My Facebook and Twitter timelines have recently been inundated with posts and updates about weight concerns within the Fashion Industry, as well as negative attitudes towards fashion and beauty advertising. The news over the past 20-30 years has been more about sensationalism than actual journalism, and it just keeps getting worse. I have struggled with these topics as well, working full time in this industry as an image maker. I can relate with the arguments from both sides, and I wanted to give my two cents for whatever it’s worth.

The weight issue in fashion has been a hotly debated topic for the past two decades. It began with the heroin chic look that rose to popularity during the nineties. While it is true that many models are underweight, to say that the modern average model size is underweight or anorexic is a false generalization. Models in fact, make up a very small percentage of the global population of women. It’s a funny statistic, but it’s true. You can’t compare all models to all women because it is an unfair comparison. The truth is a larger population of Americans are overweight. The majority of which may not be obese, but they are overweight. Yet instead of dealing with that truth, the news and media and America for that matter, decide to point the blame elsewhere, to redirect attention away from what we should be dealing with.

The most prominent article that has been floating around the internet in the past couple of weeks is a Plus Magazine editorial depicting an obviously underweight model next to an obviously overweight model. The accompanying article criticizes the fashion industry for endorsing unhealthy weight in “normal” sized models, yet say nothing about the fact that the other model is in fact, overweight. Is not the purpose of plus-sized modeling to promote clothing made for larger, overweight people? One of my favorite sayings is, “when you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”

Perhaps the real question should be why the fashion industry should be held accountable for body image disorders such as anorexia and bulemia. Again, it is easier to point the blame at someone else rather than at the true source. I strongly believe that parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children. In the movie, The Crow, there is a great line delivered by Brandon Lee quoting William Makepeace Thackeray: “Mother is the word for God on the hearts and lips of all little children.” It is most unfortunate that today we rely on the media to dictate what is right and wrong, what we should feel about ourselves, how we should look, and what we should believe. This is obvious neglect from parents who should be teaching their children about self-esteem, good values, and even sex.

The purpose of advertising is to sell fantasy. It is in no way connected to reality. The job of the advertiser is to sell products to the consumer. In order to sell the consumer on products, they attach a pretend lifestyle attached to the use of that product. If you buy Versace clothing, you will be part of a luxurious lifestyle. If you buy a Mercedes, you will be part of an elite group of car owners. These are fantasies and again, it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children the difference between fantasy and reality, and more importantly, to police what is appropriate for their children to watch or read. What’s most frightening is the indifference the average American parent has today in regards to maintaining good communication with their children and handing off that responsibility to television and the internet.

Let’s take food advertising as an example. The images of food in ads and menus seldom look like the actual food served, yet that doesn’t get nearly as much negative press as fashion advertising. Processed food is advertised as being healthy for you, which is a complete lie. The FDA, a supposedly trusted government agency, promotes the Standard American Diet (SAD) which has single-handedly contributed to obesity in this country. They approve hundreds of drugs with serious and detrimental side effects to be prescribed by medical doctors, whom we trust to help us maintain our health. America is being poisoned by unnecessary medication and poor diet choices. The American Medical Association has taken a “one pill for every illness” standpoint instead of using proper nutrition to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Did they not take the hippocratic oath which clearly states, “Do no harm?” Hippocrates himself stated, “let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be food.”

A trailer for an upcoming documentary entitled, “Killing Us Softly 4” which deals with advertising’s image of women has also gone viral on social media timelines. It lays blame on the media and advertising for shaping our attitudes towards sexuality in a negative way, stating that this is the cause for the rise in violence against women among other things. Advertising is held accountable for objectifying women and for dictating how we should feel about ourselves, how we should look, what is normal, and for instilling values. Again, why is America relying on an entity which sells fantasy to tell us how we should be in reality? As an artist, I view the world around me in terms of subjects, yes, you can even say objects, to capture and turn into works of art. This has always been the way for artists. However, I don’t display any propensity towards violence against women, nor do I have any false concepts on what is normal, what is real, or how I should feel about myself. What makes me different from the apparent majority of the population who fall victim to these things? Why is this a much larger problem in America than it is in other countries? Perhaps because here, parents don’t talk to their children openly about sexuality like they do in those other countries. Maybe because here, parents rely on oppressive, outdated religious beliefs to teach their children about attitudes towards sexuality. It seems the American attitudes towards sex is the real issue here.

Let’s place the blame where it belongs: within ourselves. It is ultimately our responsibility to maintain a healthy lifestyle, to take care of our environment, to treat each other well. Unfortunately it is far too easy to rely on religion, the government and the media to tell us what to do.

2011. What a year. It had its great moments and not so great moments. Fortunately the memories of the great moments are what tend to stay with me, and I am thankful for the many good things that happened last year. I am grateful to be able to work with such an amazing group of talented artists who allow me to continue to produce my work. I have learned so much, not only about my art but who I am as a person as well.

Looking back at 2011, I realize how fortunate I am to be able to work as a professional photographer. Celebrities, musicians, and some of the most interesting and philanthropic people I’ve ever met graced the front of my lens. At one point I was even given $100K worth of camera and lighting equipment to play with for a week. More importantly however, I have wonderful friends who continue to show me their amazing support throughout even the lowest of times.

What better way to end the year than to put together a beauty shoot with the person I love to shoot the most. Jade and I called on fabulous makeup artist Anthony Merante who added hairstylist Andrew Zepeda to the mix. We decided to pull a marathon shoot, doing both clean, campaign type imagery as well as more avant garde editorial looks. I kept the crew small and didn’t book any assistants because sometimes it’s good to be able to just enjoy working things out on your own.

For the clean beauty shots, I used a Broncolor Para 220FB hooked up to a Grafit A4. This is really the Rolls Royce of studio lighting setups and just an amazing piece of equipment. I shot mostly with my 180mm 3.5 macro, switching to an 85mm 1.8 when I needed to frame wider.

Unfortunately I can only show an outtake from the editorial shots because we’re in the process of submitting them for publication. Magazines will usually want first publishing rights meaning they won’t use images that have been run anywhere else, including the internet, and understandably so. For this shot I used three gelled umbrellas and experimented with their position and output to vary the degree of intensity and saturation. Gels will have different densities depending upon the color and thickness, and this greatly affects light output and color rendition. For the most part it was really a basic 3-point lighting setup, just with colored gels. To introduce the “normal” colored light, I used a Speedotron Zoom Spot which was set as the key.

We had a great shoot and really maximized our time getting the shots we wanted. I love long days as long as everyone leaves happy.

I have been working with Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine for the past few months and one of my favorite things about shooting content for them is working with art director Jamie Breuer. It was actually Jamie that got me connected to shooting for BHL magazine, and to date he is one of my favorite art directors to work with. Not only do we get along aesthetically, but our personalities vibe well with each other which makes for a very stress free creative environment.

This particular editorial was for BHL’s winter 2011 issue, which is normally their holiday issue. As usual, the conversation between Jamie and myself began with the crew he wanted to put together for the job. Since he and I frequently work with the same artists, the work environment becomes very comfortable and familiar. Stylist Holly Copeland (whom you may remember styled the BHL shoot we did in Joshua Tree as well as the Cote De Pablo shoot) came back on board, along with set stylist Ninaki Priddy, makeup artist Mathias Alan, and hairstylist Mitzi Gip. Out of all the packages Jamie received from modeling agencies, Photogenics submitted the best choices. Jamie’s first pick was Alli Cripe, and I happily agreed as I had worked with her on a beauty shoot before and she was an amazing model.

Jamie and I then discussed location and concept over several emails. The clothing Holly would be pulling were mostly metallics which would fit right in with the holiday feel. Jamie mentioned that he did not want to go overboard with the holiday theme, but still have glitz and glam to the images. Several digital tear sheets were emailed back and forth between us in order to narrow down our vision for the shoot. We then decided to shoot at the studio, at which point backgrounds and backdrops were discussed. We really wanted the metallic fabrics to pop and didn’t want to use an overwhelming background. The clothing themselves would serve as the holiday elements. Jamie also stressed that he didn’t want a completely black background either, so it was up to me to come up with the right solution.

I’m sure many times I’ve mentioned how a fashion shoot is always in a state of flux; it grows, it evolves, it is forever changing as if it were alive. This is because there are several creative individuals working together simultaneously towards a common goal, and it is this collaborative effort that gives the shoot life. We all feed this being with our ideas and suggestions, and what we usually begin with is never what we end up with. This shoot was a good example of that. I always like to start off as simply as possible. Whenever I shoot in the studio, I treat is just as if it were a blank canvas. Ninaki brought some very cool design elements but I couldn’t quite see how they would work just yet. We initially put up a thunder gray seamless. At first I wanted to use hard-shaped lighting to showcase the metallic finish of the clothes, so we hooked up a speedotron zoom spot. After a couple of test shots, it just seemed too blah for my taste, so we took down the seamless and put up a mottled canvas backdrop. The added texture definitely helped, then Jamie and Ninaki discussed layering some other fabrics to give the set some depth. That gave me an idea from a shoot I did almost a year ago where I layered some muslin on top of the canvas backdrop. We kept adding and adding to the set, and it still wasn’t quite working for me. Everyone was making great suggestions but it definitely needed some editing. I find that this becomes a very crucial point in the shoot, because you still have time before the models are set-ready to finalize the set design but you just can’t seem to get it right. The last thing you want to happen is to be 3 looks into the shoot and decide then that you want to change everything around. Wasting time is not part of the agenda. I called Samy’s to pull some more muslin, and instead of sending out the assistant to pick up the order, I took the opportunity to step away and take a break, so I went myself. During that short drive I was able to picture things a bit better in my head. Conflict usually arises when you force your ideas instead of using them to work within your shooting space. I think we were trying to pull off something that I feel we just didn’t have the resources to accomplish, and once I accepted that I could think of a better solution. Through listening to what everyone had to offer, we ended up creating this amazing atmosphere in the studio utilizing the grip equipment as part of the set. Once we got over that obstacle, everything went relatively smoothly.

Now that the set was finished it was much easier for me to envision a lighting design. I wanted to position the lighting so that I could shoot all around the set without having to physically move the lights. I took a couple of old Mole 2K’s that we have and set them up to serve as both lighting and prop elements. The zoom spot remained as the key light, while the 2K’s worked as rim lights. To compensate for the weaker output of the 2K’s, we had to add 4 stops of ND gel to the strobe. In order to balance the color between the tungsten and strobe sources, I set the camera’s white balance to tungsten and slapped a CTO on the zoom spot to warm it up. I had to shoot at 800ISO to get a decent shutter speed while shooting wide open in the F1.4-2.8 range. The continuous sources remained stationary and all I really had to move was the zoom spot which was on a roller, and we used that as the key which followed the model’s position. Finally, we also used a rolling full-length mirror as a reflector which bounced the light from the 2K’s back into the model. You can also see from some of the shots I used a cross-star filter over the lens. I used two lenses for this shoot; a 50mm F1.4 and an 85 F1.8.

I think you can see from the photos not only how everything was set up, but also how I moved around the set to capture different angles and perspectives, how I utilized set elements to give depth, and how the light was able to change from shot to shot just from moving the camera position. I also want you to note how the magazine decided to lay out and crop the images compared to my original framing. All in all, this shoot is definitely one of my favorite shoots to date. Many thanks to Dondee Quincena and Wayne Hayes for their hard work on this shoot.

Thank you so much. Yes, usually I use the C1 generic profile for the canon bodies, but I do remember liking a 3rd party ICC created for the 1st gen 5D for use in C1. I can’t quite remember at the moment where on the internet I found them, but I’m sure it will pop up with a google search. 

When it comes to the film types, I normally use the standard film curve, though if I am in a high contrast scenario, I will sometimes use the extra shadow setting. If it is a high key against white and I really want it to be super saturated and poppy, then I will use high contrast. 

I always process RAW files into 16bit AdobeRGB at 300. Up until the 5D MkII, I would process at 150% and allow C1 to interpolate it for me and get a bigger file dimension. With the MkII however, the files are large enough where I can just output to 100%.

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Last November, Dondee Quincena and I were booked by Laguna Beach Magazine to photograph a selection of the most influential people of Laguna Beach for their special feature. I photographed 12 of them, while Dondee photographed 6. It took us a little over a week to be able to get everyone; we were doing 2-3, sometimes even 4 shoots a day. I must say it was a fun experience running up and down Laguna Beach and meeting some of the most interesting people I’ve ever come across. Everyone we photographed was very nice, accommodating, and easy to work with. I was able to photograph all sorts of people including the mayor, CEO’s, museum directors, real estate moguls and environmental activists. Locations varied from their places of work to their homes and even right on the beach. Needless to say, each shoot presented it’s own unique challenges in regards to equipment and composition. For the most part, I used available light and when the need arose for additional lighting, I brought either an Alien Bee or a Speedotron 1200 pack with a couple of heads. I wanted to pack as light as possible for maximum mobility and efficiency. These were very busy people, and I wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible.

Dondee and I took turns assisting each other and we brought along Wayne Hayes for another set of hands. Each shoot was done in about an hour or two at the most from setup to breakdown. By the end of the week, we pretty much had a good working knowledge of where everything was in Laguna Beach. It got to the point where we could just look at the address and know exactly where to go.

You can’t duplicate a true macro lens with a normal lens. With a prime lens, you are stuck with one minimum focusing distance and you will not be able to emulate a macro shot with an 85 because it is a telephoto. with wide to telephoto zooms, like the 24-105, you can focus quite close, but only at the widest focal length, meaning at 24mm. At that point, you are dealing with distortion from the wide angle. 

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I actually have the first part of a tutorial mini-series up on the FStoppers PPT Youtube Channel that shows how to do this. 

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Good question. That mirror was actually already in the studio when I moved in. I have no idea whose it was, but it’s actually pretty neat. It was definitely bought from somewhere, that I know. It’s a 3-sided full length deal that kind of resembles a skinny pyramid and it’s on wheels. I initially started using it while shooting so the model could see herself while she was posing. Then I tried to use it as a reflective element, then I eventually shot into it to capture a reflection. Below are some BTS shots of our most recent use of the mirror and in the second photo you can see the mirror’s reflection lighting the model. 

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Fashion week here in Southern California isn’t quite the same as let’s say, New York, Paris or Milan. I’m not as exposed to it as other fashion photographers would be living in those cities. So in the 8 years I’ve been shooting, I have never shot a runway event, simply because it isn’t a huge part of my career.

Late last year I was asked to shoot a fashion show at the Montage Resort for Firebrand Media, who owns Newport Beach Magazine and Laguna Beach Magazine among other titles. I was excited to do it because although I didn’t have any experience, it was a small event and didn’t carry any pressure. It was going to be a fun experience and a chance to try something new. I googled a bunch of runway shots just as a point of reference and I took Dondee Quincena along with me to get as much coverage as possible.

Having walked down the runway myself many many years ago, I wasn’t completely foreign to the mechanics of a fashion show. I remember when my agency was selecting shots of me on the runway for my book, they tended to choose the shots where I had my lead foot firmly planted on the floor while to other foot was trailing behind in mid-step. This simply showed that I was in motion rather than just standing on the runway or in an awkward in-between position. Now that I would be on the other end of the camera, I wanted to establish a rhythm where I would watch for the models’ feet as they landed on the floor to take the shot.

Mind you, the longest lens I own is a 180 macro, the others being a 50 and an 85, which really isn’t ideal for shooting runway. However, this being a smaller event in a smaller venue with just a few people shooting, I would have no problems positioning myself. Since I was the official photographer, I was able to dictate not only where I would be, but where the other photographers could and couldn’t position themselves. I got there early enough to watch the rehearsal and get a sense of where I should be and what lens would work best. Dondee had a 24-105mm which I borrowed and lent him my 180 to get longer shots from a different vantage point. I set up my tripod about 10-15 feet from the end of the runway and locked everything down. I found the best way to go about this would be to zoom in as the girls entered the runway, and zoom out as they walked towards me so I could always frame them from head to toe from one end to the other, then once they established their pose at the end of the runway, I could zoom in to get a tighter crop.

All in all, the magazine was happy with the shots and so was I. It was definitely a fun experience that brought back some great memories. I have to thank Dondee for his help as well as Nick Leadlay for his advice on shooting runway.

I know I’ve mentioned in previous posts how I enjoy shooting editorial food photography, but let me now say I REALLY enjoy shooting it. Needless to say I was excited when Laguna Beach Magazine called me to shoot a feature on K’YA Bistro in Laguna Beach.

My goal when shooting food is to make it look as appetizing as possible. I want you to get hungry just looking at the photos, and I also want you to want to dine at the restaurant I shot these in. I like to be able to create an atmosphere out of the dishes to give you an idea of what the ambience of the restaurant is like, as well as the season of the food presented, whether it be a holiday menu or a summer offering.

In this instance, the chefs at K’YA prepared a special holiday menu that would span from thanksgiving to the new year. The decor in the restaurant is a lot of very dark woods, with pops of red. It’s a very warm environment. We decided to really dress up the set with all things holiday; some candles, christmas ornaments and what not. It was initially suggested to me that they use a red table runner to really give it that holiday feel, but the wood tables there gave such a nice texture that I convinced them to shoot it bare. I always believe that good design is made up of the right proportions, and I didn’t want to overwhelm the food with decorations.

After trying a couple of lighting scenarios, we ended up using just one large soft box positioned overhead and off to the side. This would enable me to take overhead and frontal shots without having to change the lighting. This is important when shooting cooked food because you only have a small window before the appearance of the food begins to degrade. You really don’t want the food sitting while you change lighting for each shot. We also used a couple of silver flexfills to reduce the contrast. I also wanted to shoot fairly shallow, between F4-5.6 to give some depth to the frontal shots while still maintaining sharp focus on the overhead shots. We used a 1200 speedotron pack set to the lowest output.

As usual, I shot tethered to Capture One Pro. The way I have it set up now is to station the laptop away from the set where the client can hover over the digital tech for previewing images while I keep an iPad with me for my preview. Having the TetherTools Wallee kit has really been such an amazing gift to have because of the countless ways you can mount it. I have it mounted to a magic arm that I can literally hook on anything, from my tripod to furniture and anything that it will clamp on to. I used two lenses for this shoot – a 24-105mm for the overhead shots and a 50mm 1.4 to shoot the individual plates.

The entire shoot took maybe an hour and yes, we were able to sample the food afterwards; definitely the best perk of shooting food. I highly recommend you drop by K’YA Bistro if you visit Laguna Beach. Many thanks to Dondee Quincena and Wayne Hayes for their help as well as Chef Craig Connole’s amazing cooking.