Santa Monica Pier
Yesterday I rode my bike up the beach to shoot the Santa Monica Pier Paddleboard Race and then met up with my friend Eric who was in town from New York to visit his cousin. Still working on those photos, but here’s one that I shot on the Pier while waiting for the race to begin.
VJ Jesse Nikette
Two weeks ago I had a great time photographing Los Angeles-based VJ and video artist Jesse Nikette. I first met Jesse as he was standing in a dark doorway on Market Street, wearing hot pink glasses reminiscent of Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge (I had to look that up) and jamming on a silent piano guitar that, rather than play music, controlled video projections being thrown on the wall across the street. Photos from that encounter, which happened while he was participating in the Venice Art Crawl, are a few posts back. After that night I invited him over to shoot some portraits that incorporated his video creations. I wanted to shoot him because I thought his work was interesting and I have a few ideas about a series of portraits on local artists. On the night of the shoot he brought over his gear, which included a laptop, a high-quality video projector and a few components I’ll, for lack of a better term, call thingamajigs, and we spent a good hour or two throwing up different projections and figuring out ways to incorporate him into the patterns. Most of his work was actually very colorful, and we even used a smoke machine at one point to cut across the light rays, but this one stood out the most to me for its graphic quality as well as his stance. It’s always fun shooting portraits just for the sake of doing it. It’s fun having the freedom to create without any guidelines and I’m almost always happy with the results. If you want to see more of Jesse’s work and learn a lot about video art and projection mapping in general, definitely check out his site, www.jessenikette.com!
Sean O'Connor at Sean O'Connor Lighting in Beverly Hills, Calif.
It’s great when you find a subject who’s willing to work with you to create a better photo. For example, here’s a recent shot of architectural lighting designer Sean O’Connor that is running in this month’s issue of Architectural Lighting magazine. I had a fun time working with Sean, who runs his own firm in Beverly Hills.
For the assignment, I was pretty much given free reign to shoot photo that somehow conveyed the fact that the subject worked with light. Not knowing what my options were, I called Sean up to find out. At first neither of us had any clear ideas. Sean was reluctant to shooting in his office, but didn’t know of any alternatives that were available at the moment. It wasn’t because there’s anything wrong with it – it’s actually a stylish, loft-style office with plenty of natural light and a view overlooking Wilshire Blvd. – but more due to the fact that it’s been used before and he was interested in doing something different and more creative. So was I. But because he currently had no local projects in or around which to shoot we decided to shoot there anyway, but make the most of it and figure something out on the fly once I arrived. He knew he had a variety of lights and other lighting design tools lying around and was willing to work with me to figure out something that could make an unusual portrait. So often when I’m doing editorial work I’m met with either the challenge of shooting someone who doesn’t want to be in front of the camera or doesn’t want to put in the time to make the photo work. It isn’t always the case, but it’s often enough that it’s refreshing when you find someone willing to participate in the process.
When I got there I looked around for a while before deciding to shoot in his conference room. In a nearby closet he showed me several long ceiling lights that we could use and, liking the texture of the back wall of the conference room, which was made of paneling that allowed him to stick thumbtacks into it, I asked him if we could use it. Problem was, there were about 50 or so sheets of paper that were tacked up to it from a recent project, but fortunately it was finished and he offered to take them down. From there we went around fitting bulbs to the fixtures and arranging the lights so they formed a graphic background for him to stand in front of. We then closed the blinds so there would be no interference from ambient light. From here, my task was to light him in a way that wouldn’t overpower the effect of the strip lights by throwing too much light on the wall, so I fitted a 10-degree grid to a single light and aimed it down on him to cast as much fall off as possible to the floor and out of frame. The end result worked pretty well I thought. We also did a natural light shot in the main office and another one on the roof of the building, overlooking Wilshire and Beverly Hills, but this is the one the editor went with and is among my favorites from the shoot. Yay, collaboration!
Here’s one I shot for the AP a couple weeks back. Robert Park had just returned from a 6-week detainment in a North Korean prison and wasn’t open to making much of a public appearance to talk about his experience or make a statement regarding his cause. His family was allowed to meet him behind closed doors and leave the airport via a private exit. They agreed to drive him by the baggage claim and roll the window down for about 5 seconds so we could see him. At that point his brother hopped out of the car to talk to the media and the car drove off. So this is about as much as anyone got.
U.S. Missionary Robert Park sits in a car with his mother and father following his return to the U.S. at the to the Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday, Feb. 06, 2010. Park was detained in North Korea after crossing the border from China on Christmas Day. (AP Photo/David Zentz)
It took me a while, but I finally got my Haiti fundraiser going! For the rest of February I’m selling 8×10′s of a select number of images I took in the sumer of 2008. I’m selling the images for $20 with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity to aid them as they work to provide short- and long-term shelter solutions to those affected by last month’s devastating earthquake. Habitat for Humanity is well established in Haiti, having been there for 26 years. And by donating the money through the Los Angeles chapter, all of the money raised will go straight to Haiti, with no administrative fees taken out.
Please go to http://www.davidzentz.com/haiti to view a gallery of available images. From there you will be taken to a portal where you can purchase the prints using Paypal or a credit card and have them shipped straight to you.
If you are in the Los Angeles area, I will be exhibiting about 10 large prints and continuing to sell 8×10′s at the launch party for SoCal-Scene magazine, an upstart magazine I’m working with. The event will be at the Shangri-La hotel in Santa Monica at the end of the month. The final time and date is being determined this week. Check back or go to http://www.socal-scene.com for details.
I think I’ve taken that first seagull photo before. Nothing much here but a few pretty shots I took on a sunset stroll a couple weeks back.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee
Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the Burbank Airport
This morning I got up at 2:30, a time which is much closer to that at which I usually go to sleep, to shoot the arrival of the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee at the Burbank Airport. I covered this story a couple months ago (both times for the Associated Press) when things were quite somber. But today was the exact opposite as the pair from Al Gore’s Current TV arrived, along with their new hero Bill Clinton, in a private, Steve Bing-owned jet, to reunite with their families after 4 months without communication while they were being held prisoner in North Korea. As I’m sure you all know, the two had been sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp after being arrested for crossing the North Korean border while working on a documentary project for Current TV. That was, until 30 hours before their speedy arrival home following successful negotiations by Clinton for their release. I was trying to imagine how surreal it must have felt to be in the mindset that you’re about to be shipped off to a labor prison, and then without warning to have a door open and see former president Clinton standing there waiting to take you home. Hard to fathom. Despite the early wake up, and despite being part of a media pack that I usually try to avoid, it was a cool story to be a part of.
I spent a beautiful Saturday morning at Sunset Beach Pacific Palisades shooting a bunch of costume-clad surfers who were there for the 7th annual Doo Dah Surf Day, a fundraiser that benefits the West LA/Malibu chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which aims to protect the world’s oceans and beaches. Larger than normal swells apparently kept a lot of the surfers away, but a couple dozen still showed up in a variety of costumes like aliens, grandmothers the “chairman of the board,” and even “Octomom,” complete with red puffy lips and 8 baby dolls fastened to the nose of the board.
Here are a few from the 25th anniversary of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games held last week at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In attendance were Olympic legends Greg Louganis, Mary Lou Retton and numerous others I was less familiar with. I was hired to shoot the scene rather than the people, so I don’t have many shots of the athletes. I did, however, get to spend some time with some young extra terrestrials while waiting for the lighting of the torch.
Just a quickie post from a fun 4th of July party. TK biked from Santa Monica to Marina del Rey with that shade on his head.
