I Hate It When I Jinx Myself

I should'a known I was jinxing myself. No sooner did I write my previous update--the very next day in fact--when I ended up working at a location where I had to climb THREE FREAKIN' FLIGHTS of stairs laden like a pack-mule. Actually, it was total of 6 sets of stairs in all! (And that was one-way!)

First off, the traffic sucked getting there. But then, this is L.A. Nothing particularly unusual about that. What was unusual was discovering the lack of street parking in front of the location once I finally arrived. I've shot at this place plenty of times. It's a condo complex near Burbank Studios. (Warner Bros.) In all the times I've shot there, maybe 30 or 40 times, I've always been able to park right in front of the door into the complex. But not that day. Oh no. That day I needed to park about 100 yards or more up the street. (Up as in in uphill.... and not a gentle uphill either.) Granted, a hundred yards ain't much, but it is when you're carrying about 100 to 150 pounds of gear! I knew the trek back to my car was really going to suck because that would be when the uphill part would come into play.

I get inside the complex and, to get to the condo we shoot in, it's about a 150 yards including a short elevator ride up one floor and then some concrete path walking including three sets of outdoor stairs to another elevator which then takes you up three floors to where the condo resides. But when I arrived at the final elevator, I discovered it was out of order.

As you can imagine, I was already huffing and puffing from lugging all that gear. BTW, the gear consists of my camera stuff (two bodies, lenses, speedlites, meter, and a bunch of accessories) which is all packed in a backpack camera bag. Then I have another bag slung over one shoulder that holds my monolights and their cables. And then yet another bag (this one a baseball bat bag) slung over the other shoulder filled with stands, umbrellas, a couple of stingers, a short boom, and some other grip stuff. Trust me, all in all, it all weighs a lot!

So, after discovering the final elevator was out of order, I locate the stairwell which, of course, wasn't anywhere near the elevator, and I climb up the THREE FREAKIN' FLIGHTS of stairs with the 100 pounds or more of gear slung on my back to the floor where the condo is at.

No sooner do I arrive at the condo's front door when my cell rings. It's Abby, the model. She's downstairs in the front trying to find a place to park. I toss all my crap into the condo and head back down to the street. Yep, down three flights of stairs, a walk with three more sets of stairs, an elevator, and finally I arrive on the street.

Abby is trying to park in a space that allows her about 6" of room at each end of her car and, incredibly, she manages to get her car into it! That girl can parallel park like a pro!

So now Abby starts pulling out two, steamer-trunk-sized, pieces of luggage. (Yeah! Right! I'm carrying that crap up... not!)

"Whoa!" I say. "Let's figure out what you're gonna wear down here."

I then explain to Abby it's a long trek to the condo and there's an elevator out of order and that I'm practically toast from my first expedition up there and back and, well, you get the idea. Abby, of course, being a glamour model and adult film star, ain't about to carry her own wardrobe up there so that's why I suggested we pick something out right there, on the sidewalk, in front of the complex.

So there we are in front of the condo complex: Some middle-aged guy with a young, blond, busty, stripper-looking chick pulling out all these slutty outfits and laying them all over the steps to the condo complex with people driving and walking by gawking at us and, well, again, you get the picture.

Finally, we pick out an outfit, put her steamer-trunks back in her car, and head up to the condo. Once we get there, Abby started doing her makeup, I set up my lights, and everything worked out well from there.

All of this, of course, has little to do with photography. Just thought I'd share. Heading out to Las Vegas this weekend. It's a combination work trip and fun trip. (Working in Vegas always has fun attached to it.) I hope the fun part far exceeds the work part.

The eye candy at the top is Abby. Canon 5D w/28-135 IS USM. ISO 100, f/8 @ 100. She's non-artfully lit with two sources: A large shoot-thru in front of her and a small shoot-thru boomed up behind her. Yep! Uber-simple, flat-and-bright lighting! Perfect for those highly skilled post-production folks in the art departments cuz, you know, it's all about what they want.