I was strolling about in Hancock Park – a beautiful area with great buildings ranging from Art Deco to French Renaissance – scouting for potential locations to do creative shoots with couples, or for future projects. When I walked into the lobby of this particular building, I knew I wanted to do a shoot here. A few months later – after befriending the amiable concierge, speaking with the building management, arranging a contract & event insurance (*sigh*) – I sought out the lovely (natural redhead with gorgeous blue eyes) Aja Warren. Along with the help of Makeup Artist Bethnay Colson (delighful to work with!) and Hairstylist Judy from Salon Pure, we were all set to get creative in the space. Mind you, my agreement allowed for us to be there for one hour. Eeesh! So we swiftly got to work! The combination of my obsessive organization for this particular shoot and the assistance of a wonderful team, produced what you see above.
Technical Notes: A lot of times I find myself using long lenses with a shallow depth of field (in other words, lenses that crop tightly on my subject, and blur out a great deal of the background or foreground). Since the details in this space were stunning, I wanted to challenge myself to use wider lenses and a broader depth of field. I aimed to primarily use the natural light coming from two very large windows on both ends of the main room (bouncing some light with reflectors), and used the modeling lamps on my studio lights as fill when we were further away from the natural light.
