Richard Jackson for The Chronicle of Higher Education

A few weeks ago I photographed Richard Jackson for the Chronicle of Higher Education. A professor at UCLA and former head of the National Center for Environmental Health at the CDC, Dr. Jackson is the host of Designing Healthy Communities, a documentary miniseries airing on PBS this week and next. He is one of the leading advocates for better urban design, which in turn leads to better overall health for a community’s residents.

Jackson had the perfect place in mind for the shoot, a concrete island outside of baggage claim at LAX, where he says he often waits in a noxious cloud of cigarette smoke and car exhaust for up to an hour for a shuttle bus that will take him up to the UCLA campus. He spends his weekends in San Francisco, where his family currently resides. “This is my idea of hell,” he yelled over a cacophony of  car horns and revving engine noises pinging back and forth between pavement and low cement ceilings as we exited the baggage claim area. He had a point. The place doesn’t exactly scream ‘welcome to paradise.’

Photographing at LAX is fairly easy as long as you don’t pull out any lights and are out in the public area. Swarms of paparazzi and camera-toting tourists are a daily occurrence, so there’s a certain level of tolerance built in for casual shooting. So, I kept it simple, shooting only natural light and using the bounce from the adjacent parking deck to light the subject. We were able to shoot for several minutes without being hassled, which is more than you can say for many public spots in the city.

The following day I went to shoot him as he was giving a guest lecture to a class at the university. The material he presented is pretty interesting, and I found myself sticking around after I’d packed up my gear to listen to what he had to say. Many of us, particularly in LA, are already aware of what poor urban planning can do to impede pedestrians, but seeing it presented in photographs of labyrinthian neighborhoods and charts tracking our nations health decline with the rise of urban sprawl and suburbia was still fascinating and frustrating. It’s amazing to see how an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and asthma can in part be traced back to civic planners from the 1950′s. It also makes you realize the hurdles advocates of cities designed around pedestrians, such as Jackson, have to overcome.

This also made me appreciate living in Venice, which is an unusually walkable and bike friendly neighborhood. In fact, LA has numerous walkable neighborhoods. It’s just when you try to get from one to another that the nightmare begins. Speaking of which, it’s time to get away from this computer and go stretch my legs.

Dr. Lucy Jones, aka "The Earthquake Lady" for Smithsonian Magazine

Dr. Lucy Jones for Smithsonian Magazine

I recently had the opportunity to photograph Lucy Jones for Smithsonian Magazine. We lucked out with our location, finding a spot at a private residence just north of the city that gave us a gorgeous view of the city, combined with a little touch of nature in the foreground, tying together her job as one of the nation’s preeminent seismologists with her role as a protector and voice of reason for the city’s earthquake apprehensive citizens. Jones, a science adviser for the USGS in Pasadena, has become somewhat of a local celebrity in Los Angeles for her regular tv news appearances where she explains the causes, risks and likelihood of tremblers before and after earthquakes have occurred. The story is an interesting read if you want to check it out. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Meet-Lucy-Jones-the-Earthquake-Lady.html#

Chiara Daraio for STYLE magazine

In November I photographed Chiara Daraio for the Italian magazine STYLE. Daraio, a professor of aeronautics and applied physics at California Institute of Technology, was being profiled for being a leader in her field, which in layman’s terms is the study of how stress waves travel through solid materials, which they will then use to develop new technologies. The shoot was fun and relaxed, using a combination of natural and strobe lighting in a variety of settings in her building at Caltech. Whenever possible, particularly with portraits, I try to research the subject I’m photographing to see what’s been shot of them before and also what’s other photographers have done with similar subjects. In doing so, I found that she had been photographed in the lab before for Popular Science, so I made that shot my lowest priority, not wanting to copy what had been done before. The editors had only asked that it be a photo that shows her as an intellect and a leader in her field, but I was pretty free to take it from there. While I did shoot her in the lab, in a fashion different than what had been done before, I was happy they chose to run this shot which just shows her relaxing in her office, where notes indecipherable by me, but pertaining to her research, were already on the chalkboard. On a technical level, the shot was pretty simple, using only a reflector to bounce a little window light back into the scene, but the results were good.

Porsche CEO Matthias Müller for The Financial Times Germany

I’ve never been that much of a car guy, but after an exhilarating assignment last week for the Financial Times I may change my tune. The job was to head up to the Santa Maria Airport, about an hour north of Santa Barbara, to photograph the new CEO of Porsche, Matthias Müller, during an interview the FT had scheduled during a multi-day press event hosted by the company to promote the new 911 Carrera S. The assignment went well. I was able to photograph him during the interview and was also granted sufficient time at the end to shoot a couple of quick portraits, including this one, with him sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the new models with half of the exterior shell removed to show the inner workings. Herr Müller was very cooperative and the result was a cool photo. My plans after that were to hop back into my little Nissan Sentra and hit the road. Then Helene, the writer, asked me if I wanted to go for a test drive. Say what?

At first I thought I actually might get to drive the car, an idea that made me both excited and a bit apprehensive, considering the value. That wouldn’t have been out of the question had I been one of the journalists staying at the local hotel, many of whom, including Helene, were given a vehicle to drive themselves to and from the hangar where the event was hosted. Instead, we were both treated to ride alongs with a guy by the name of Walter Röhrl, who I later found out was once voted the greatest rally car driver of all time, having won 14 World Rally Championships in his career. Now in his mid-60s, Röhrl is the senior test driver at Porsche and the guy they retain to show off the vehicles to journalists and important guests at events such as these. Behind the hangar, they had repaved a section of runway to create a closed course track. Helene went first, disappearing behind the building and returning moments later, saying nothing more to me on her return than “You should be scared.” I smiled and hopped in, still not quite sure what to expect. Walter greeted me and we rolled around to the back side of the building and crawled up to the starting line. He made some comments to a couple of guys tending to the track and then, pressing a couple buttons, informed me of the settings he was changing. I nodded, pretending to understand. He may have, at first, thought he was driving around an auto journalist, but probably not for long. Meanwhile, finally realizing that we were really gonna race this thing, I decided to pull out my iPhone to get some video of the ride from my perspective.

“Here we go,” he said, putting his foot to the floor. Off like a rocket, in seconds we were peaking at 150 mph on a long straightaway that appeared to come to a sudden end not too far in the distance. “Holy shit,” I thought, as my body pressed back into the leather seat and I fumbled to turn on the camera function on my phone without taking my eyes off the road. The camera began to load and then immediately crashed, reverting to the home screen. Damn. The road was about to end, and the car screeched to a near stop twice as fast as it had taken off, pushing me forward into my seat belt, before sending me sideways nearly touching the driver as we took a hard right around a bend and then accelerated into a series of curves. I tried for my camera again, and again it failed. I had just used it to take photos in the lot before climbing in. Why was it failing now!? The car lunged left and, I as soon as I pressed into the door, reversed course and pulled me back toward the middle, accelerating and braking through a series of curves. Somewhere in there I tried my camera once or twice more, but still it failed. Screw it, I thought, I’m not missing this by playing with my phone. At one point, I was certain the car was going to go up on its right wheels, or at least go off course, but decided to put my faith in the driver. Another short straight-away and a curve or two later and the ride was over. Somewhat stunned and not really knowing what to ask, I inquired about the top speed and the horsepower, 150 and 350 respectively, as we rolled back toward the hangar. Röhrl then held up his pinky finger and told me in a thick German accent, “The car is like an extension of my finger. I just think what I want it to do, and it does it.” After that drive, I believed him.

I drove my Sentra with aggression on my three hour drive back home. The next day Helene sent me a link to Rohrl’s Wikipedia page, where I learned exactly whose hands my life had been in the day before. Wow. It was quite the experience riding in a high-performance car with someone who can really make it perform. Time to start saving my pennies. I think I might be a car guy after all.

The camera on my phone resumed working normally later that day. Guess I’m just going to have to remember this one.

Nick Bishop - Santa Monica, Calf.

I recently continued work on a series of images featuring parkour runners in action. This time I headed out to Santa Monica to work with Nick Bishop, a talented young traceur from North Hollywood. A while back, I had seen a video he posted on YouTube and was impressed, so I invited him to be a part of the series. We shot for much of the afternoon on a variety of urban obstacles, from a series of railings on a zig-zag incline and a 6-foot wide, 12-foot high stairwell gap  with only an 8-inch ledge to land on, to the monkey bars at the original Muscle Beach, where he leaped from bar to bar and then sprung from the final one, soaring over my head like a long jump skier without the skis, before tucking into a flip and landing in the sand. Nick’s energy is great, and he’s got cojones to spare, making jumps that even at 21, never mind today, I never would have considered. It’s great watching these guys seemingly defy gravity and turn the world into their playground.

For this shoot I also decided to collaborate with a stylist and after doing some searching contacted Sunshine Harding, an up-and-coming stylist, who was excited to participate. With some direction from me as to what type of look I was picturing, she came up with numerous options that worked for the various locations we found. Hoping to continue the collaboration on future shoots!

Nick Bishop - Santa Monica, Calif.

Nick Bishop - Santa Monica, Calif.

Superman - Muscle Beach, Santa Monica, Calif.

Prepping between jumps.

Streetball on Speedway

Streetball on Speedway

The other day I went out hunting for some fresh street photography and ended up coming across a group of kids playing football in front of a new mural by local street artist Chase on Speedway, an alley just off the Venice Boardwalk. While I took a lot of action photos that included the ball, I found it more interesting to watch people moving in front of this unusual and playful background. A couple more photos of random passers by after the jump.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

I recently had a fantastic shoot with my new friend Nana at Sunny Bak Studio in Venice. An artist, actor and model with an amazing fashion sense, Nana’s an incredible subject whom I had been wanting to photograph since I first approached her two years ago outside a local coffee shop. She’s one of the few people I’ve ever encountered whose presence can literally stop you in your tracks. The opportunity never materialized and I moved on to other things until deciding to try again a few weeks ago. Although I had never run into her in person again over that time, by then I had connected with several mutual friends and one of them, Sunny, was nice enough to reach out and vouch for me, which led to the shoot at her studio a few weeks later.

When Nana showed up to the shoot I knew she was a committed subject by the fact that, after getting stranded near the airport, she had hitchhiked to make it to the shoot. I was doubly relieved as I was not only looking forward to a much-anticipated shoot, but had also rented some extra gear and purchased film in order to make some exposures on an antique 4×5 camera I own but have never actually used. These photos are all shot on a Nikon D3, but I hope to be able to share the 4×5′s soon, pending positive results.

But even if they don’t turn out, the results of the D3 are enough to have made the shoot worthwhile. As you’ll see after clicking to the jump, I can hardly edit it down below 10 images made during a fun and fortuitous 90 minutes of shooting. The session was laid back and fun from the get go and only got better over time. Nana knows how to work the camera and we had a great time going through a variety of expressions, both posed an natural. Before shooting we came across a book by Robert Mapplethorpe entitled “Some Women.” I was mostly familiar with his more provocative work focusing on erotic male nudes, which is what most people probably associate him with. I was surprised when thumbing through the book to see this collection of beautifully lit portraits featuring young depictions the likes of Isabella Rossellini, Susan Sarandon and Grace Jones, the latter of which is a personal hero of Nana’s. Although it didn’t affect the way I set up for the shoot, I think the book provided a source of inspiration nonetheless, particularly evident in some of the more stoic images we produced.

A bit of luck came our way too when, not long into the shoot, a shaft of sunlight appeared on the backdrop. At first I saw it as a problem, an unsightly blotch of white light smeared across an otherwise even background. Then Nana – also a photographer I might add – pushed her face forward and into the light. I had been stuck on keeping my lighting the way I’d set it up, but when I saw that I immediately changed my tune. Knowing the rays, which were coming from the setting sun poking through the studio’s front door, were fleeting, I quickly started scrambling to take advantage. I wanted to try two things and managed to get a crack at both of them before the light faded away. First, I started working on balancing out the natural light with the overhead studio light so the effect of the sunlight could be seen without being bleached out by the strobes. I managed to find the right balance, so the strobe maintained the shadow detail while the sun lit her face. Then, I took the opposite approach, cutting the strobes altogether and exposing only for the highlight on her face. The effect was to surround just a portion of her face in total darkness. Right after that the sun disappeared and we resumed shooting with my original setup, which was nothing more than a single, super-diffused beauty dish placed over head, and the occasional use of a reflector below. (I’ve actually posted a couple “behind-the-scenes” shots taken by my wonderful intern Shari at the end of this post.) But it was a good reminder to roll with the unexpected rather than fight it.

My original intent when shooting Nana was to produce a couple good portraits that spoke more to her personality. The first shot posted here is probably the closest to my original vision. It’s a moment that’s loose and natural and powerful, and shows her being herself. I’ve seen a lot of amazing modeling work she’s done recently but wanted to go a different direction with her that I hadn’t yet seen, which is more my style anyway. But posed or natural, she was able to help me produce several great images that I’m happy to be sharing here. Hopefully I’ll have more to share after processing the 4×5′s.

Overall it was a great shoot and I look forward to working with her again someday!

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Nana @ Sunny Bak Studio, Venice, Calif.

Setup shots

Lighting setup shot w/ 4x5 camera

Photos and cold beer, nothing better.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Forget fireworks. This year the big Fourth of July spectacular in Venice Beach turned out to come in the form of a broken fire hydrant spewing water four stories in the air at the corner of Speedway and Clubhouse Avenues. What else to do but throw off your clothes and dance beneath the downpour until the authorities arrive? Or, if you’re me, take pictures. In many ways it was a welcome relief the disappointment we experienced from the cancellation of major fireworks shows in Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey. We were still able to see distant shows to the north in Malibu and to the south in Manhattan Beach, but nothing that was in-your-face. On our way back from the beach after fireworks we came across this scene and, like everyone else, ran toward it. There, for 15 minutes or so, crowds of people cheered as people took turns dashing into the downpour until the authorities arrived, unwittingly making the show patriotic with flashes of red, white and blue light. After a few minutes they cleared out the scene and got to work capping the geyser. Apparently, the culprit was a car that ran into the hydrant, knocking it off its base. I haven’t heard that anyone was hurt and hopefully no one experienced too much flooding from the 4-inch deep river that formed in the alleys. Definitely a memorable cap to an otherwise great Fourth, despite the meager fireworks displays.

Check out more photos after the jump!

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

Broken Fire Hydrant, Venice Beach, Calif.

It’s a little known fact that both Erinn and I are accomplished sumo wrestlers. Believe it. In fact, both of us hold silver medals from an officially sanctioned California Sumo Association tournament. While this is old news to us, I figured it’s about time I shared this tidbit with the rest of you, before it’s ancient history.

During the fall of ’09, Erinn and I set out to attend the Shuubun (fall equinox) sumo tournament at the “Dohyo of Dreams” in Garden Grove. We’d been invited by U.S. Heavyweight Sumo Champion Dan “Sumo Dan” Kalbfleisch after I’d asked him to sit for a portrait shortly after meeting him at a sumo demonstration at Venice Beach. He happened to be participating in this tournament the following week and thought it would be a great place to shoot, as well as to get some photos of the wrestlers in action. (You can see the portrait here.) Of course, I thought this was a brilliant idea, but at the time had no idea what I was getting us into. My first goal was to get a portrait that I liked, plus Erinn and I also thought we could collaborate on a story on the sport. When we got there, I set about lighting the portrait against the backdrop of a garage, which was decorated with Japanese script that I’m told translates to “Dohyo of Dreams.” The dohyo is located in Jim Lowerre’s backyard, behind his suburban Garden Grove home and, I believe, owes much of its name to the Kevin Costner classic, “Field of Dreams.” “Build it and they will come,” was the famous line, and it appears they have. Not in droves, but enough that the venue hosts annual spring and fall equinox tournaments as well as practice sessions. At least it did. An old link I had showing the dohyo is no longer active.

After the shoot they realized that there was only one female participant present – a 10-year-old girl – and turned to Erinn to see if she would be willing to participate in the tournament in order to give the girl a competitor. Caught a little off guard, she agreed. Saying no would of course send the little girl packing, so what choice did she have? Besides, how hard could it be for an adult woman to wrestle a 10-year-old girl? They went about signing her up, weighing her in and fitting her with a mawashi, the standard loin cloth worn by wrestlers.

This was pretty funny, I thought, watching her get ready. I didn’t expect that a minute later they would be convincing me to do the same. Uh oh. With my background in photojournalism, I usually try not to get involved in what I’m shooting. Often times that’s for ethical reasons, but it can also be for the simple fact that it can prevent me from doing my job. But, despite a moment’s hesitation, I couldn’t pass this up. We weren’t there working for anyone and when would I ever have this chance again. Suit me up.

Seeing as I didn’t bring my own, they were kind enough to lend me a pair of shorts to wear under the mawashi they lent me. How do you make a man in a mawashi look more ridiculous? Make him wear pink shorts underneath. After we were both fitted we went through a training session, first outside the ring with the referee, and then in the ring with Sumo Dan himself. You don’t realize what you’re really up against until you find yourself face to face with a 300+ professional, who, by effortlessly leaning into you causes you to buckle as you simply try to hold your ground.

Fortunately, neither of us had to actually wrestle Dan. After our training, which included a routine of tossing salt into the ring to purify it, squatting, stomping, clapping your hands and then raising them to show you are unarmed, we stepped out of the ring and waited to compete. While not competing, I was of course shooting while Erinn took notes and interviewed wrestlers. Then it was time to wrestle.

Erinn was up first. Her competitor nearly equaled her in size. The daughter of one of the male competitors, this was not her first time in the ring, and she quickly took Erinn in the first bout. Erinn stepped up and was able to push her out of the ring on the second bout, but lost again in the third. A valiant effort and enough to earn her second place.

Then it was my turn. Erinn grabbed my camera and I stepped into the dohyo. There were just enough men that we could have two weight divisions. Myself, another man in his 50s and a third approaching 80 comprised the lightweight division. My first competitor was the younger of the two, who effortlessly knocked me off balance by grabbing my belt and lifting as he pushed me backwards out of the ring. One of the keys to sumo, I learned, was keeping a low center of gravity. This I do not have, and lifting on my belt was enough to completely take away any chance that I could push back. But I had my revenge. Not on him, but on the 80-year-old. I shouldn’t be proud of that, but I am. You gotta take the victories where you can. We squared off and, using my reach and the fact that I was more than a foot taller than him, I overpowered him forced him out of the ring. Despite his overwhelming defeat, he was all smiles.

Following the sanctioned competition, I wrestled one more guy just for fun. Despite looking like a sumo wrestler, he was actually rather new to the sport and had traveled with his sister from New Mexico to compete. Someone volunteered me as someone with whom he could get another round of practice. I was given some tips on how to use his inexperience to his disadvantage, but my own lack of experience combined with his mass were enough to assure him of the win.

As this was an official event, a ceremony was held at the end of competition, and medals were awarded. Both of us proudly took our silvers and posed for a photo with our weight divisions and again with the whole group.

I did get some photos from the event that I liked, but it’s fair to say that my work did suffer from participating. But screw it. We medaled in a sumo tournament! I’ve had conflicts that have prevented me from going to some recent sumo events, but I’m hoping we can pick this up again and publish a piece at some point. I’ll be sure to share when we do.

Traceur Brent Steffensen at 1320Main Studios, Venice

Traceur Brent Steffensen at 1320Main Studios in Venice.

I had a unique shoot with parkour specialist (a.k.a. ‘traceur’) and gymnast Brent Steffensen this week at 1320Main Studios in Venice. If you’re not familiar, parkour is urban freerunning, in which traceurs move across typically urban landscapes by running, jumping and climbing over anything in their way. It’s pretty impressive. Check out Brent’s stunt reel to get a taste.

I first met Brent a month ago after photographing him as he was doing corkscrews for a television crew on a grassy berm by the Venice Skatepark. I was just out shooting street photography, not paying much mind to the fact that there was a giant obstacle course set up nearby where contestants were auditioning for American Ninja Warrior. Upon talking to him I found out he was a contestant. The program is based around an extremely challenging obstacle course competition in Japan. Qualifiers in the American version go on to compete in Japan, where few Americans have ever completed the course. That’s an okay description, but follow the link if you want to know more. Anyway, I’ve recently been doing more studio photography at 1320Main and Brent took me up on my invitation to come shoot sometime. To my surprise, when we finally hooked up he asked if I minded if a television crew from the G4 network came along to document the shoot for part of a day-in-the-life segment they were doing on him for the show. Sounded fun to me. And it was. Monday, a crew of 4, plus Brent showed up and we had a great time shooting him doing corkscrews and back flips in the studio and up on the roof. He’s an amazing athlete and it was fun just to watch him go airborne with nothing more than two quick steps. The only thing I wish we had more of was time, as the crew was on a tight schedule. But we’ll shoot again soon. I have several ideas that I think would combine to make a great series of images. And they tell me the show will air on the G4 network and possibly NBC sometime later this summer. I’ll be sure to mention it when I hear.

On a technical note (tune out here if you’re not a photo nerd), the only thing more that I needed was a faster strobe, particularly for the studio shots. Freezing motion with strobes is only possible if the strobes have a fast enough flash duration to only expose the subject for 1/500 of a second or less. This is particularly necessary when someone is doing flips, as the head and feet are whipping around at extremely fast speeds, in which case you need strobes with a flash duration of at least 1/1000 of a second. I shot this with a borrowed Calumet pack as key and my White Lightnings as fill, but I’m not sure that either were fast enough. Thus the motion blur on the feet. It’s not entirely a bad thing, as the blur gives a sense of him flipping through the air, but ideally I would like to freeze it. Should I have done this for a client I probably would have rented a Profoto rig or something similar.