My First Spiral Jetty Experience

Over the summer, I decided to check out the Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake. My photo professors always said that it was a photographer's dream so I wanted to see what the fuss was all about. I was amazed when I got there. The landscape is unreal: dry yet beautiful, I could've stayed there all day! (though I could've done without the smell and the heat)

There's a great/sad story that goes with this trip (refer to last picture). I was walking around the jetty, taking a bazillion pictures, then I saw something cool in the distance. I started to walk toward it and after about 10 steps, I felt my foot sink into something unearthly. It felt like mud but it was too slimy. It was also really stinky and hot from the sun. I was wearing flip flops (never again!), so I pulled my foot out, but my flip flip was still stuck. I pulled my flip flop out with my hands and put it back on - it was disgusting and hot. I tried walking in a different direction, but my other foot started to sink so I had to tread lightly. I finally found some spots (far and few between, it seemed) where the ground was more sturdy. I FINALLY made it back to my car, but my shoe reeked of whatever crap was in that nasty black stuff - I don't even want to know!! I put my shoe in a plastic bag that was luckily in my car and drove home. I was later told that the black stuff was probably tar (I don't believe them). Even so, next time I'm wearing fishing boots!!

Beautiful!! But proceed at your own risk...

The sky was PERFECT

The damage. Yeah, it was pretty gross...

Shiseido

My latest product shot. This was sooo hard to photograph. It took nearly 4 hours, but the bottle looked so cool that I had to finish. It was a great learning experience, though!

Perfume Shot and Movie Sets

This week was much more successful. Jerry was there to help me through the whole shooting process this time and gave me much-needed tips! I am much happier with my result this time.

I love the shape of this bottle! It was really tricky but fun to shoot. When Jerry said that it was going to be interesting (aka hard) to shoot, I thought, "Aw crap..." But it was actually a really cool experience. And it felt good that he said "This is your shot, not the ad? It's very nice! Great job!" :)

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Some other cool stuff that happened

For one shoot, we went to a studio to photograph a city-- built ENTIRELY out of computer parts. It was sooo cool! I couldn't get very good pictures on my camera phone, but here's basically what it looked like:

It even had little street lights!! So cute! 

This studio was also the place where many big/famous films were shot. When we were there, they were shooting a Vizio commercial and there wasn't much for me to do, so I went exploring for a bit. Here are some pictures I found on the wall of the sets...

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INCEPTION

THE DARK KNIGHT

THE AVIATOR ( I love this one. He looks massive!)

CHRONICLES OF NARNIA (I thought this was pretty cool)

RESIDENT EVIL

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And, here's a hybrid car charger in a mall parking structure. I've never seen spots dedicated to them in a mall before...

First Personal Shoot

So, I know a lot of you were wondering what the heck was in that box with all the lights pointing into it...

After about 3 hours of hard work (by myself), I still didn't get the lighting right... lame, huh? Well, turns out, I have a lot to learn. But I did get some good-ish shots. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it, but I'll save this product for a more advanced day; I need to start with something that's not see-through or reflective (baby steps). And next time, Jerry will be there to help me with the lighting. It's amazing what you don't learn in school! :P

But, here's the final product (so far), my first official personal piece during the internship:

MetroMint LemonMint Water (sounds yummy, huh?...)

Pretty good, considering I did it all by myself, huh? ;)

As for the rest of my time here in L.A...

I'm really enjoying it. Sure there's days when I get sick of all the traffic and the ridiculous gas prices, but all in all, it's a great place. The people here are friendlier than the stereotype they have. I went to a church activity and met a bunch of really fun, cool, down-to-earth people (took me a while, but I finally found a group that I get along with!). I'm trying to decide where I'm going to go from here (stay here, San Diego, Orange County, the bay area...) My internship ends at the end of June, then from there, I'm free to have a REAL job!! Crazy! But it's great. I've applied to many places and have already had interviews, so we'll see how I did!

And I'm due for another shoot sometime this week, so watch for that! It should be a lot better! :)

A 48-hour Day

So, the past 2 days, I worked 13 hours per day and got about 4 hours of sleep in between. I had to be at work at 7am on both days, and got off at 7pm on Tuesday and 6pm today, just enough time for dinner, a little relaxing, and getting ready for bed. Fun, huh? C'est la vie. But it was fun, the shooting part, I mean. Since we were doing portrait shots at UCLA, as the assistant my job was to entertain the people/subjects and move lights around. So I had conversations with the UCLA business school students and we could talk about pretty much anything. It was great :)

Here are a few shots of shoot.

Okay, this isn't the most interesting shot, but we were busy so I didn't really have time

Our crowded table that we stuffed some of our expensive equipment on. I got to man it while they shot some other stuff outside.

Makeup GALORE. Our professional makeup artist's (who is AWESOME) kit. Yup, there is even some makeup for the guys. How glamourous ;)

One of the huge houses we passed on our way to UCLA. There was a production going on there, and that house was MASSIVE! I'm sure it wasn't the biggest one around, but it was pretty dang close

K, so this isn't really at the main site that we shot at, but it's in the UCLA library, and it's a REAL stock machine from back in the day. I don't know when, but I thought it was cool. Also, I got to go on top of one of the roofs and UCLA is MASSIVE!! And the buildings are so cool-looking. I really want to go exploring there when I have time.

There are also some perks to my apartment. For example:

I got to see this from my apartment balcony (not the BEST view, but pretty reasonable for the price)...

and get greeted by this the second I come home :) She's so cute and energetic and just follows me to my room and hops on my bed as if to say "play with me!!" I love it! Dogs are the best :)

These are all just taken on my camera phone, but I should start to shoot my own stuff (more interesting, haha) in the studio within the next few weeks here, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Rachel's Photoshoot

Here's a few shots from a portrait shoot I did yesterday. It was so nice outside -- makes me excited for summer! And, she's amazingly photogenic, so that made it fun, too :)

Covergirl Mascara Shoot

I FINALLY got back in the studio...and am glad that I actually remembered how to use the equipment :P It was fun though. So, I made some mock-up ads for Covergirl Eyelights mascara, so don't pay attention to the design, because that's not exactly my forte...and ignore the makeshift brush strokes... haha. I just like to make mock-up layouts so I can see how my photographs would look if they were to go in an ad. But photographing it was sooo much fun and just makes me that much more excited for my internship :)

Anyway, as you can see, one ad is for regular mascara and the other is for waterproof. The waterproof one didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped, but it's good for now. I'll learn how to do it better one of these days... :P

Mixed Emotions and Timp Harley Photos

So, truthfully, the idea of moving to LA is kinda catching up to me and freaking me out, off and on. The idea of moving more than 600 miles away from many close friends and family (though I have family down there, so it eases the fear)... and moving somewhere where I've never lived before, with completely new people is kinda nerve-wracking. BUT I'm still excited for something other than Provo and Nampa. It'll be really fun. A good thing, though, is my professor said that it's a good thing I'm stressed because it means that I'm not naive and that I actually care. haha. And, man, I never thought it would be SOO hard to get the motivation to do econ homework. In fact, that's why I'm writing on here... procrastinating. I have a feeling I'll be doing that a lot this semester... :P

Aaand when I procrastinate, I also like to edit images, both past and present. This time, I found some old Timp Harley images I took for my location photography class at BYU. It was a really fun shoot and the employees were all really nice and cooperative. Here are some of my favorites:

The exterior. Story time: My friend/fellow photographer Kara and I went through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get exterior shots. First of all, you have to photograph the building at the crack of dawn, when the light in the sky isn't too bright so you can still expose it right to match the exposure of the lights in the building. Otherwise, you have to just expose for the building and drop in a sky later. Either way, a pain in the butt. The first shoot we did of the building was quite an adventure. We had to climb up a muddy hill, in which I almost lost my shoe, to the top of the hill to get a good angle. It was actually really fun, cause I like hiking. Turns out, the street did not make as good of a foreground as we thought, so we basically wasted that shoot. But we went again a few days later and got some beautiful shots (including this one). Hard work, but so much fun :)

Some bling :P

The cafe

An awesome bike

Harley Logos

Store Owner

So, whenever I think about it, the idea of moving to LA to learn how to do all of this soooo much better is so fun to me in the end :)