A rusty fence in a field of California Poppies

California poppy fields; Antelope Valley, Calif.

A couple days ago Erinn and I spent a beautiful, though chilly, evening in and around the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserves. I was there to shoot production stills for a friend’s film project, but will share those photos later. The fields are still in bloom and were incredible. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in Southern California in the spring. Here are a couple shots of the fields and also one of Erinn in what was probably the greenest wheat (I think?) field I’ve ever seen.

California Poppy Reserves; Antelope Valley, California

California Poppy Reserves; Antelope Valley, California

A woman poses in a wheat field at sunset

Fashion photography Venice, California

Fashion shoot in front of The Brig, Venice, Calif.

I’ve been doing a few portfolio shoots lately, teaming up with models, stylists and makeup artists and just seeing what we can come up with. This is from a recent collaboration with model Keira Kitagawa and makeup artist Dee (last name to follow). After doing a number of shots in the studio we went out around Venice to find interesting locations. We ended in the parking lot of The Brig, a popular bar and landmark along Abbot Kinney Blvd. I had noticed the lights before while scouting for locations and thought this would make a great place to shoot. Our timing wasn’t great though. We finally made our way to this location just as the attendant was starting to charge for parking and cars were starting to pull in. He tried to charge us to park, but I told him we were looking for places to shoot my friend and asked if we could quickly take a shot and move on. He agreed, but was probably surprised when I pulled a big light out of the trunk. Dee helped Keira get ready in the car and we literally shot for less than 5 minutes, popping frames between crossing cars and pedestrians. Hard to get a clean shot! Finally it all came together and as an added bonus, a car that was turning in to park provided a nice edge light on her legs, giving it something the other frames were lacking. Overall it turned out pretty well I think. Nothing like working on the fly and under the gun! Thanks Keira and Dee for a successful collaboration!

Planet Blue fashion shoot - Sharylyn Long

I’m excited to announce that the second issue of SoCal Scene magazine was just released and features a fashion spread shot by yours truly. We had a great team and a great time putting this shoot together and we’re happy with the results! The magazine is online at socal-scene.com and should be on magazine racks around L.A. next week. In order to pull this off we put together a great team of people and put in a full-day’s work and then some. The shoot took place north of Los Angeles in and around the town of Piru. I’ll follow up later with some behind the scenes photos I took for Erika Stanley’s SNOB Style site.

Credits:
Photography by David Zentz
Styling by Erika Stanley
Clothing by Black Label by Planet Blue & Planet Blue Boutique
Hair by Kyle Mathis
Makeup by Robyn Fisher
Photography assistant – Matt Levitch

Please continue after the jump to see the rest of the series!
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Fashion Week Los Angeles

Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

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Backstage during Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museaum

Last week was quite fashion-heavy, with Thursday spent doing an all-day editorial fashion shoot up in Simi Valley and Friday night spent shooting the final night of Fashion Week L.A. at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Blvd. Both were done in collaboration with my friend Erika Stanley for her fashion website, SNOBStyle.tv, and will appear there soon. I’ll be sure to add links when they do. Although the editorial shoot came first I’m posting the Fashion Week images now, as it may be awhile before the first shoot publishes. We’re also hoping to publish it in a new upstart magazine, SoCal-Scene, with which Erika has recently become affiliated. More on that later.
For this event I stayed away from shooting the standard, down-the-runway shots in favor of shooting more of a behind-the-scenes piece. It was the second of two nights of Gen Art’s Fresh Faces in Fashion show and featured a variety of designers I’m not personally familiar with. I was really just curious to check out the scene. Fortunately, Erika was able to get me a backstage pass to facilitate this and I came away with some decent images. I surely outshot Ashton Kutcher at least.
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I recently produced a few slideshows for a popular LA fashion blog called SNOB Style. The blog is the passion project of Erika Stanley, pictured at top and bottom right, who writes and shoots videos about all things fashion. For this project she was demonstrating, with the help of makeup artist Robyn Fisher, three different looks for summer makeup. Definitely one of my tougher assignments! What with the wine and cheese and Robyn’s studio, which is at her Studio City home on a high hill overlooking the valley. The full project can be seen here.

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