Swap meet stuff

One light

It's been awhile since I used studio strobes, so when L.A. artist, friend and impresario Robert Vargas asked me to set up a photo booth at his monthly Red Zebra live sketch session/fashion party, I jumped hoppedto it. The ladies are all amateurs, but they all jumped at the chance to put together a fun photograph and fell into a wonderful, relaxed posing session right off the bat - we got this fun image on the fifth frame!

Thanks to the wonderful owners of the Flamingo Vintage clothing and accessories store, Candace --- and Karina.

In the meantime, over on Google+

Yeah, I am as  amazed as you are.

Jerico's Art Show Santa Barbara

One of the fun things about being a photographer is that I sometimes get to help out a friend.

Jerico Woggon is just getting back into the business, so he doesn't have all the design crapola from Adobe, but I do, so he called on me.

This is what we came up with.

Food Trucks L.A. - Meals on Wheels

Been There, Done That - Paris Photo LA 2015

At the beginning of the month of May, Paris Photo LA was a thing. Given that this was only its second year (and some folks think that last year's inaugural was a little rocky), I thought it went off pretty well. I saw a bunch of the usual shit but also some really outstanding stuff.

My friend found some inspiration and instruction on how to do portraits right. I made some snaps.

Here we see a group of picture hunters taking a break on a fake New York stoop, one of the Paramount Pictures back lots hosting the show.

http://www.parisphoto.com/losangeles

L'Oeil de la Photographie Featured Portfolio

My portfolio is being featured in L'Oeil de la Photographie this weekend. Based in Paris, L'Oeil has been called "the best photo website on the Internet" by Time Magazine.

"Translated every day in English, French, and now Chinese, The Eye wants to be the indispensable search tool for all the who’s-who and what’s-what in photography, as well as a place of inspiration for all amateurs and photography lovers. It has already become the most trusted and recognized web based photography magazine read by all professionals around the globe."

http://www.loeildelaphotographie.com/2015/04/25/the-eye-of-readers/27855/glenn-primm

Exhibiting at the Month of Photography LA

In conjunction with the Month of Photography LA, I'll be exhibiting at the Fathom Gallery in downtown Los Angeles. Many of the other photographers on hand are counted as legends and giants of the wonderful world of photography. I am proud and truly humbled to be exhibiting in their company.

Website Refurbished and Up and Running

My refurbished website is up and running! New pics and new features such as swipe for touchscreens. Yay!

Special thanks to Lindsay Marshall of Riveting Stuff and his mad coding skillz.

http://glennprimm.com

Happy New Year from Skid Row, I Guess

Encounter on Spring Street, downtown Los Angeles, Christmas Eve.

Last year in B & W

I'm not sure where the "World-Wide B&W Challenge" started, but it's definitely going around the world like wildfire. Maybe it was started for those who have never held an analog film camera in their hands or those that thought that a digital camera couldn't make amazing B&W images, but it's here's and it's viral, as they say.


For some of us, the response is trivially easy - all we have to do is throw up some scanned negs from way back when; in my case, however, I chose to convert recent images from digital color to B&W. Some are native Lightroom, some used NIK Silver.

In any event, here's my contribution to the challenge, not necessarily in order.

After-word: some of these images should have been shared earlier, but this is a just a blog, and this year I didn't have an assistant to handle all the media we're supposed to be posting, so some stuff got laid aside, and that makes this post a meagre catch-up. For that I apologize. Still, each one of these images is important to me.

Cheers, and may you all have a productive and prosperous new year.

My Favorite Shots for 2014

I am firmly convinced that Los Angeles has always been one of the most interesting cities in the world, and it's even more so now with all the activity in the newly revitalized Downtown, also known as the Historic Core. Basically abandoned from about 1980 to just a couple of years ago, the population has boomed from an estimated 10,000 five years ago to over 45,000 today. There are new businesses, new construction, once-abandoned skyscrapers converted into live/work spaces, the Bringing Back Broadway initiative.and many new faces.

In no particular order, here are a few of my favorite images from this last year.

                                    

Angels Flight

The historic and ancient Angels Flight funicular on Bunker Hill closed down a year ago due to some "technical" issues, which have since been repaired, and it is promised that it will reopen soon. I sure hope so. it had been in mothballs for decades, but a group of concerned citizens formed a committee, and the little train (one of the shortest funicular lines in the world) was back in business, until it broke.

But when it reopened a couple of years ago, I jumped on board. I gave the guy in the little ticket building at the top a handful of quarters and spent about two hours just riding up and down. Both the ticket guy and I lost count of my rides. I took a ton of pictures of people riding the cars, but most of them were crap (so it goes).

Still, I had a good time in the Disneyland of my mind. Thanks, funicular people.

Exhibition

In association with the Los Angeles Downtown Art Walk News, I will be showing selected prints at the historic landmark Earnest A. Batchelder Chocolate Shop at 220 W. 6th Street in downtown LA, Sept 11, 2014.

A Tentacle at the Last Bookstore

Every once in awhile I stop by my neighborhood bookstore (The Last Bookstore) and stroll around the aisles. It's always an interesting place, which not only seems to have more and more used and new books every time I go, but art as well. This intriguing item was mounted on the second floor balcony. I have no idea what it's about.

The Last Bookstore, interior (C) 2014

Recent cover shot for a good cause

My multiple exposure sequence of a bicyclist (just 8 layers in Photoshop) in downtown LA's green bicycle lane was recently used for the cover of the Southern California Association of Governments PDF guide for municipalities in planning for bikes and bicycle usage.

Cropped a little and it looks like this. 

Since I'm a big fan of urban bike riding and bicycle lanes, I waived the stock usage fee and just billed them for the file processing and upload.

Bike on, y'all!

Vintage Trouble street portraits

For the last several years I've been documenting the work of Los Angeles artist Robert Vargas as he produces great portraits of passers-by on the streets on Downtown LA. From time to time, he also sketches someone not-so-anonymous, and in this case, was drawing portraits of the members of the terrific blues band Vintage Trouble. Nalle is now using this image as his Facebook profile pic.

I caught these images of lead guitarist Nalle Colt and drummer Richard Danielson while they waited their turn to be drawn by Vargas.

Seasons greetings

Window shopping for a Santa Claus, Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles

Hollywood at my front door

For the last couple of weeks, Downtown LA streets have been blocked every which-a-way. You had a Japanese religious festival, a commercial video for a downscale Honda Accord zooming down 4th, the filming of a Gray's Anatomy special, and the biggie, an upcoming TV series production. I suppose I should be blasé about all this stuff, but, hey, DTLA is practically Hollywood's back lot and who can hate that?

Seen here is the view from the 2nd floor mezzanine of my apartment building in the heart of Downtown, a live-action shot from the upcoming "Ironsides" TV series, with Blair Underwood in the wheelchair. (Notice the production stills photographer at the front of the NYPD cop car? Sweet job.)

This scene is staged and lit as a night scene, even though it was only about 6 PM with sunset an hour and a half away, and the RAW's histogram is actually pretty flat. In pre-visualizing the final image, I wanted to duplicate the look of a prime-time TV production, which these days features low-key lighting, lots of gamma tweaking & deep shadows for "atmosphere" and shifting the color temperatures high into the blue. Edited in Lightroom 4.3 with my own home-brew 'Cinema Blue' preset, and finished in Photoshop CS6.

Mural "Lady of DTLA" finally finished

Los Angeles artist Robert Vargas has been working on a mural for the Gallery Row district of downtown L.A. for the last two weeks, and yours truly has been documenting the whole thing.

We'll be publishing a book detailing the whole soup-to-nuts shortly. In the meantime, there are a bunch of images of the process on my Facebook page.

Also, too, a big shout-out to Isabel Rojas-Williams of the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles for her invaluable assistance.

Keep your eyes on this space.