Hanging art on Market St.

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

The inaugural Venice Art Crawl launched with a bang last night with a solid crowd showing up to check out the numerous local artists who were showing at pop-up galleries mostly located between the Boardwalk and Pacific Ave. I was showing my own work at Nikki’s alongside artist Scott Simon (check out his work here) and was also working the event as a volunteer, so I didn’t have much time to get out to all the venues, but I did manage a quick lap and took a few photos along the way. It was great seeing so many artists participating in the first event. A good sign that the event will continue to grow in the coming months. After the crawl wrapped up we made our way over to the official afterparty at Video Army, a new production company located on Pacific Ave. It was a fun environment with lots of people dancing and great light for shooting. After the party wound down we hit up a nearby taco truck and made our way home. Really a successful night if you ask me. Looking forward to next month!

Art on display at the 73 Market St. rooftop

Checking out photography by Martin Linss at the Hotel Erwin during the Venice Art Crawl

Live Painting by John Park at the C.A.V.E. Gallery exhibition at James' Beach

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Venice Art Crawl After Party at Video Army

Bicyclists and beach goers, Venice Beach

A young man is detained after a large brawl on Venice Beach

This Memorial Day weekend was marked by various activities, ranging from laying out on a crowded Venice Beach to a crowd-stopping brawl and arrest Sunday evening on Windward Avenue and capped off with a huge feast and ping-pong tournament at the home of the very talented chef of the Fraiche restaurant in Culver City. Taking photos all the while of course.

Most notable and unusual of course was the brawl. I had just stepped out onto the boardwalk looking for some evening photos of Memorial Day visitors when suddenly the police started flashing their lights and bleeping their sirens from the direction of the beach patrol station, which is right at the end of Windward Avenue, marked by its classic arcade architecture and suspended trademark Venice sign. The majority of them went straight up Windward, while some of them drove across the grassy park area, evidently to head off anyone trying to get away by heading north. I decided to follow them up Windward to check it out and was there as a handful of young men started sprinting. The police were already blocking off the street by that point and quickly ran and tackled them, at least three that I saw, onto the sidewalk, before lining them up against the high red wall that borders the adjoining compounds owned by notable neighbor Anjelica Huston. I was able to get a few shots off from close proximity before the police gained control of the situation and kicked everyone off the entire first block of the street. They held the boys there up against the wall for a solid hour as I and numerous others watched from adjacent corners on the other side of Pacific Avenue. I hung out watching for awhile and then got bored and headed home. On the way, I came across another two that had been detained next door to my place on Market St. I took a couple photos and watched as the police stood them up one at a time and took pictures of their tattoos with their cell phones.

I later read that the brawl was thought to include up to 70 young men, ages 14-17. Twenty were detained and only one arrested. They still don’t know what the cause of the fight was, but are investigating it as possibly gang-related. More here.

The rest of the weekend was pretty typical and enjoyable. A fun night Saturday was had at our neighbors, who hosted a party around the much-hyped UFC fight between Rampage Jackson and Rashad Evans. I know nothing about this sport, and find it pretty brutal, but had a fun time cleaning up in a pool with a lucky wager on Evans it the third. He won by decision, but I was closest! Sunday was spent walking around photo hunting along Venice  Beach, mixed in with a little bit of laying out in the sand with Erinn. Then Monday at the home of the chef and wife’s house near Beverly Hills. We were treated to a feast of curried chicken and fish, lemon-stuffed, roasted chicken, mixed greens and strawberry shortcake, among much, much more. Not traditional BBQ material, just some great food the chef grew up eating and wanted to share. No complaints here. Now it’s Tuesday and back to work I go.

A boy runs from his older brother after stepping on his back as he lay in the sand.

Memorial Day weekend basketball, Venice Beach, Calif.

A boy plays on the rings at Muscle Beach, Venice, Calif.

Young men arrested on Windward Ave., Venice Beach, Calif., 2010

Police push back onlookers while arresting brawlers on Windward Ave.

Onlookers stay behind police tape after a brawl in Venice, Calif.

Onlookers stay behind police tape after a brawl in Venice, Calif.

Young men arrested on Market St., Venice Beach, Calif., 2010

Hostess picking grapefruit for cocktails, Los Angeles, Calif.

Billiards and Budweiser, Los Angeles, Calif.

Ping pong!

Beer and poker chips, Los Angeles, Calif.

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.

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!

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.

Good Hurt bar, Venice, California

This is something I shot at a Venice bar called Good Hurt while there to see some friends play with their band, The Squid. It has an interesting bar/club atmosphere and is a pretty good small music venue.

On Thursday I did some work as an event photographer at the opening of an art exhibit by Venice artist Jay Mark Johnson at the Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills. He’s doing some very cool digital photography using a jerry-rigged slit camera, which has been traditionally used for taking photos to determine the winners of too-close-to-call horse races. Depending on the way it’s used, the results are either these incredible images of expanded and compressed objects, depending on their speed, set against colorful backgrounds of horizontal streaks or, as in the top photo, flattened 360-degree views, similar to the way a globe is flattened into an atlas. That particular image is taken from the center of a ferris wheel. I enjoyed seeing the work, and as a photographer, watching the way others interacted with it. Despite the size of the prints – some were more than 10 feet wide – people were constantly coming up within inches to examine them and try to figure out what they were seeing. If you’re anywhere near Beverly Hills in the next 6 weeks I definitely recommend swinging by the Ace to check them out.

Venice Graffiti Wall

Here’s another from the hood. Trying to work up the nerve to flip off of it, Curt “CP” Parks runs along the Venice Graffiti Wall in Venice Beach, Calif., while shooting some photos with other members of his hip-hop group, RME. Also known as the Venice Public Art Walls, they are managed by Venice art group In Creative Unity and individuals are allowed to paint on them on weekends after applying for a permit.