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...

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! :)

First Week: Done

I promised you more pictures, so that's exactly what I delivered.

You may get sick of them, but, oh well. At least I kept my promise :)

The rest of this week was better because of 3 things (not necessarily in this order): (1) I got to help photograph products (my favorite subject matter), and (2) I GOT a decent amount SLEEP!! Ok, I may have overslept. But I'm technically still a college student, so I deserve it :) (3) I explored Los Angeles a little bit with some of my family. Granted, it took us about 1/2 hour to go 5 miles, but we still got out.

For the shoot, we photographed a brand of stage makeup made by Ben Nye. I guess the musical "Cats" used his cosmetics line and he was the makeup director for 20th Century Fox. Pretty cool, huh? The founder's son, Dana Nye, currently owns the company and he came by with some of his most recent product to photograph. It was pretty cool stuff (I thought it looked a little weird for a cosmetics line, but after I knew what it was for it made sense) and I got to learn what to use and what not to use for lighting products. And I learned a lot about post-production. It was a great 2 days :)  Oh, I got a tour of his factory (a fringe benefit of being the photographer) and it's so cool! They hand-make all of their product in the building. Looks like a LOT of work, though. And I got some free "Zombie" makeup that could be fun for Halloween... haha.

Here's some shots of our photoshoot:

 Some of the makeup. Pretty weird colors, huh?

The setup for the shoot

Another angle

The main assistant Taylor joking around while adjusting the lights. Yeah, we have fun here, sometimes :)

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Then, I got to spend some quality time with Gucci (the dog), AKA take her on a walk and play with her while we waited for the roomies to come home...

So I thought we should take at least one pic together :P

And the sky was really beautiful from being cloudy all day... I have a much better pic on my DSLR, but I'm too lazy to get that one right now. I'll post it soon, though.

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Then, my eldest sister and her family (who lives in Riverside) came to visit me, so we went to lunch and then went to The Grove L.A., which was really cool. It was like it's own little city tucked into Los Angeles. 

All of us (minus Jeff) on the roof

Overlooking the city

There was a live concert, which was really nice and relaxing

A pretty fountain. Kinda reminded me of the one in Vegas, because it did some cool things and lit up at night.

It was a pretty good first week. It started out slow and stressful, but ended quickly and fun :) I learned a lot about what being a photographer is really like. Work long hours to make and keep a living, but also keep it balanced with your life outside of work. Jerry, the photographer I'm interning with, takes weekend off of work, and that's the way it should be. He's not lazy by any means; he just has a family and a life. Working with him has taught me that you should work hard, but also take the time to enjoy life and take one day at a time. I'm really happy to be here. And though it's stressful for me at times to have moved out here with basically no friends less than an hour away, it's a good time for me to be independent and discover what I want in my life.

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 :)