My buddy Ejen who does a great job with the PIX blog mentioned that he likes to see a photographer's space/office. So here it is, my low-tech operation. I'm very specific what I surround myself by like the original Details magazines, Harper's Bazaar circa 92-99, Miles Davis in Fader and last but not least Kandinsky's Point and Line to Plane. The office is located in the Historic Core part of Downtown Los Angeles. My parents met two blocks from here in the 60's and my dad did architectural salvage at Bunker Hill when he was 14 years. So you can say I'm LA to the core. There is another side to this office that is identical. This room is strictly used for shooting. The images on the wall were done there because the light is so fantastic. They are lo-res composites for a possible exhibit. Not only are the compositions perfect but they capture a perfect moment when the hair and eyes are locked right in. When I blew them up it really made a big difference. Get it. Big. Because...now they're big. Forget it.

The title of this blog should really be called Smoke and Mirrors. When I first started assisting/breaking into the photography world I didn't even know what a publicist was or what they actually did. Now shooting PR/direct client is about a 1/3 of my business. Nadia of Wagstaff Worldwide asked me to do a few shots that she needed right away for Red O that was designed by the uber- talented Gulla Jonsdottir. To my surprise the restaurant was lot more under construction than I anticipated. No need to panic since my job is to make the ordinary...extraodinary. So we lined up these shots and they really came out great and if you would have moved the camera even an 1/8 an inch in any direction you would start seeing plywood. The moral of this story is don't always believe what you see.

The Chateau Marmont is one of my favorite spots in the entire city. It’s the perfect place if you want to get into some trouble. Lunch is nice there because even though you’re right on the strip, you can’t hear a thing. Gary Oldman said it all in Basquiat, "Do you know how hard it is to find a decent conversation in this town?"

The shoot took place in the Craig Ellwood bungalow. My buddy Paul Minor who directs commercials and has shot videos for Muse, Glasvegas, etc. etc. etc. tagged along to help out. I shot Rinko Kikuchi from Babel and she did such a great performance that she was nominated for a Golden Globe and eventually an Oscar.

Diego Uchitel is a photographer that I've admired forever (and been known to stalk him on his Bebe campaigns) did this amazing spread in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Rinko was wearing a Coco Chanel dress similar to the gowns featured in Diego’s shoot. So I said to myself, if Diego was here what would he do? Paul and I have similar tastes and we both agreed on the a grey seamless and put it right there on the patio and let the ledge act as a flag to create this nice fall off and shoot it open shade. Teen Vogue was there with all there assistants, HMI’s going through windows, strobes etc etc. Paul and I looked at each other and just shook our heads because we both know you don't need tons of gear to create a beautiful image.

This was shot from a crane 80 ft in the air. People often think that it was shot from another building. No a crane (as you can clearly see). After a quick demo at the rental yard an eighteen wheeler swings by a couple of days later to drop it off. So I put the safety harness on jump in the cage and go up and up and up and up. As I near the top the basket needs to be straightened. While I’m doing this the entire crane shakes as do my legs. When I eventually get back to earth my knees are shaking so much that I walk over to the liquor store next door and down two whiskey sour clubs. Then I say to myself “What the hell was I thinking taking this job”. The client wanted a daylight, morning, dusk and night shots in increments of each floor of a not yet built structure. It was winter so I basically sat in this basket for hours freezing. People often comment on how I'm lucky because of what I do and then I think of this shoot and say. Uhhhh No. Luckily, I got so used to going up and down that it became no big deal.

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.