EDITORIAL
My work in various publications
Tickle Me Elmo
PBS SoCal President Mel Rogers for the June 2011 issue of Laguna Beach Magazine
Many thanks to Dondee Quincena and Kaitlyn Kohn for their help on this shoot
A Real Housewife
Fernanda Rocha of The Real Housewives of Orange County for the May 2011 issue of Laguna Beach Magazine
Many thanks to Dondee Quincena and Kaitlyn Kohn for their help on this shoot
THE FASHIONISTO
Link: An Exclusive Feature for THE FASHIONISTO
stylist // JACQUELINE NGUYEN
hairstylist // NOOGIE THAI
grooming // UZMEE KRAKOVSKI
models // DYLAN GRINER + FRANK MENTIER + YEVGENY
check out the rest of the images on THE FASHIONISTO
RECAP: Newport Beach Magazine Surf Legends
Newport Beach Magazine sends me out on some pretty cool assignments, and yesterday was no exception. I was able to photograph three legends of the Southern California surfing community – John Peck, Don Craig, and Mike Estrada.
John Peck is credited as being the first to surf real pipeline waves in the early 60’s. Truly an innovator in the surf industry, at 67 years of age he still hits the waves regularly. He shapes and designs his own boards nowadays and you can keep up with him on his blog.
Don Craig has quite a history in the surfwear business. He was hired as Quicksilver’s first sales rep and introduced the Rip Curl brand to the US. He now heads Old Guys Rule, a slogan he coined as a tribute to his father and two other legendary surfers who made up the Three Wise Men of San Onofre.
Mike Estrada, a native of Newport Beach, began shaping boards after enjoying an impressive career as an amateur surfer. He is now enjoying the success of his company, Estrada Board Design, doing what he loves most.
The beach was pretty crowded, but we managed to take them out of the equation somewhat. I brought a a couple of Polaroid land cameras; a 450 loaded with Fuji FP-100C and a 360 loaded with Fuji FP-3000B. I also managed to burn a roll of Provia 100F with my Mamiya 645, and shot the rest on a 5D Mark II. We lugged the Speedotron Explorer along with us and used a silver Photogenic Eclipse umbrella for fill when needed. I decided not to tether this time around and just shot into a card.
Many thanks to my partners in crime Dondee Quincena and Jerome Brua for all their help yesterday.
NailPro Magazine May 2011 Cover
May 2011 NAILPRO Magazine
Nail Tech // SOMER JUTRAS
Makeup // ANTHONY MERANTE (aim artists)
Hair // GIOVANNI GIULIANO (celestine)
Model // SAJATA STEPHANE (pinkerton)
Assistants // DONDEE QUINCENA + JON PAGUIO
Harlow Magazine Beauty Feature
Here’s a beauty editorial I shot for the May 2011 issue of Harlow Magazine featuring Studio Lash eyelash extensions.
hair + makeup // ASHLEY ANN HARRIS
models // JADE CORINNE + CAITLYN O’CONNOR
assistant // DONDEE QUINCENA
BACKSTAGE: Joshua Tree Fashion Editorial Part 2
Here’s a behind the scenes look at the fashion editorial we shot for Beverly Hills Lifestyle magazine in Joshua Tree.
I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk a little bit more tech about that shoot to add to the things I’ve already mentioned in my previous blog post.
Knowing we were going to be forced to shoot under the worst lighting conditions for shooting people, I decided to take along just one head and a Speedotron Explorer battery pack to fill and balance out the lighting. What you have to understand about using flash outdoors is that you’re actually dealing with two separate exposures and combining them together. The first thing I determine is my natural light exposure and how I want the background to look in terms of under or overexposure. Once that is nailed down, I then determine my flash exposure to match my ambient reading and set my camera accordingly.
Because I wasn’t trying to overpower the sun and just wanted to get a nice controlled fill of the shadows, I only needed a small pop of strobe and that meant two things: one, the battery was going to easily last all day, and two, quick recycle times. Early afternoon out in the desert also means you’re going to be dealing with a lot of light, so I knew I was going to be set at 100 ISO and I could also play with a very shallow depth of field. However, I am also limited by my flash sync speed of 1/200 at best using the Speedotron Explorer. Since my flash exposure is controlled by aperture, opening up to the 5.6 – 1.4 range would require a pretty high shutter speed to stop down the ambient light, thus negating my flash. This is when I make use of 2 and 3 stop ND lens filters on my lens to cut down the sun. But remember, exposure is a give and take equation, so now we have to pump out a lot more out of our Speedo power pack to compensate for the 2-3 stop loss and bring the shutter speed back down to 1/200 or under.
We were definitely going for that desert look, so I wanted to work with a crisper, harsher quality of light. I took 3 different sized silver reflectors, a 7”, an 11” and a 16”, finally deciding on the latter to get the biggest spread that would maintain some directionality.
I get asked quite often what lens is best for shooting fashion. There is no one best lens for anything. When you are treated to a gorgeous location such as Joshua Tree, you definitely want to choose a lens that will give you a sense of location and environment. I ended up using 4 lenses: a 16-35mm 2.8, a 50mm 1.4, an 85mm 1.8, and a 180mm 3.5 macro. With such a wide range of objectives, I was able to capture stunning wide shots as well as compressed shots with a good sense of depth.
I also wasn’t originally planning to shoot tethered, but I took the Think Tank Photo sunscreen along anyway because let’s be honest, who wants to squint at a 3” LCD when everyone can look at the images on a proper display. One of the coolest things about TTP’s sunscreen is that it makes carrying around the laptop pretty easily, and with the laptop shut, I can throw my camera in there as well. No matter where you end up shooting, whether it be at some remote location or in the comfort of your studio, you have to think about how to make the images easily accessible for your client, and this is why companies like Think Tank Photo and Tether Tools are so great.
I was able to take three assistants with me, making it easier to schlep the gear from location to location and to streamline the shooting process. One to light, one to digi tech, and one to bounce back and forth between metering, tether cable duty, and helping me switch lenses. At several points during the day, we were literally standing on three completely different boulders across from each other. It would have been absolutely impossible to get the shots I wanted without their help.
If there is anything else you would like to know about this shoot that I may have left out, feel free to use the disqus comment function below.
BACKSTAGE: Joshua Tree Fashion Editorial
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.
RECAP: Newport Beach Magazine 2011 Beauty Issue
I am pretty stoked to have two features in this month’s Newport Beach Magazine. It’s the Health and Beauty Issue, and even more exciting for me is being able to license a photo of Jade that we shot at one of my Prep To Post Beauty Photography Workshops last year.
I have always appreciated Jade’s perfectly symmetrical face, and as you can see, the Beauty Mask clearly illustrates that in the Science of Beauty article.
I also got to shoot a re-creation of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man, which was really fun to do. With the help of Capture One Pro’s overlay feature, it was a snap previewing how the final composite would look, and also to position the model in the exact same way as DaVinci’s original drawing.
RECAP: Steele Platt for Newport Beach Magazine
Last month I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Steele Platt, the founder of the Yardhouse chain of brewery restaurants for Newport Beach Magazine.
One of the best things about shooting indoors on location at a bar/restaurant type setting is capturing the existing lighting. Establishments such as the Yardhouse usually have a distinct mood, look and feel, and I wanted the viewer to experience being at the location. I chose to isolate my lighting to illuminate just Steele for this series of environmental portraits. I used a combination of softboxes and gridded 7” reflectors for the key, and allowed the ambient lighting to burn in. We had only an hour and a half with Steele, and we managed to shoot four different setups.
Many thanks to my assistants, Dondee Quincena, Maurice Mauricio, and Jancarlo Beck for making it a quick and easy morning.
BACKSTAGE: Aly Michalka
Here are the images and editorial feature from the ZOOEY Magazine shoot featuring Aly Michalka. Thanks once again for everyone’s hard work and participation, making this such a great shoot.
stylist // LYNDZI TRANG
producer // AMANDA ELKINS
makeup // AMY STROZZI
hair // BRENT MAYFIELD
stylist’s assistant // JACQUELINE NGUYEN
photo assistants // DONDEE QUINCENA + REN LARA
digital tech // DOC LE
videographer // JEROME BRUA
many thanks to STUDIO 22 for providing such a cool place to shoot
In a New York Minute
makeup+hair // KATHY ARAGON
model // MICHELLE HAYDEN (pinkerton)
Kathy Aragon is my separated at birth sister and wife of one of my good friends and awesome photographer Luis Aragon. Unfortunately they live on the east coast and we only get to see each other once a year if we’re lucky. Earlier this month, Kat flew in for the Makeup Show LA and we had about 4 hours to spare for a shoot. I think we definitely made the most of it.
Things That Never Get Old #143
Things that never get old #143: submitting an editorial on spec and it ends up landing the cover.
We had produced this shoot to submit to T&M Magazine in Canada for their beauty issue, and it was definitely one of those situations where a true collaborative environment was achieved. Everyone involved in the shoot had a major part in the evolution of the final images you see here. We literally built this story from the ground up on the day of the shoot, shifting gears and re-conceptualizing until we were able to finally concretize a direction to go with. We were able to put aside our own personal expectations and just create for the sake of the story, and I think these photographs definitely reflect that.
makeup // SHARON TABB
hair // DAVEN MAYEDA (celestine)
model // BLAKE GILLESPIE
assistant // DONDEE QUINCENA
The Newsstand
Seeing your work on the cover of a magazine in a newsstand never gets old. 
See the rest of the images HERE
NEWPORT BEACH MAGAZINE // march 2011
SASHA COHEN // cover & inside feature
CASSIE LYONS // hair & makeup
DONDEE QUINCENA // assistant
Getting listed in a magazine’s masthead never gets old either.
I did not shoot this cover of Laguna Beach Magazine, but I did perform the retouching on it.
T&M Magazine Spring 2011 Cover
Finding out a recent shoot lands the cover never gets old.
makeup // Sharon Tabb
hair // Daven Mayeda
model // Blake Gillespie
assistant // Dondee Quincena
T&M issue 5 Spring 2011 Cover! The best one yet!
RECAP: Aly Michalka
I had the absolute pleasure of photographing actress and singer Aly Michalka for Zooey Magazine last month. She was so fun to work with and really made my job easier by being quite open to just letting myself and my team create beautiful imagery around her. She has such a great energy about her and we ended up with some gorgeous photographs at the end of the day.
You can watch Aly every week on the CW show Hellcats, and in the upcoming thriller “The Roommate”. She also sings and writes music with her sister AJ as 78violet
Many thanks to Lyndzi Trang who continues to outdo herself – she pulled some amazing pieces for this shoot. I also need to thank my good friends Tiffany, Josh, and Phen Mas for the use of their space, STUDIO 22.
This is just a sneak peak at the cover, and I will be posting images from the entire shoot once the magazine hits the stands.
Zooey Magazine Winter 2010
Winter Fashion Editorial for Zooey Magazine
stylist // LYNDZI TRANG
makeup // SHARON TABB
hair // FELVI HERNANDO
models // LAUREN & LESLIE (ford)
producer // KARUNA KARMARKAR
assistants // DONDEE QUINCENA & MAURICE MAURICIO
RECAP: Sasha Cohen
For my very last shoot of 2010, I had the pleasure of photographing Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen for Newport Beach Magazine. We only had a couple of hours to shoot her, and it was pretty cold that day at the Balboa Pier. She was a trooper and we were able to capture some beautiful portraits of her.
Many thanks to the staff of Newport Beach Magazine, makeup artist Cassie Lyons, and my good friend Dondee Quincena for a great shoot.
Portrait of a Girl
BEAUTY TEST // jan 12th, 2011
makeup // ANA CRUZALEGUI
hair // DAVEN MAYEDA (celestine)
model // BETH (ford)
Beauty Etc. Winter 2011 Editorial Feature
Beauty Etc. Magazine also ran the beauty story I had originally submitted to their sister publication, NailPro, for their Winter 2011 issue which is available now.
It features the talented artistry of Brett Freedman and Naja Green, and beauties Jade Corinne and Alli Cripe.
There is a blue “ETC” button at the bottom of each page that reveals a write up about each image when clicked on.
Many thanks to Celestine and Photogenics for their participation.
Link: Beauty Etc. Winter 2011 Editorial Feature
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