Los Angeles Photographer | YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN-tz

This is F*cking Awesome

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Apr 232013

To borrow a line from their hit single “Thrift Shop,” the above headline is what was going through my head while shooting the world tour poster for the hip-hop collaboration Macklemore & Ryan Lewis two weeks ago on a dry lakebed 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Shooting a world-famous hip-hop group in the middle of nowhere with live animals, including a very large, and fortunately very well behaved, tiger. Just another Tuesday, right?

The image references their song lyrics as well as their recent music video for their song “Can’t Hold Us,” which includes shots of their trumpeter Owuor (sounds like “No War”), riding a camel. It was conceived by Macklemore and Ryan and I was stoked when they called on me to execute it. The image is currently being used to promote their upcoming world tour on the heels of the release of their new album, The Heist.

Making the shoot happen was no easy task, and owes a lot to the group’s producers, Nic and Honna, who managed to arrange for the musicians, a live camel, tiger and flamingos, a variety of props including a rare 1980′s Cadillac they found in San Diego, me, my assistant and all of the lighting and grip gear I requested, to be assembled out in the middle of nowhere. Once together, my role was as much photographer as it was director, not only composing and lighting the shot, but communicating with the talent and the numerous animal wranglers (from Hollywood Animals and Gentle Jungle), who were fantastic when it came to getting the animals in the right place at the right time. And if things weren’t already interesting, we had to contend with 30 mph winds that knocked over props, knocked hair out of place and turned the 8-foot octabox on my key light into a giant power kite that at times required the strength of my assistant, two producers and four sandbags to keep it from flying away. Also, as you can imagine, the tiger could not be in the same shot as the camel or flamingos, lest she become a little…hungry. She was, as I said, well behaved, but not so much that she wouldn’t be interested in some tasty pink snacks. So we had to shoot plates of the tiger and flamingoes separately, that were later combined in post.

The group was fun, but was all about business, which made working with them a great experience. What I like best about them is their insistence on going it alone despite offers to join the ranks of numerous labels. (Hard to blame the labels for wanting them considering the “Thrift Shop” video now tops 250 million You Tube views, as well as their recent appearances on SNL, Conan and the MTV Movie Awards.) This means they have creative control over everything they do, which I’m sure is a dream for many creatives with their level of success.

Word is they’ll be in Europe most of the spring and summer and will be returning to tour the U.S. in the fall. You can find out more at www.macklemore.com

And in case you doubt that the tiger was real…

Rev. Cecil Murray for California Health Report

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Jan 292013

Last month I photographed the Rev. Cecil Murray in his old stomping grounds near the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, where he was pastor for 27 years. The shoot was for a cover story for California Health Report about his recent endeavors, at the age of 83, as leader of the Cecil Murray Center for Community Engagement, a part of USC’s Center for Religion & Civic Culture. It was a fascinating afternoon spent talking with him about his years in the ministry and the rich history of his neighborhood. He is perhaps best known outside the community for his role advocating a return to rational behavior during the Rodney King riots in the early 90′s, but certainly had a much broader influence over the years. Outside the church is a roundabout with with a well-tended garden named in his honor, along with a placard featuring his likeness and a bio touting his accomplishments. On the quiet afternoon of the shoot we were stopped by no less than 3 different people who were overjoyed to see him back in the neighborhood. Between rounds of adoration we were able to take a few photos showing him overlooking the community he has done so much for. Read the article

Rainy day landscapes

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Dec 302012

Rainy but delightful days between the holidays were spent in Pismo Beach and the Santa Ynez/Santa Maria valleys tasting wines and then tasting some more at the area’s numerous vineyards with Erinn and her visiting parents. Between tastes and downpours I managed to bring out the camera to capture the abundant, beautiful landscapes the region has to offer. As they say, bad weather makes great photos! I was recently reminded of this when I took two separate trips to Death Valley National Park to work on an ongoing magazine assignment that will run in the spring. The first trip had beautiful, cloudless blue skies and I came back with some rather boring landscapes. The second trip was partly overcast, adding instant drama to the shots and yielding much better results. These aren’t so dramatic, but the skies definitely lend a quiet, wintry mood that I like. Bring on the clouds!

Wishing everyone a happy new year!

Aaron Axelrod

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Dec 052012

These are some a couple of my favorite portraits from recent sessions with Los Angeles artist Aaron Axelrod. I first met Aaron through my girlfriend, who works with his cousin. I came across him again several months later while he was doing an live painting at Google, who were hosting the Venice Art Walk at their new offices in Venice. When I came across him he was covered in colorful paint splatter and standing in front of a wall he was painting in his signature dripping style, (seen in his Pot, Sex & Acid series on his website), as well as on buildings around the city and in a recent commission for Apple. If I had my camera on me at the time I would have shot him right then, but – oops – I didn’t. It was cool though, because what I was really envisioning was a lit shoot that would really make the color pop. I later contacted him through Erinn to express my interest in doing this and, fortunately, he was down. We met in person a few days before shooting and came up with the idea to sandwich him between a mural in his studio and a piece of plexiglass that he could paint on as we shot. The effect I was hoping for was that he would appear to be a part of his own painting. The bunny ears were entirely his idea, and I did not object! He had recently worn them during a successful live painting show at the Vortex Dome called Melting Rainbows, in which he dripped paint on a spherical projector, making it appear as though colors were melting down the wall. The shoot was fantastic and yielded tons of great images, none of which are repeatable. Since the paints are water-based, he was able to simply wipe the surface clean and start again.

At that time he was also working on a commissioned piece comprised of two life-sized reindeer, which he heavily spray-painted and adorned with giant neon antlers. The pieces were just installed in front of the Westfield headquarters on Avenue of the Stars in Century City. I hung out for an afternoon shooting him as he painted them in his garage and then came back a week later to shoot the portrait above. The deer are surreal and I can’t wait to see them in their intended space. You should go check them out too!

Sitting down with an Olympic legend - Adolf Kiefer

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Aug 072012

Adolf Kiefer Olympic backstroke gold medalist

Adolf Kiefer at home in Illinois.

In light of the recent accomplishments by Missy Franklin at the London Olympics (5 medals! 4 of them gold!) I thought I’d post some photos I shot and set aside a few months ago of Olympic backstroking legend Adolf Kiefer. The oldest living Olympian gold medalist, in his prime he competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was famous for being the first man to break the 1-minute mark in the 100m backstroke and winning all but one of his 2,000 + career races (Wikipedia says 2, he says 1). I had the opportunity to meet him and his wife this April at their home in northern Illinois after helping the directors of the upcoming documentary film Touch the Wall – which profiles Franklin and her former teammate Kara Lynn Joyce – shoot some footage at the Indianapolis Grand Prix. They wanted to interview Kiefer to learn about his storied career (there was even a comic book starring him) and also gain his insights into swimming’s then up-and-coming, now fully arrived, swimming star, who shares his specialization in the backstroke. So, following the races we drove north and spent an amazing two days interviewing him and rummaging through years of memorabilia, some of which deserves to be in a museum. At 94 years old, Kiefer has lead a life that many of us couldn’t fit into 10 lifetimes. In brief, after competing in the ’36 Olympics, where he met Hitler and befriended Jesse Owens, he had a short-lived flirtation with Hollywood before moving to serve in the Navy where he taught 13,000 navy swim instructors, saving countless military lives to drowning. He eventually went into business for himself, building Kiefer & Associates, a company that invented the first nylon swimsuit, modern lane dividers that keep swimmers’ wakes from entering adjacent lanes and that still to this day supplies much of the equipment you see at elite swim meets, from starting blocks to swim caps. Later in his life he moved into philanthropy and continued his mission, born in his Navy years, of teaching swimming safety to thousands of youth in the Chicago area. Despite being on in years and confined to a wheelchair, he and his wife both take daily swims in their indoor lap pool, put in time with the business, which they have sold to another owner, and get out to the major swimming competitions, including the Olympic Trials that were held last month in Omaha. Most of our time spent with them was in wide-eyed amazement as he recounted tale after tale of his life and as we perused his countless medals, photographs and pieces of memorabilia. A personal favorite was a copy of the official Berlin Olympics book, which contains hundreds of photos, many of them glued in prints, of Berlin during the ’36 games. Right there in the middle of it, along with chilling photos of streets lined with swastika-adorned flags and iconic images of the late, great Owens, is Adolf, arms raised, clutching a bouquet of flowers. And now he’s here seated next to me. After taking it all in and processing, I left feeling inspired to do more. I think if we could all accomplish a fraction of what he’s accomplished with our time here we’d all lead very fulfilling lives.

Haiti along the way

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Jun 072012

Street market, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

: Rowboat taxi, Saint-Marc

In May I, along with Erinn and our friend Michael, traveled to Port-au-Prince to work on a project on the NGO Global DIRT. More on that will surely follow later once the project is completed and hopefully published. The following images were shot along the way. Our trip was brief (though I may be going back), but thanks to the busy life of Adam, the subject of our story, we got to see quite a bit as we tagged along on his daily routine – though routine is hardly the word for anyone working in Port-au-Prince. Every day brought us somewhere different, from a prison cell in Petionville that holds police officers to the slums of La Saline and up to a strikingly beautiful beach just an hour and a half drive north of PaP where he took his medical volunteers for their day off, the range of experiences was vast. We even got to watch some of a fairly lavish wedding reception from the balcony of the home where DIRT is based, but were called away just as it was getting underway. My only regret is not having more time to shoot what I saw since we had to stick close by our subject should anything happen. But it’s a great story and the trade off was fair.

Port-au-Prince is a different city than the last time I was there four years ago, but at the same time is strikingly the same. The city and its residents have been through more than most of us can fathom, but two years after the quake, much of life appears to be back to normal. Signs remain though in the form of a handful of tent cities and the crumbled facades of many buildings, particularly downtown where major landmarks such as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption and the National Palace still stand, roofs caved in. We were told that behind the Palace there is actually an intact building where the government is still run and that it’s being left as is largely to symbolize the ongoing need for help or the dissatisfaction with what’s been done to date. Another change I felt was a desensitization to the presence of foreigners. Last time I was there I recall being stared at quite a bit with frequent shouts of “blan” as I passed. With an estimated 10,000 aid workers in PaP post-quake, our presence seemed much less notable this time. Other than that, I found it surprising and encouraging that normal life is resuming. However, being back to where they were before the earthquake stills leaves much to be improved. There’s a ray of hope for the economy with the recent discovery of an estimated $20 billion worth of gold and other precious metals in the north, but I’ll remain skeptical until I hear that the wealth is handled fairly and doesn’t end up only in the pockets of the powerful, or worse lead to the type of conflict seen in Sierra Leone. Still, it’s promising and would be amazing if it one day lead to their independence from foreign aid.

There are many more photos below the jump and I’ll also post some more on Facebook. Find my page (and like it!) here: http://www.facebook.com/DavidZentzPhotography

John Brenkus for Sports Insight

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May 312012

John Brenkus ESPN's Sports Science for Sports Insight

John Brenkus for Sports Insight

John Brenkus ESPN's Sports Science for Sports Insight magazine cover

John Brenkus for Sports Insight

I had a fun time recently photographing John Brenkus, host of the ESPN show Sport Science, on set on a cover shoot for Sports Insight magazine. The art direction was to work with the concept of Brenkus as a sort of mad scientist, but to avoid making it look like he was standing on the set of his show. This is because beyond hosting the Emmy Award-winning show he is also a successful entrepreneur and author, as well as an accomplished athlete, having completed several Iron Man competitions, one of which he featured on the show, analyzing what his body went through getting in shape to compete on that level. I needed to provide both a cover photo and inside photo for the story and was provided only a boxful of beakers to create the look. In the brief 45 minutes I had with him we shot three setups – on white backdrop, using the beakers filled with colored water against a cavernous black space and against a wall - the latter two shots using underlighting to accentuate the mad scientist look. All two and three light setups. The white backdrop was originally supposed to be the cover with the plan that it would be overlaid with scientific jargon, but they ended up going with the beaker shot. Overall it was a good shoot and I enjoyed getting a behind the scenes look at the set. The show strikes a great balance between being educational and entertaining. If you ever get a chance to watch I’d recommend it.

Nikon D800 test drive

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Apr 182012

Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook flying a kite

Hernan and Satya fly a kite at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Culver City, Calif.

A few weeks ago I got the Nikon D800 and immediately took it out for a spin. After visiting some friends in Culver City I decided to hike up to the top of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, where I was lucky to find Hernan and his daughter Satya flying a kite high over the city’s distant skyline. Despite Satya’s apparent disinterest at this moment, she was actually untangling the kite string, which you can see quite clearly if you zoom in on the massive 36mp file this thing produces. Since then I’ve also had the chance to use the camera’s video features. No fooling around, my first use was helping my friends shoot a documentary film on up-and-coming Olympic swimming star, Missy Franklin. The film’s trailer can be seen here and is due out sometime in the next year. I’ll eventually cobble together some footage from that to share, but will hopefully have some more video opportunities in the meantime. So far I’m loving it! Anyone wanna buy a Nikon D3?

Love is in the air

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Feb 142012

Love is in the air

Happy Valentine’s Day! I caught this scene while waiting in line for an amazing rattlesnake and rabbit sausage at Wurstküche in downtown Los Angeles two weeks ago. I thought I’d save it for a Valentine’s Day post. The hearts are a creative take on the ubiquitous, and most often ugly, bolts that have been applied as seismic retrofitting for many of the city’s older buildings.

Richard Jackson for The Chronicle of Higher Education

Published, uncategorized 1 Response »

Feb 032012

Richard Jackson at LAX for The Chronicle of Higher Education

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.

Older Entries

YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN-tz

This is F*cking Awesome

Rev. Cecil Murray for California Health Report

Rainy day landscapes

Aaron Axelrod

Sitting down with an Olympic legend - Adolf Kiefer

Haiti along the way

John Brenkus for Sports Insight

Nikon D800 test drive

Love is in the air

Richard Jackson for The Chronicle of Higher Education

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