amanda friedman

i work with awesome photographers everyday who can shoot a mean portrait, fashion spread, or store interior, but it's super cool when they are also talented fine art photographers.

amanda friedman is a LA based professional photographer who shoots everything from celebs to fashion to interiors and she also has a knack for shooting very cinematic moody night landscapes. she shows her work at paul kopeikin gallery in LA.

from my atlanta days

i am thinking about getting a new mac. i have been thinking about it for years now. i have a really cute imac from 2001 and it looks a bit like E.T. as slow as it is these days, the thought of losing it hurts me deeply.

lately i have been doing some "maintenance" on my little buddy in hopes of clearing up some memory space. during one of my cleaning sprees i came upon a bunch of old botanical photographs from the 1998-2001 days all pre-digital camera. these shots have a quality that i wish my new shots possessed that makes them feel important and eternal. maybe it's just the subject matter that's eternal. who knows?

lee miller

Lee Miller was one of those creatures who could do it all. Here is a collection of photographs, illustrations, and paintings capturing her many faces by some of the best artists of all time. I love how each portrait shows a different point of view.

From Top:

George Hoyningen-Huene
Georges Lepape
Pablo Picasso
Man Ray

guy bourdin

he is known for being one of the founding fathers of fashion photography, but his simple landscapes are amazing as well. i was lucky enough to see his first retrospective at the V&A museum in london in 2003. a few of these images look like dead ringers for irving penn, clearly both working for vogue at the same time.

last minute details

i have been running around for weeks now with last minute wedding plans and i have finally realized that they are never going to end- up until the final moments before guests arrive. there is always more that can be done, but it doesn't necessarily need to be done. i have focused my last minute details for this week on- chalkboard, cake stand, ties for dan, and finalizing lists. i found some killer ties, but they don't work with dan's cool dark gray suit. bummer.

beautiful food

these are my lovely peach and strawberry shots using a small crudely rigged seamless with a scrim jim and a reflector facing directly toward the objects. i shot into the light for the coolest effects. unfortunately i didn't have my sweet macro lens, but i will bring it next time. love the food shots!! excellent models.

learning sexy light

here is my sexy lighting demo from last week. we had a beauty dish with gridspot at an angle from above as our main light and a 2nd light reflector from behind coming right at her to create the halo effect. the wind was created by the always helpful fill cards.

my fire escape garden

Here is my lovely fire escape garden. these photos are from a few weeks ago and now after all of the crazy thunderstorms, everything has grown a ton. I especially love the molten lava which can be seen on the second to last photo on the left of the basket. It is super hearty and has an array of pretty colors. The angel mist is also a favorite and can be seen in the second set of photos on the right. I also have a white one that is very elegant.

the first post

this seems appropriate for my first post in the light archive. dan and i went to the olafur eliasson show at the moma today and it was amazing. i neglected to bring my camera, but took this sweet portrait of the 2 of us with my camera phone. there was one room that made everyone look like a sepia-tone photograph and another that created displaced light with mirrors. there was also a piece in the lobby of a fan rotating on a really long rope and almost hitting people.