spot that Mikel Roberts and I call "field 2". There is a reason why Malibu's real estate is out of control because the light is so good there. I've shot in field 2 for a while and I like the fact that the vegetation is always changing (did I mention the light). These shots were done for a stock CD for Veer. It was collaboration with Kyle Johnson who happens to be a great beauty art director.
I've worked with Farm advertising before these towers were even built. My first assigment was a slice of life in downtown LA. You have to understand that there was hardly anything going on downtown. You couldn't even buy toilet paper after 9pm. These images were suppose to be projected in the showroom and used on the site to entice people to move downtown. I worked from 5:30am to 12am shooting my friends galleries, grand central market, golden gopher (only decent bar), parks, lofts, girls walking dogs.
Once I sent the images they asked me if it was all shot downtown. One thing I didn't know was that had scouted around two weeks before they had given me the assignment and told one another, "what is this guy going to shoot"?
Ana Henton of Mass Design (architect) once told me that those images were instrumental in the development of downtown LA.
I had taken my dad with me to Chicago for his birthday. We had just taken a tour of Wrigley Field and we were standing on the subway platform. You just can't ignore great light. So I shoved my dad out of the way and got the shot.
Chefs are one of my favorite subjects because they work long hard hours in pretty harsh conditions but still have the sensitivity to create dishes that not only taste good but are aesthetically pleasing. I've shot with Amar a few times even while the restaurant was under construction with Charlie Palmer. It was exciting to finally meet Mr. Palmer since I shot Aurele in Vegas some years back and had such a great experience.
Gjelina is one of your typical insider LA moments. I must have walked by three times before I could even find it. Travis Lett is a rock star chef in LA right now. I hate the term "rock star" but he honestly is. Not only does he look like he could be the 5th member of Kings of Leon but he's been included in fashion spreads in Vogue Magazine. Forget the Vogue and rock star title the guy is great. Just go, that's if you can get in.
My friend Jennifer who writes grants for MOCA told me about Eugonio. Then I read an article about him about in LA Times a while ago about his incredible art collection. So Angeleno e-mails me the address and I show up to the house (alone). As I walk in I see a Damien Hirst to my left a Nara to my right or maybe it was the other way around. After about 10 minutes I realized it was the gentleman featured in the Times article. I came back later that afternoon to meet up with the writer and do his portrait. After keeping us waiting for over an hour I was ready to strangle him. But of course the moment we met we started chatting up a storm. Eugonio...let's party!!
This is one of the few times when my patience paid off. When I arrived the light was pretty flat but as the sun set it started getting sexy. The interior has these great lines and I wanted to bring them out with the sunset. So I waited and waited and in the span of 45 minutes I was running around the house like a mad man. If you look close you can see a shot of me peeking out behind the palm tree on the exterior shot. I felt no need to photoshop it out.
Cabo is so sun-drenched that you have to put your sunglasses on the minute that plane lands. It's that bright. The many things I love about Ezperanza is that the workers faces represent the indigenous people of Mexico. They are also very good at what they do. The shot on the right was the valet talking to another valet. Auberge asked me back to shoot some PR shots and I ended up giving him a print from the previous shoot.
In 2004 I was shooting editorials and my book looked good and I was technically sound but kind of going in circles. Then the Mandalay Bay Annual Report came around. The money and confidence I acquired on that shoot changed everything. If I didn't nail this shoot my career would have been over. To use a gambling term I put everything down on black.
I've worked on tons of celebrity shoots when I was assisting so I'm pretty jaded. But when I got a chance to shoot Murakami I freaked. When I arrived promptly at 9am (on a Japanese shoot you can't be a minute late) Murakami's crew were still working from the night before. There is one thing you CAN'T accuse the Japanese of and that's being lazy. Even though photographers can be a nutty bunch we all agree how fulfilling a career it can be. To spend a morning with one of the top artists in the world was pretty amazing.
