Get comfortable. A lot happened this weekend.

Friday & The Saturday Photo-shoot
On Friday, I ran around getting ready for my two big shoots. I had coffee with JCS and went to bed later than I would have liked, but I was ready to go. Saturday morning, I awoke at 6am, made coffee, showered and waited for everyone to show up. The clients and 3 out of the 6 models were on time. We decided to wait for the remaining models. One called and was hopelessly lost on the other side of town. From the 710 FWY, there are signs that say “Pasadena”, but you can’t actually get to Pasadena unless you know your way through the streets of Alhambra; which most people don’t. He’d meet us at the location later. Once there, we set up in a side alley about a block from Old Town Pasadena. I’d warned everyone that we might encounter conscientious objectors, but no one bothered us the entire shoot. Pasadena has very strict photography permit rules and we hadn’t followed any of them.

The entire shoot ran about 3 hours and couldn’t have gone smoother. The models I’d brought in were all wonderful, fun, and easy to work with. I love them all. As for the other two that didn’t show, nary a peep from either of them. We made due and made it work. The clients were amazing and so totally easy to get along with. They trusted my judgment, let me make creative decisions, paid me, and thought I was brilliant. My kind of clients. I really hope I get to work with them again.

I spent most of the shoot in the sun and even got a little tan. I can’t remember the last time I had this much color in my skin. We all parted ways and I collapsed on the bed for four hours hard.

GLOW
I’d heard about an exciting art experience in Santa Monica called GLOW. I told AJB about it and we’d decided we shouldn’t miss it. The idea was that large light installations were going to be set up around Santa Monica, on the beach, and on the pier. It would run from 7pm to dawn. Neat idea, right? We picked up Dave, Jason, and their friend Matt. When we got there, the entire city was jam-packed with tourists and people who don’t generally get out to art shows. I mean, packed! We checked out a few of the installations and to be honest, they weren’t all that great. I expected something that made me go “WOOOOOW“, but most everything made me go, “Yeah, I guess that’s cool“. The best part of the night was hanging out with the 3 bears. They’re all so hilarious and cuddly, I can’t stand it. As for Dave, I love hanging out with him because he’s a pretty amazing guy. Smart, sweet, adorable, the gay version of my boyfriend. Seriously. They even dress the same. LOL.

After several hours of gazing upon mediocre art, we were all starving. Except, we’d spend the next 45 minutes in the parking garage trying to get out. As Jason put it, “volume and ineptitude” were the cause. By the time we got out, we were all REALLY starving. It was after midnight, maybe even 1am. We ate at Mel’s Diner, stuffed our faces, and went home. Home by 2am. I still had to get ready for the shoot on Sunday. In bed by 3:30am. Memories of great conversation and humorous anecdotes filled my head.

Sunday Shoot
Exhausted from yesterday, I woke up and downed a 5-Hour Energy Drink. They work like a charm, by the way. We started a little later and had only a fraction of Saturday’s items to shoot. T-Shirts again, only this time designed by an architecture student and much more artistic. I met him at the Southern California Institute for Architecture in the heart of the Arts District of Downtown. We couldn’t get into the school, so we drove around the streets of Downtown looking for a place. We found one about a block away. It was ghetto, but quiet. Sunday always is.

The client brought in his friends for models. I’d asked a great model I know to show up, but he didn’t. I wouldn’t find out what happened until later. The shoot went well. All the client’s model/friends were great and easy to work with. I’m also so much better at lighting than I ever have been. I love it. I love knowing what I’m doing and doing it well. We were done in a few hours, but still had to do some flat shots of some glow-in-the-dark shirts. We couldn’t find a dark enough place, nor an outlet to plug the black light into. So I left with the shirts and will do them at home. And I got paid. A great day by all accounts. I came home again and crashed.

The Download Festival
AJB’s delightful British cousin is married to a rock star from a band that AJB calls “A connoisseur’s band”. They’re not hugely popular in the states, but any band worth it’s salt knows who they are and has been influenced by them. What’s strange is that I know who they are and have loved their music since high school; so it’s weird that we have one of the band members in the family. Right? Very strange, but so unbelievably cool. We try to see him when he comes to town on tour. The band was here for The Download Festival, which may as well been called “The Down Low Festival”…no one knew about it and it hardly sold out. About 20 bands, most of which were small-time or unknown. A few name brands, but nothing of note.

Gang of Four and The Jesus and Mary Chain were headlining – which made me very happy. By the time they came on, the crowd had dwindled down and the amphitheater was half empty. Regardless, Gang of Four, with what seemed like an undying amount of energy, rocked the house and swept the remaining crowd off their feet. You could tell at first, the kids there didn’t know what to do with them. However, by the middle half of their set, the kids were romanced by the rock and jumping for joy. It was pretty amazing. Most concerts I go to, the people in attendance already know the band. Here we had a bunch of curious kids who, at first, didn’t know what to think, until finally, they flowed into full concert mode. Great. I’ve never quite seen a crowd won-over by a band.

AJB went backstage to meet his cousin-in-law-rockstar and I stayed behind to see The Jesus and Mary Chain. It was alright. Not quite as good as when I saw them at The Wiltern a few months back, but JAMC are never a bad idea, even if the sound was bad and they had to stop and re-start one of their songs. It was a short set. Afterward, AJB came back for me and took me backstage. You’d think that sort of thing is really exciting, but it’s just sort of normal. I mean, it’s cool as fuck, but I didn’t really see any huge stars or anything. Miscellaneous family members were there. We all hung out, talked and decided to go eat. We ended up at Bubba Gump’s at City Walk- which is a Forrest Gump themed restaurant that serves seafood and…you guessed it, shrimp. I had a salad. Cousin-in-law-rockstar was in good form, we all gabbed and had a great time. I still think it’s weird to hang out with someone who’s music I’ve listened to since I was a teen. Very surreal. Fucking fantastic, but surreal. We drove AG back to his hotel and dragged our tired asses home. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

Probably the busiest weekend ever. The most exciting, jam-packed, weekend. Two paid photo-shoots, a mediocre art show, a rock concert, and hanging out with rock-stars. Yeah. Good times. Sometimes I step outside my life and think, how did I get here?

I finally heard from the MIA models. If you guessed they’d overslept, you’d be right. One, however, told me he wasn’t aware that Pasadena was so far and didn’t have a ride. I mean, seriously. He’d known about the location for several days. And even though the location wasn’t finalized until Thursday, I told everyone it would most likely be Los Angeles or Pasadena. Anyway. Oh well. Everything went great. I’d decided to chide my Sunday model for being unreliable when I’d talked him up as being reliable, but it took a lot out of me, so I’ve waited to chide the other two until today. It’s hard being a hard ass. My first instincts are to say, “Oh, that’s alright, don’t worry about it“, but the truth is, not showing up to a shoot really puts a kink in the day’s planning and it’s just not cool to say you’re gonna be there and then not. None of the models got paid, but even so, these shoots are great for networking and gaining real world experience. If you’re a model, in the beginning, you have to do unpaid gigs. You get paid with your images and use them for your portfolio. It’s a trade and a pretty good one, if I do say so. I’ve done my fair share of free work for portfolio filler. It’s how things work. Anyway, enough of that.

I’m still pretty beat up from this weekend, but it was filled with so many wonderful moments. It feeds my soul. Friends, family, boyfriend, music, art, paid work. Ah. Life is good. As I drove home from the Sunday shoot, I thought about the weekend at hand and all of a sudden, a thought flashed in, “You’d better be grateful“. I am. I really am.

I’m gonna loaf for most of the day. Maybe watch Muriel’s Wedding on DVD. I have about a billion images to go through.