This girl works both ends of that spectrum… one of the last shoots done at my studio, Kaylyn was a blast to photograph since she indulges my love of variety. We started elegant and fashion-loving in the studio, then stepped outside for some gritty cinematic action, and ended up at the beach for some good clean commercial fun.
All photographs created at Christa Meola Pictures Studio, Los Angeles, CA copyright 2010 by Christa Meola
Hair & Make-up: Cyndi Ochoa
For Photographers: The film noir photos are all available light at dusk with just the outdoor lights of my building casting some seriously cool light/shadow against the brick and enhanced in Lightroom with the Graduated Filter tool (one of my favorite lighting tricks!)… I talk about how to do it in my new book Exposed, The Art of Photographing Women. Official announcement and details coming soon :) Plus, more fine art nudes from the Weston + Meola Wildcat Nude Workshop.
Stay tuned yo.
xx,
Christa
Gorgeous color! Here are just a few favs from the final installment of my photography series of downtown Los Angeles… It was hard not to turn them all into black and white… as one of the Workshop attendees this past weekend noted, “Christa, you see things mostly in black and white” – she’s right! I usually go for the moment, the relationship, light/shadow, lines, etc… color is secondary for me. But in these pics, color is the star for sure!
God and palm trees are everywhere… even in Downtown LA :)
And to follow-up on the beautiful black & white’s of the Walt Disney Concert Hall from my Symphony in B&W No. 1, here are some of my favorites that showcase the beautiful blue notes of the sky reflected in the steel…
Ahhhhhh, just let this one wash over you :) Bliss….
Hope you guys enjoyed my series of Downtown Los Angeles as much as I loved shooting it!
Lots of fun coming up on the blog – gorgeous boudoir pictures, workshop attendees’ pics from this past weekend’s Portrait Workshop, and some Polaroid lovin’ :)
xxx,
Christa
Just a few lines of light that I love from my recent downtown LA Art Installation project. As I mentioned in Wednesday’s post, Symphony in B&W No. 1, my goal was to capture the energy of the city. I played around with slow shutter speeds and high contrast settings to capture movement and a play on line and perspective. Here are just a few of my favorites…
Stay tuned for the color shots!
Have a great weekend!
xoxo,
Christa
I love photographing portraits… it’s my passion, and I am pretty confident now that I can capture the subject’s personality in a single frame and nail it. Shooting landscapes on the other hand, when there’s no living breathing human in the picture and no interaction between subjects… well now that’s a challenge! So when the Library Lofts in downtown Los Angeles went looking for a photographer to shoot their art installation, suddenly, I was so on fire and told them I was their girl.
My goal was to capture the energy of the city. When you think about it, places are living breathing subjects too… and I wanted to create an art installation for the lofts that people feel when they pass by.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall was an obvious on my list of must-have’s. Created by the world famous architect, Frank Gehry, the Disney Concert Hall is probably the most photographed building since it’s opening in 2003. The sun was setting fast when I arrived at the Hall and I had about 10 minutes to shoot before it would be too dark… So I went with what I know best and I chose to shoot the hall like I shoot my boudoir photography… walk around the subject, notice things, the curves, the lines, etc… and suddenly the Hall took on a life of it’s own and became a boat at sea, a mountain top, waves in the ocean, and many other things…
What do you see?
A big thank you to one of my self-proclaimed blog-stalkers, John Batdorff, an extremely gifted photographer, especially with landscapes, who generously gave me some advice before I started shooting… Thanks John!
More in this series on the blog tomorrow and this weekend – I’ve prescheduled the posts so while I’ll be teaching the Portrait Workshop this weekend, you can enjoy a peek at downtown LA!
xoxo,
Christa
