Gary Ochoa.

So the other day I went to shoot an artist, Gary Ochoa, painter/collagist, for the series I'm working on relating to LGBT seniors (50+).  Gary lives in this incredible environment called the Santa Fe Art Colony.  It's in an old warehouse district outside of downtown L.A.  This huge, old brick building along with some surrounding cottage-type spaces has been renovated so that there are quite a number of artists' lofts on multiple floors.  The loft I was in along with the various corridors to this place were incredible spaces with skylights throughout and interesting angles and textures throughout.   I loved the architecture and the varying use of different color temperatures 

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After photographing my subject in his studio, we meandered around the building finding several different locations to shoot.  Having taken up more of his time than I originally told him, we stopped, though I kept gathering ideas for a future shoot.  

As my subject and I were talking about art and looking at his work, I was moved by the idea that when we finish an art piece, it will live on long after we're gone -- assuming it's not damaged or destroyed.  In looking at the artist's huge collage pieces, I wanted to capture the piece's permanance along with just his essence showing how ephemeral our existence is.

As we were walking back to my car after a totally satisfying creative experience, we were passing a row of large individual studios.  I looked in the open door of one of the studios and saw this young female artist working in the middle of her space.  The studio was dark except for a small circly of light illuminating her at her table.  As I started to pass, I just had to go back and introduce myself to this young lady and ask if I could take her photograph.  Because of how dark it was outside and how I had originally framed the image, I had to use a very high ISO which gave the image quite a bit of noise.  Using one of the tools in Photoshop, I eliminated most of the noise, but this created a little softening of the image, almost giving it a "painterly" feel.  However, when I first passed her door, that is exactly how I saw the scene.

The last image was a fun shot of the artist and his studio space as seen through a concave mirror.



Tbis last summer I was at this outdoor concert where the artist was a wonderful woman singer by the name of Barbara Morrison.  It was the perfect time of day and I had a wonderful spot to take some photos.  Out of the series of images I did, I put these three together as a triptych, and I posted it shortly afterwards on my blog here.

I was recently contacted by a gentleman I don't know who owns a jazz club.  He came across my photo in searching for images of Barbara on the net, and he wrote to me asking for permission to use the photo for promo work relating to a gig she was doing at his club -- with credits, of course. 

Just when I think that no one ever looks at what I've been up to, something like this pops up that lets me know that there are connections with other people out there.  I'll just keep shooting what I love and let the universe take it from there.

Postscript - Olivia

This is little Olivia, who was born five weeks ago.  Back in August I posted a number of photos of the proud parents-to-be, Gina and Dan.  We talked about doing newborn photos of Olivia at around 10 days or so, which is the perfect age I understand for those gorgeous curled-up-sleeping-baby images.  However, due to certain complications and the new parents adjusting to their new lifestyle, I didn't get a chance to take any photos until Olivia was a month old.  She'd grown from the curled-up-sleeping-baby-makes-for-beautiful-baby-pictures to the squirming-kicking-crying-cantankerous stage.  I didn't want to wear mother or daughter out, so we just did a very short shoot.  In the middle of flailing arms, feeding, belching -- I mean burping, I did manage to catch her in a more quiet moment and got this image.  My hats are off to those professional newborn/baby/toddler photographers.  From what I've seen on YouTube, most of them are women, and they hover over Baby cooing and relaxing the baby in ways I was clueless about.

But I love new challenges and opportunities to shoot different things, and I wasn't about to say no to this wonderful opportunity.

Jean

I've been away from my photography for a short time -- life is happening!  But I find whenever I have my camera in hand, everything starts to fall into place.  It's what I use to focus on the here-and-now, and it helps to put perspective back into my life.

Jean is a wonderful woman I have known for almost three decades.  I live next door to her; and ever since her husband, Mel, passed away many years ago, Joe and I have watched out for her and made sure she is safe.  We've gone through so much good and bad together, we're this side of family. 

Jean's younger sister just passed away after a long illness, and on this day Jean was getting ready to go to her sister's memorial service, but she knew I've been wanting to shoot her for a long time and invited me over for a short photo session.  I could tell she was somewhat distracted, but she insisted we give it a try.  Now that we've gotten that initial shoot over with and she knows now that she doesn't have to be nervous, we're going to have many more sessions.  I want to give something to her -- and her family.