Street artist Jules Muck

Earlier this summer I got a chance to photograph local street artist and designer Jules Muck at 1320Main Studios in Venice. I had invited her to shoot for a personal project I’m working on on local artists and thought it would be a great opportunity to shoot some portraits using a couple of large Kino Flo lights that the studio had available. In this instance, I gave Jules very little direction other than where to stand. I didn’t want to do anything too contrived and I thought it would be best to just let her be herself. She showed up wearing a slip and carrying a chihuahua, so that’s what we went with. Other than lighting, the other thing that was important to me was that the background was green, as it’s probably the most common color in her recent work, which can be seen on walls throughout Venice. If you’ve been to Venice lately, the piece you might recognize most is her portrait of Lindsay Lohan with the words “Welcome to Venice” scrawled above her head. I photographed people walking by the piece several months before I had actually met Jules. Anyway, the studio happens to have a large green screen that is used most commonly for video work, so I thought it was the perfect spot to shoot. The shoot was fun, but brief, as Jules managed to fit me in just before running off to catch a flight to NYC. The life of a street artist is changing! Between formal recognition by major museums, such as the current Art in the Streets exhibit at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, to an increasing number of commissioned works on everything from local buildings to major ad campaigns, not to mention the Banksy-directed film “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” street artists are increasing coming out of the shadows and into the limelight. As much of the work is still considered illegal, however, I think the rebelliousness that made it so exciting in the beginning still exists. It will be interesting to see how it evolves from here.

The primary reason for my trip to Michigan last month was to attend and photograph the wedding of Erinn’s sister Heidi and now-brother-in-law Seth. Seth’s family has deep roots in Hart, Mich., which is halfway up the state near the shores of Lake Michigan. In fact, the 80-acre property where the reception was held has been in the family for some 150 years. The wedding was in a very cute country church, made of stone and exceptionally dark wood. Both settings made for a very photogenic wedding. For the week prior, Erinn and family had been vacationing and preparing for the wedding in a lovely rental home on nearby Pentwater Lake, while Seth’s family prepared the property and readied enough food for 200 guests from his parents’ home, which sits on the above mentioned property. Meanwhile, I was traveling to Lake Orion and northern Ohio to visit my sisters and their families.

Michigan during the summer is pretty damn beautiful and is one of the most lush, green places you’ll ever see. However, to keep it that green requires plenty of rain, which the weather forecast had been predicting unwaveringly in the form of thunderstorms, from 10 days out all the way to the night before the wedding. The wedding itself would have gone off without a hitch, but bad weather would have been trouble for a reception protected only by three wall-free tents. Fingers crossed, everyone kept their heads up and proceeded as planned. What else can you do? I was actually pretty confident that there would be no rain, since it was AccuWeather making the prediction. They’re pretty consistently wrong in my experience ,and had they been predicting sunshine, I would have been worried.

On the morning of the wedding, we awoke relieved to the pleasant surprise of clear skies in all directions. The girls headed out early to have their hair done and, upon returning, everyone started hustling to get ready. At which point I started clicking. Long story short, it was a great wedding and went off without a hitch. The setting was beautiful, everyone was in good spirits. It was also great to see how much family participation went into making the day special. Seth’s mother and sister spent countless hours in the preceding week preparing enormous amounts of food for both the rehearsal dinner and the wedding. The main entree was fresh pork, which Seth and his brothers prepared themselves from a locally bought pig. And by prepared, I mean bought, killed and dressed before cooking on a giant barrel grill. The slideshow omits those photos, but I may post some later. His brother Cody also did the flower arrangements while his father, Heidi’s father and Seth spent an entire afternoon in the sweltering heat building the dance floor. They even put in extra effort by screwing the boards together so the floor could be recycled for later use in refurbishing a garage. Though Erinn says that, judging by the way Seth’s parents danced, she wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t just keep it as a dance floor. It was great to see that all of their hard work paid off.

Everyone danced into the night with things wrapping up around 2 a.m. Not a cloud formed all day. The next morning I awoke at 6:30 a.m. to thunder and the sound of rain on the window, causing me to smile before falling back into slumber. Whatever force that had held off the rain for the day had finally let go, and the clouds had rolled in. I don’t care what they say about rain being good luck on your wedding. The amount that fell that Sunday would surely have ruined the reception. That afternoon, as Erinn and I drove south to Muskegon, the rain fell so hard that we almost had to pull over for lack of sight. I’m sure it made the following day’s cleanup a pain, but in terms of the wedding I’d say we all lucked out.

See more great wedding photos.

Choi-Beacom wedding, Los Angeles Arboretum

Last weekend I had a great time photographing the wedding of Sandy Choi and Brad Beacom at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden in Arcadia. The couple looked fantastic and the setting couldn’t have been much more photogenic. The couple, their families and wedding parties started off the day preparing at the Sheraton hotel in Pasadena, before heading to the gardens for the ceremony and reception. The ceremony was held in an area known as Meadowbrook, an open field with a waterfall at one end and a view of the mountains at the other. Following the ceremony everyone moved over to the Sunset Garden for cocktails and a lovely reception, complete with several peacocks who call the grounds their home. Here are a few of my favorites from the day. I’ve included more images in an online gallery on my wedding photography site. Many more photos after the jump!

Ring detail

Choi-Beacom wedding at the Los Angeles Arboretum

Choi-Beacom wedding at the Los Angeles Arboretum

Choi-Beacom wedding at the Los Angeles Arboretum

Sunblock

Flower girls

Bridal portrait

Peacocks!

First dance

wedding cake

Bouquet toss

Garter toss

Last March I had the opportunity to produce a video for Mike and Camilla’s wedding in downtown Los Angeles. While I’m usually a photographer when it comes to weddings (and anything else!) I decided to take the multimedia and video skills I have (I was a film student and multimedia journalist after all) and put them to use.

Camilla is a successful wedding planner, so of course the wedding was extravagant, beautifully decorated and extremely well organized! The wedding day started with the bride, groom friends and family all preparing for the ceremony at the luxurious Millennium Biltmore downtown. Then everyone hopped in their limos and headed over to the First Congregational Church, an enormous old gothic revival cathedral built in 1932. Following a beautiful ceremony they all gathered for pictures outside before hopping in their limos once again to finish the night at the very stylish Pacific Electric Lofts. The penthouse loft, with its three story high ceilings and great views of downtown was a great place for the reception. Before the reception kicked off though, they held an additional wedding ceremony in the Korean tradition, which was both beautiful and educational, as I’d never been witness to that tradition. The night then wound down with dinner, some heartfelt toasts, an impressive round of a capella singing,  and a whole lot of dancing.

The video they wanted was a simple highlight reel featuring the best moments of the night and set to the song of their choice. The original version we tried out was much longer, coming in at 9 minutes. At first the idea was to produce a piece that was set to music, but that would also fade out so you could hear the vows and later the toasts. But we agreed that the length was just too long and the fading in and out was more distracting than beneficial. So, with a heavy hand I knocked it down to just the length of the song and produced a much tighter highlight reel that really highlights the mood of the day nicely and is short enough to keep your attention. I’m happy with the piece and judging by the three word review from Camilla  - “We love it!” – so are they!

See more Los Angeles wedding photography

I recently folded my old wedding photography site and blog in favor of my new wedding photography site , which better features my work and integrates more features for clients, such as private online proofing galleries and direct, online print ordering. At the same time I decided that rather than maintaining a blog for each site I would consolidate the wedding blog into this one. So, in order to preserve some of the content from my previous blog, I’m posting some of the favorites here before moving forward with new work.

Here’s a favorite from a recent wedding I shot for a great couple, Kellie and Jun. The reception was held at the Turnip Rose at Grand Newport Plaza, in Costa Mesa. It was a great venue with great lighting, especially on the dance floor, where I shot this as the couple enjoyed their last dance of the night. The ceremony was at the St. Bartholomew Church in Long Beach and was also very beautiful. I’ll be posting this and more from the ceremony on my wedding site in the near future.

See more Los Angeles wedding photography

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of shooting a very fun, unique wedding held by an equally fun and unique couple, Adam and Ashley Phalen, in Santa Monica. The wedding and reception were held at the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s Club, a cool old building dating back to the early 1900s. The couple are both very creative – Adam is a sound designer at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City while Ashley is a sushi chef  -  and put a ton of effort into making practically all of their own decorations, from the place mats to their very own logo, a pair of AA batteries, representing their names. They had a great group of family and friends present and everyone had a great time. In addition, they were fortunate to have the lead singer of their favorite band, The 88, play live for their first dance after striking up a conversation with the lead singer at a gig on the Sunset Strip. They had been planning on having a friend sing one of their songs and when they told him he obliged to sing it himself. Very cool.

See more from Venice wedding photographer David Zentz

Villa Park wedding

Laguna Beach outdoor wedding

Here are some images I like from some recent weddings that I photographed. The first was a small, but beautiful, poolside wedding for Chris and Shino Eckardt held in Villa Park, east of Los Angeles. The second was even smaller, with just 5 attendees including the bride and groom, Jim Schuessler and Kathi Cray, two of their friends from San Diego and a minister. But what they lacked in size they made up for in setting by choosing a gorgeous location on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach and holding it at sunset. And fortunately for all of us, June Gloom decided to take a break that evening and let the sun shine through. I have also included these and others in an updated slideshow on my wedding photography site http://www.davidzentz.com/weddings.
More images after the jump.

Wedding dress detail - Villa Park wedding

Bubble wedding favors - Villa Park wedding

Bride and groom portrait - Villa Park wedding

Bride and groom portrait - Laguna Beach wedding

Flower detail - Laguna Beach wedding

I’ve been a bad blogger, but I’ve got an excuse! On the 12th of December I flew out to meet up with Erinn at her parents’ place in Emerald Isle, N.C. After a wonderful week there with her family we took off on a cross-country road trip with the purpose of moving Erinn’s belongings from her home in Peoria out to our place in L.A. I’ve been out here solo since September and am glad she’s finally able to join me! Our road trip took us from Emerald Isle through Asheville, where we visited my friend Cameron, up to Peoria, where we were able to catch up with my friend and former housemate Adam and a few of Erinn’s friends and also had the pleasure of packing Erinn’s entire powerless apartment into her car in -3 degree, post-ice-storm weather. From there we headed southwest through Tulsa and Albuquerque en route to a rendezvous with my mom and sister in Flagstaff, Ariz., where we spent Christmas week in an amazing mountain home, courtesy of Lauren’s Tucson landlord, surrounded by several feet of fresh powder snow. Finally, we made our way to our ultimate destination on the 29th in time to be here for what turned out to be a fairly quiet, but memorable New Year’s Eve complete with a fireworks show completely obscured by a dense fog that covered the coast the entire day. It was a great trip from start to finish, but I’m happy to be back home and ready to get back to work. And hopefully I’ll be better about putting up new work now that things are back to normal.

Tree decorating in N.C.

Emerald Isle starfish

An homage to “Planet Earth”

Tail lights

Buffalo Trace distillery; Frankfort, Kent.

Peoria at -3 degrees

No power hair dryer

Erinn’s first tumbleweed encounter; somewhere near Amarillo, Tex.

Tumbleweed pom pom

Canyon de Chelly, Ariz.

Flagstaff bedroom

Wood fires take awhile to heat an entire house

Picture window

Santa!

Snow, snow, snow

Snowman building

5:30 a.m. after a faulty fire alarm woke us all up

Sunshine

Yellow

Yoga

Classic

Sherlock 1

Sherlock 2

Cruising Flagstaff

The trap works!

Quiet time

Crystalline windshield

Grand Canyon!

From the lodge

Sedona, Ariz. chapel

]]> http://davidzentz.com/blog/2009/01/happy-new-year/feed/ 6 http://davidzentz.com/blog/2008/10/move-that-bus/ http://davidzentz.com/blog/2008/10/move-that-bus/#comments Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:49:09 +0000 admin http://davidzentz.com/blog/?p=63

Last night the house was revealed to the Grys family back in Pekin. Man I wish I was there for that. Congrats again to Jake and family! There are more stories at www.pjstar.com. I believe the show will be airing in late December or early January and will post a reminder before it does.