Yesterday I had the pleasure of photographing Clive and Dirk Cussler as they kicked off their latest book signing tour. This year they’re in Los Angeles promoting their latest Dirk Pitt® novel, Arctic Drift. I’m sure this title in the long running series will hit the New York Times Bestseller list any day now (just like the last 16 Cussler novels). I started their session with a few natural light portraits on a side street nearby the Wilshire Beverly Hills Hotel. Later, we set up some studio lighting in Dirk’s hotel room for a few more images. Here are my favorites from the session.

Last week a location scout for CSI: Miami contacted me about shooting part of an episode in our studio. After visits by location scouts, directors, and finally the entire production team, our space was selected for filming. The production crew came by on Tuesday morning to dress the set. On Wednesday morning at 6:00 a.m. I opened our gate and the crew began to enter our space.

Although the producers were really cool and let me take photos, I spent most of my time worrying about the crew so my photographic coverage was limited since I spent most of my time managing the site. That being said, even though I was awfully distracted, I think I took enough photos to tell the true story of the day. If you want to watch the episode, look for Episode #714 titled “Smoke Gets in Your CSIs” written by Krystal Houghton and directed by Joe Chappelle.

All of these photographs were captured using natural light only and without a camera blimp (silencer). Because I didn’t have a blimp, I only took photos between takes and when the photos wouldn’t prove distracting for actors or crew. .

#1 - (TUESDAY) The prop truck backs up to the rear door of our studio while security stands guard.

#2 - The set dressers test a chandelier they plan to hang from our lighting platforms. The funny thing is that when the director walks in the next day, the chandeliers and living room furniture are removed first thing.

#3 - The set dressers hang wire around the bottom of our mezzanine so that they can hang plastic curtains.

#4 - - The chandelier is repaired whiled two supervisors watch and relax in the “prop” living room (which is later removed).

#5 - The plastic is hung. On the day of shooting, they decided at the last minute to paint the plastic to make it look dirty. The prop guys mentioned that the plastic was $1,200 and the person charged them $500 more for the rush to get them made for the next day.

#6 - The chandelier was really nice. I wish they would have “forgotten it” when they took it down on Wednesday morning.

#7 - This is what the “operating room” looked like once the set was dressed. They only left the big props. The smaller props were to arrive on Wednesday.

#8 - The “CSI Hummer” arrives on South Avenue 21 along with two police cars.

#9 - In this view of the Hummer you can see “video village” trailers lining the street in the background.

#10 - Bad boys, bad boys, coming for you …

#11 - (WEDNESDAY) Action!

#12 - The monitors on this cart show the scene they are setting up at the rear door of our studio. In this scene, David Caruso (Lieutenant Horatio Caine) and Jonathan Togo (Ryan Wolfe) enter the studio via our roll up door.

#13 - The sound engineer John Bauman watches his video and sound monitors. Note the Caruso bobble head on top of his workstation.

#14 - As a photographer, I was very interested in the crew’s cameras and lenses.

#15 - Jonathan Togo seemed like a really cool guy. He was always joking with the crew and was super nice to everyone.

#16 - The crews set up cameras in preparation for some close ups on Caruso and Togo. Stand ins can almost be seen in the far background.

#17 - I grabbed this quick shot of David Caruso between takes. I was kind of worried about photographing him as I didn’t want to cause a problem on the set, but it turns out he was really approachable. Just a few minutes after this photo, he walked over, introduced himself, and asked if the set was our space. He then made some really generous comments about our studio space. We started talking about the history of our building which led to some discussions about Los Angeles architecture. In my short conversation with him, I found him to be a really warm and genuine guy.

#18 - The script supervisor Will Alovis and one of the co-producers looks on the monitors as Caruso delivers his lines.

#19 - The second camera operator talks about a big fish he caught the previous weekend (not really).

#20 - Jonathan Togo and a David Caruso stand in prepare for a scene.

#21 - David Caruso and director Joe Chappelle chat outside our rear studio door. They’re standing in front of the CSI Hummer while the crew sets up for another scene. The flare on the right side of the door is from one of the huge lights the crew staged outside.

#22 - The director of photography Charles Mills stands high on a ladder outside our studio to set the framing for a shot where Jonathan Togo’s character arrives on the scene.

#23 - In this photo, the script supervisor Will Alovis is in the foreground while in the background director Joe Chappelle talks on his cell phone. If you look on the video monitor, you’ll see the cool angles they used when photographing the back of our studio. It was super interesting to see how they lit scenes and set up cameras to achieve maximum impact.

#24 - The second camera operator and his assistant perch on the high ladder in preparation to shooting the scene. My neighbor’s raised steel Jacuzzi is in the near right foreground.

#25 - Jonathan Togo stands next to the physician’s Mercedes in preparation for the scene.

#26 - The director of photography Charles Mills (foreground) watches the camera monitors while the script supervisor Will Alovis and a member of the crew look on in the background.

#27 - In this photo, the script supervisor Will Alovis watches a monitor showing Jonathan Togo reaching for the remote control used to open the roll up door to our space.

#28 - Joe Chappelle (director) watches Jonathan Togo through the monitor with Charles Mills and Will Alovis at his side.

#29 - The image shows the font of our studio after the crew turned on a huge crane mounted light outside our windows. They mention that the rental fee for the light us $15,000 per day!

#30 - This photo features a cameraman with “Season 7″ stitched on his cap while our “smoked up” studio is seen in the background.

#31 - On the left hand side of this screen you can see a fan blowing lots of smoke into our studio. They filled our space with smoke so high power lights streaming through the front windows would show up visible beams of light. In the near foreground you’ll see that the wardrobe guy’s hat is showing off a neat rim light.

#32 - Somebody opened the floodgates and the promised rain finally arrived. It was fortunate that the downpour only lasted for a few minutes! In this photo, one of the crew is standing outside the back door testing his rain suit.

#33 - Cameramen and a member of the crew take a break and watch the rain.

#34 - Jonathan Togo’s hair stylist.

#35 - This photo shows some of the surgical instruments used as props. I regret I wasn’t able to get a photo of the motorized circular bone saw!

#36 - Jonathan Togo and David Caruso’s body double wait before they to begin a scene.

#37 - The lead cameraman perches high atop a ladder in our studio.

#38 - Eva La Rue (Natalia Boa Vista) jokes with the crew as she rehearses her scene. It was kind of chilly in the studio so she and Togo wore parkas when they weren’t actually performing scenes.

#39 - Eva La Rue & Jonathan Togo rehearse a scene.

#40 - Eva La Rue flashes a winning smile and wishes me a Happy Thanksgiving as she leaves the set for the day.

#41 - I wish I had remembered to ask for a director chair!

#42 - Peter Lavin’s character (Dr. Donald Phelps) shows his syringe to the camera during rehearsal. The nurse (extra) in the background watches me.

#43 - Peter Lavin talks to the director (out of frame) as the “blood guy” and Josh Stewart (from the TV series Dirt) look on in the background.

#44 - Things start to get bloody.

#45 - Two camera crews shoot in tandem under our studio’s mezzanine.

#46 - Peter Lavin finishes delivering his lines. After shooting this scene, they decide a little less blood is in order.

#47 - Peter Lavin showing he’s an evil but happy doctor!

#48 - One of the crew applies a liberal helping of blood to the patient.

#49 - Peter Lavin and Josh Stewart rehearse a scene.

#50 - Joe Chappelle provides Josh Stewart and Peter Lavin with some direction.

#51 - Peter Lavin’s character shoots “heroin” between his toes. The lead cameraman is shooting the close up while a crew member watches in the background.

#52 - I snapped a super quick portrait of Josh Stewart and Peter Lavin as they were leaving the set. Both were really cool guys. It was really great to chat with Josh Stewart as I loved his work on the TV series Dirt.

If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I photographed Kimberly and Brian’s wedding just a few weeks ago. Then, a week or so after the wedding, Kimberly called and mentioned that she wanted to do a “Trash the Dress” session. You probably don’t know this, but I’m not a big fan of the “trash the dress” movement. Too often, I feel that photographers are putting a bride in water or “dirty” situations just because that’s what other photographers are doing. Since I’m very much a non-lemming kind of guy, I was committed to shooting this session in a fashion forward way that reflects my own style of photography.

We met this morning at 7:30a.m. at the Santa Monica Pier. The fires are really kicking up tons of smoke so the sky wasn’t very pretty and the light was kind of brown, but we still ended up with some great images. We spent just a little over an hour shooting these images. I’m very happy with the results and I hope Brian and Kimberly feel the same way. If you’d like to see the rest of the photos from this session (and you know Brian and Kimberly’s last name, click here to view the whole gallery.

Angela, her daughter, and her boyfriend stopped by the studio today for a few holiday portraits. And just like last year, I’m sure one of these images will grace their holiday card. These are more photos than I typically post in a portrait session but I wanted to illustrate what is pretty typical during a standard portrait session. I captured these photos in about 30 minutes and I processed the photos immediately allowing them to leave with a DVD of the images. Here are a few of my favorites from this studio session.

Patrick stopped by the studio today for a few portraits. He has the be the most stylish subject I’ve shot all year. For one of the images we just used a simple hot light (like the portrait from yesterday). For the other seen here, Patrick just stepped onto the large seamless I’m using for a portrait later today. Here are two of my favorites.

Today Jaime came by the studio for a few executive portraits. Vanessa was kind enough to help out and we just used a simple hot light instead of my standard studio strobes. For these photos Jaime was positioned against one of our studio walls for the background. In one of the poses below, I used a more typical perspective. For the second portrait, I used a higher angle which provides for a slightly different feel to the photo. So which one do you prefer?

Kelly & Kris dropped by my studio this week so I could take a few photos of their newborn, Madison. You might remember that I photographed Kelly and Kris’ wedding in April of 2007. Kelly looked amazing; you’d never be able to tell that she recently had a baby! Madison was kind of uncooperative but that’s certainly typical of most infants I photograph at this early age. That was ok with me though because I really like to take photographs of crying babies! (I really do) If you’d like to see more photographs from this session and you know Kelly & Kris’ last name, click here to view the full gallery.

Elizabeth and Leo were married a few weeks ago in Dabney Hall at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) in Pasadena, California. And that of course seems only appropriate since Leo is a physicist who works for JPL! The reception followed at the Mission 261 restaurant in San Gabriel, California. I was just in that area a few weeks ago photographing Sal & Letty’s for their creative session, so for this wedding, we decided to walk a few blocks down to the San Gabriel Mission for a few photos before Elizabeth & Leo’s grand entrance. My favorite photo of the event is the last photo in this blog post. The guy with the rose in his mouth is Leo’s father! He’s one wild and crazy guy! If you’d like to see all the images from Elizabeth and Leo’s wedding (and you know Leo’s last name), click here to view the full gallery.

Today I dropped by Rachel’s home to photograph her family and create a few lifestyle portraits. As you can see, her daughters were really great subjects! And were even able to work a pumpkin into the mix! Here are a few photos from their session.

Kimberly and Brian were married at Moorpark Country Club in Moorpark, California on a rainy Saturday two weeks ago. Since this event was a garden wedding, we were really worried about being able to go forward with the outdoor ceremony. But luck was with them and the weather cleared just in time to allow Kimberly and Brian to keep to the original plan for an outdoor ceremony (although it was sprinkling pretty hard during Kimberly’s walk down the aisle).

The flowers for this wedding were provided by “Flowers by Leah.” They were some of the most amazing arrangements I’ve seen in a very long time. What made these arrangements very unique was that every bridesmaid had a different bouquet and the groomsmen had boutonnieres matching each bridesmaid.

Because the ground was very wet, our plans for a long pre-ceremony creative session with the bride, groom, and wedding party was really limited. That being said, we made the best of it and were still able to capture a few really creative images. One of my favorite photos from the wedding is seen below (the second photo in this post) and occurred when Brian saw Kimberly for the first time. Brian initially had his back to Kimberly, but then turned around when the wedding party counted down from three. As soon as he saw Kimberly, instead of walking to her, he used a running/skipping/gliding approach that was great fun to watch (and photograph).

I also wanted to mention that I worked with Vanessa as my second photographer for this wedding. One thing I love about photographing weddings with Vanessa is that she captures amazing detail photographs. One of her cake photos is seen in the post below. And as usual, Vanessa did an amazing job! If you’d like to see all the images from Kimberly & Brian’s wedding (and you know Brian’s last name), please click here to view the full gallery.