two weekends to catch up on!
LJ CUT EDITED TO ADD PICTURES
weekend number one:
sorry i forgot to let everyone know we were going to san diego the 10-14th. i posted it somewhere else and *totally* forgot to post it here! i suck.
we spent four wonderful days at the W san diego, which is an amazing luxury hotel that, as walla describes it, "is like sex distilled into a physical location and wrapped in sweet designer comforters". it was the coolest hotel i've ever seen! way better than the omni. here's a picture of our room:
(click for gallery picture)
that's a window seat with a cool purple light. the bed was probably the comfiest we've slept in. it had this awesome feather top, and the comforter was all wonderful and smooshy. i've never felt so at home in a hotel room before! usually after a couple days we're like, "i miss our apartment," but not this time. the only thing that made us want to go home was missing bean; we could have brought him cos they do pet service stuff too (they even had a pet portion on the room service menu *rolls eyes*), but my allergies like me to get away from him every once in a while. the tv was nice and big and close to the bed, and it came with a decent dvd player too.
the in-house restaurant (and the one where the room service comes from) at the hotel is called rice (beware of flash). just looking at the menu before we left made me drool. let me tell you, they have some amazing food. i highly suggest the mushroom-leek raviolo (i moaned the entire time i ate it--orgasmic, seriously) and warm chocolate cake with peanut butter ganache (moaned for all of that too... oh god, i want it NOW). the "room service" menu was abbreviated, but we just asked them to bring us stuff off the website menu, and it was no trouble.
the people who work at the hotel were amazingly nice. not really surprising considering it's relatively upscale. everyone wanted you to know their name, or even left you little notes with their names on them so you could call them specifically for stuff (i.e. call me to do something for you so you can tip me plzthx). but really, the service was amazing. the decor was awesome--even the elevator was cool (though hard to shoot in).
we basically lived off of gourmet room service the whole time. we left the hotel room once, to go to the birch aquarium at scripps. there were lots of neat fish.
(click for gallery picture)
afterwards, we ate at a place called "rock bottom", which wasn't that great. their triple chocolate cheesecake was good though. mostly we, eh, "enjoyed the bed" ^_~. we also watched 2/3 of season 4 of 24 (which we have since completed) and took lots of random pictures. if you're interested in the whole photo gallery from our trip, it's here.
okay so, that was weekend before last.
this past weekend, we had a photoshoot with some people we'd never met before. walla met a chick through social networking who wanted him to do some promo shots for an "alternative girl" nudie site. it had been scheduled for over a month and the organization was slightly frayed, but it finally happened. first we were supposed to be shooting this one model, doing a snow white set, but then she flaked. then we were supposed to do a different model, with a russian spy theme and an anime set. THEN, the firday night before, THAT model got sick (models are flakey, such is their way, everyone takes it as a given, it's not a big deal... well, cept for asha, cos she rules), so the chick organizing the whole thing scrambled around and found another model on the previous model's recommendation. the new girl was blond, so we had to ditch the sets we'd been preparing for and just do whatever we could all manage on such short notice.
now, i fully expected the shoot to start in the morning and finish in the evening, maybe 8 or so, early enough for us to make katie and spiff's christmas cocktail party. thanks to holiday traffic, everyone wasn't here until about 1:30 in the afternoon. further, poor veronica, the model, was getting sick, but was still able to shoot. choosing outfits and the make-up artist working her wonderful magic had us starting the actual shooting portion around 3pm. veronica was clearly not feeling well, but she seemed to be well enough to stand around and pose and such. it took us a little while to get into the groove, especially since we've never worked with someone we'd just met before, and also, which is SO not her fault, we'd never really worked with a model who didn't have a whole lot of experience as far as posing is concerned. nonetheless, once we got it going, things were great. it was probably the most fun i've had at a photoshoot because veronica didn't have a lot of modelling experience: i got to try my hand at directing and actually felt useful! walla's too busy framing to really tell models much what to do, whereas as i have nothing to do but sit around and watch and point out tags sticking out and stuff, or idly hold a reflector. i wish i'd said more things (i was kinda shy cos a. i didn't know if i was saying stuff that would look good, and b. i didn't know the model or make-up artist that well) in retrospect, but i'm certain that the next time i will definitely say more. i feel like i did a pretty decent job anyway, and it resulted in some really great shots. thank you walla for buying all those modeling books and magazines and leaving them in the bathroom for me to read :).
we'd planned to do four sets: 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and rebekah, the make-up artist, just planned for the make-up to get progressively more extreme as the sets went on, until it was just totally glamorifically 80s. the outfit that was chosen to start out for 50s was a leopard print thing that had a lot of funky "scooching" that caused wrinkles, if that makes any sense. after doing some shots in it, we encouraged her to switch to a nice black slip, which turned out really well. we were shooting on a red background, so it looked really great. finally, one "set" done! so the girls went off to put on new make-up and find a new outfit. at this point, unfortunately, veronica was getting sicker. she fell asleep twice while rebekah was putting her make-up on (poor veronica!). nonetheless, she got into her new outfit and rebekah did some more great make-up. we stole a mod looking chair from the blizzard office for posing, which was good for the model as she really needed to sit down. we put her on a white background and we placed a piece of plexiglass over the floor part of the paper background (we finally bought a background holder thing and some rolls of disposable paper backgrounds... they help SO much!) for some cool reflection effects. we got some awesome shots, but, sadly, poor sick veronica started to get hit really bad by whatever virus was screwing with her, and had to stop about 2/3 through and rest. we ordered some dinner for everyone, and veronica went into the second bedroom and fell right to sleep, asking us to wake her when the food got here. she woke up, ate, and then went right back to sleep.
it was pretty obvious at this point that veronica was too sick to go on. poor girl. she's a total trooper for making it as far as she did. by the time we'd figured out she wasn't getting any farther, it was a little after 8. we figured okay, cool, we can go to the party now at least. unfortunately, veronica's ride, who was at a bar 5 minutes away, wasn't answering his cell phone. by the time he finally got back to her, around 1 am, it was to say, "i'm drunk and i don't know when i'll be able to get you." yeah, thanks guy. poor girl. she slept in our second bedroom until he finally called her back (even if we'd taken her home at 8:30, we wouldn't have been back home until around 10, which was a bit too late for said party), then we drove her home. i totally sympathize with her, cos i know how badly it sucks to have your ride flake on you and be stuck somewhere, especially if they dropped you off in the first place because they knew you were getting sick!
anyway, even though we only got about 1 2/3 sets done, we got about 700 shots, and at least 100 of them are great, if not more. the chick who runs the site got back to us with the pictures with the logo added (her guy also upped the contrast on the first one, which neither of us particularly likes, but whatever, they're her pictures now!). anyway, they're not fully processed yet, but you can get an idea of what the sets looked like. :)
click for a bigger picture
click for a bigger picture
weekend number one:
sorry i forgot to let everyone know we were going to san diego the 10-14th. i posted it somewhere else and *totally* forgot to post it here! i suck.
we spent four wonderful days at the W san diego, which is an amazing luxury hotel that, as walla describes it, "is like sex distilled into a physical location and wrapped in sweet designer comforters". it was the coolest hotel i've ever seen! way better than the omni. here's a picture of our room:
(click for gallery picture)
that's a window seat with a cool purple light. the bed was probably the comfiest we've slept in. it had this awesome feather top, and the comforter was all wonderful and smooshy. i've never felt so at home in a hotel room before! usually after a couple days we're like, "i miss our apartment," but not this time. the only thing that made us want to go home was missing bean; we could have brought him cos they do pet service stuff too (they even had a pet portion on the room service menu *rolls eyes*), but my allergies like me to get away from him every once in a while. the tv was nice and big and close to the bed, and it came with a decent dvd player too.
the in-house restaurant (and the one where the room service comes from) at the hotel is called rice (beware of flash). just looking at the menu before we left made me drool. let me tell you, they have some amazing food. i highly suggest the mushroom-leek raviolo (i moaned the entire time i ate it--orgasmic, seriously) and warm chocolate cake with peanut butter ganache (moaned for all of that too... oh god, i want it NOW). the "room service" menu was abbreviated, but we just asked them to bring us stuff off the website menu, and it was no trouble.
the people who work at the hotel were amazingly nice. not really surprising considering it's relatively upscale. everyone wanted you to know their name, or even left you little notes with their names on them so you could call them specifically for stuff (i.e. call me to do something for you so you can tip me plzthx). but really, the service was amazing. the decor was awesome--even the elevator was cool (though hard to shoot in).
we basically lived off of gourmet room service the whole time. we left the hotel room once, to go to the birch aquarium at scripps. there were lots of neat fish.
(click for gallery picture)
afterwards, we ate at a place called "rock bottom", which wasn't that great. their triple chocolate cheesecake was good though. mostly we, eh, "enjoyed the bed" ^_~. we also watched 2/3 of season 4 of 24 (which we have since completed) and took lots of random pictures. if you're interested in the whole photo gallery from our trip, it's here.
okay so, that was weekend before last.
this past weekend, we had a photoshoot with some people we'd never met before. walla met a chick through social networking who wanted him to do some promo shots for an "alternative girl" nudie site. it had been scheduled for over a month and the organization was slightly frayed, but it finally happened. first we were supposed to be shooting this one model, doing a snow white set, but then she flaked. then we were supposed to do a different model, with a russian spy theme and an anime set. THEN, the firday night before, THAT model got sick (models are flakey, such is their way, everyone takes it as a given, it's not a big deal... well, cept for asha, cos she rules), so the chick organizing the whole thing scrambled around and found another model on the previous model's recommendation. the new girl was blond, so we had to ditch the sets we'd been preparing for and just do whatever we could all manage on such short notice.
now, i fully expected the shoot to start in the morning and finish in the evening, maybe 8 or so, early enough for us to make katie and spiff's christmas cocktail party. thanks to holiday traffic, everyone wasn't here until about 1:30 in the afternoon. further, poor veronica, the model, was getting sick, but was still able to shoot. choosing outfits and the make-up artist working her wonderful magic had us starting the actual shooting portion around 3pm. veronica was clearly not feeling well, but she seemed to be well enough to stand around and pose and such. it took us a little while to get into the groove, especially since we've never worked with someone we'd just met before, and also, which is SO not her fault, we'd never really worked with a model who didn't have a whole lot of experience as far as posing is concerned. nonetheless, once we got it going, things were great. it was probably the most fun i've had at a photoshoot because veronica didn't have a lot of modelling experience: i got to try my hand at directing and actually felt useful! walla's too busy framing to really tell models much what to do, whereas as i have nothing to do but sit around and watch and point out tags sticking out and stuff, or idly hold a reflector. i wish i'd said more things (i was kinda shy cos a. i didn't know if i was saying stuff that would look good, and b. i didn't know the model or make-up artist that well) in retrospect, but i'm certain that the next time i will definitely say more. i feel like i did a pretty decent job anyway, and it resulted in some really great shots. thank you walla for buying all those modeling books and magazines and leaving them in the bathroom for me to read :).
we'd planned to do four sets: 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and rebekah, the make-up artist, just planned for the make-up to get progressively more extreme as the sets went on, until it was just totally glamorifically 80s. the outfit that was chosen to start out for 50s was a leopard print thing that had a lot of funky "scooching" that caused wrinkles, if that makes any sense. after doing some shots in it, we encouraged her to switch to a nice black slip, which turned out really well. we were shooting on a red background, so it looked really great. finally, one "set" done! so the girls went off to put on new make-up and find a new outfit. at this point, unfortunately, veronica was getting sicker. she fell asleep twice while rebekah was putting her make-up on (poor veronica!). nonetheless, she got into her new outfit and rebekah did some more great make-up. we stole a mod looking chair from the blizzard office for posing, which was good for the model as she really needed to sit down. we put her on a white background and we placed a piece of plexiglass over the floor part of the paper background (we finally bought a background holder thing and some rolls of disposable paper backgrounds... they help SO much!) for some cool reflection effects. we got some awesome shots, but, sadly, poor sick veronica started to get hit really bad by whatever virus was screwing with her, and had to stop about 2/3 through and rest. we ordered some dinner for everyone, and veronica went into the second bedroom and fell right to sleep, asking us to wake her when the food got here. she woke up, ate, and then went right back to sleep.
it was pretty obvious at this point that veronica was too sick to go on. poor girl. she's a total trooper for making it as far as she did. by the time we'd figured out she wasn't getting any farther, it was a little after 8. we figured okay, cool, we can go to the party now at least. unfortunately, veronica's ride, who was at a bar 5 minutes away, wasn't answering his cell phone. by the time he finally got back to her, around 1 am, it was to say, "i'm drunk and i don't know when i'll be able to get you." yeah, thanks guy. poor girl. she slept in our second bedroom until he finally called her back (even if we'd taken her home at 8:30, we wouldn't have been back home until around 10, which was a bit too late for said party), then we drove her home. i totally sympathize with her, cos i know how badly it sucks to have your ride flake on you and be stuck somewhere, especially if they dropped you off in the first place because they knew you were getting sick!
anyway, even though we only got about 1 2/3 sets done, we got about 700 shots, and at least 100 of them are great, if not more. the chick who runs the site got back to us with the pictures with the logo added (her guy also upped the contrast on the first one, which neither of us particularly likes, but whatever, they're her pictures now!). anyway, they're not fully processed yet, but you can get an idea of what the sets looked like. :)
click for a bigger picture
click for a bigger picture