Last week i had the opportunity of working with a new art director, Jamie Breuer, on a fashion editorial for Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine. Jamie had contacted me on a referral from mutual friend and hairstylist, Sienree Du. He presented me with the editorial shoot and from our initial conversation it definitely sounded like a project I wanted to be involved in. it was to be for their summer issue, but he had not yet secured a location. I suggested shooting at Joshua Tree, to give it a different and unexpected environment, given that most summer editorials in california are shot at a beach location.
I love shooting at Joshua Tree, and I try to go out there at least once a year. it’s one of those places that pretty much shoots itself, because it offers so many opportunities for amazing photographs at every turn.
After discussing art direction, it was decided that we would be using a balance of natural and artificial light. Jamie sent over a mood board of images consisting of clothing, hair, and makeup references, as well as lighting and posing inspirations. It’s always great when everyone is on the same page aesthetically, and it very much seemed that way working with Jamie.
Knowing how much of a trek it is getting around Joshua Tree, I wanted to pack as little as possible. We took a Speedotron Explorer pack so I could use my existing Speedotron heads and modifiers and a Honda EU2000i generator for portable power. I wanted to balance and match the quality of sunlight, so I left the beauty dish at the studio and took a 16” silver reflector instead, as well as an 11” and a 7” with some grids. I also brought along a flexfill to use for bounce and to scrim off the sun. One of the most important things I brought was Think Tank Photo’s Pixel Sunscreen, which is essential especially since all macbook pros come with a glossy screen nowadays. This was the first time taking out my new 13” macbook pro out for a spin, and it was much faster shooting tethered to it than my old 15” macbook pro, especially with 8GB of RAM slapped in. In an effort to stay light, we shot with one head all day and the assistants took turns using just a c-stand arm to handhold instead of lugging around the whole c-stand which would have been too cumbersome to setup given some of our shooting spots. I think I want to talk to the guys at Tether Tools for a couple of ideas for ultra portable tethering tables.
We did great with time, arriving at our designated home base a little after noon. We started actually shooting around half past two, and blasted through seven looks in about four hours. It was a great day, everyone had a wonderful energy and attitude, and we came away with beautiful photographs. I can’t wait to see these in print!
Many thanks to Dondee Quincena, Jancarlo Beck, and Kaitlyn Kohn for assisting and making this shoot possible.
