So
I am on the Expo line between Culver City and downtown Los Angeles
when suddenly 5 people get on. We are about to all be part of a
fashion shoot.
The
subjects are two oriental, probably Japanese, young women in some
sort of friendly but conservative sports wear. They sit together on
one of the rows of the train across from me and engage in a pseudo
conversation under the direction of the photographer.
The
photographer is a young woman in perhaps her early 30s. She is
dressed in full hipster scruffy and directs the fashion models and
takes 99 percent of the pictures over the next 10 plus minutes. She has
not one but two assistants, one of whom, the lead assistant, wins the
award for full-scruffy regalia. I was not close enough to tell, but
from appearances we would guess he had not shaved or bathed for a
solid week if not more. The other assistant was primarily a big
fellow who watched over and carried the various tripods and backpacks
filled with equipment that was not being used right that second.
The
equipment in use seemed to be two bodies, one of them the high end
Canon, and one of them a Sony, what I believe must have been a
full-frame sensor mirrorless body with a Canon lens adapter on it.
But it could have been any of the Sony full-frame bodies for all I
could tell. There were two lenses in use, both of them Canon zooms,
what I think was the 28-70 MM and the 70-200 MM zoom which was the
lens most in use. Both bodies were used about equally, but with lens
switches it was the 70-200 MM mostly in use.
From
time to time the scruffy lead photographer, a very entertaining
looking woman who shot the entire time with very dark sunglasses on
(I dont actually understand how you do photography with very dark
sunglasses the whole time, but thats just me) would give direction to
the models, the jist of which was that they should pretend to chatter
away like best friends saying absolutely nothing of consequence.
I
would guess that about 500-600 photographs were taken in the 10 minutes they were on the train. This is a very loose estimate based on at least one photograph per second for 10 minutes. Often it seemed the lead photographer was shooting more than 1 per second.
I
would guess that the two zoom lenses were a matched set, in other
words, between the two of them we had the full range of 28 mm to 200
mm, and that she needed that flexibility to compose the shots given
that she could not easily change her position in the train.
As an additional accessory to this glamourous fashion shoot, having a British accent may be useful. She certainly seemed to have one, at least as far as I could tell the few times I heard her speak.
At
one point during this period, two very colorful men of color with
disabilities, large and profane of speech, got on and I felt would be
very entertaining backgrounds but I think she composed them out of
the shoot because I did not notice anyone getting any kind of rights
waiver.
After
about 10 plus minutes of this, the whole crew got off on a stop and
quite possibly got on the same train going the other direction. This
you could repeat as long as you liked while the light was available,
in other words for hours.
As
always, it is entertaining to watch professionals at work. The thing
that particularly stood out to me was that every time I have seen a
professional of this type on location, there was at least one
assistant and in this case two. Also, there was no toy equipment.
Obviously everything was digital, there were no film changes but that
is what we would expect. I was impressed and surprised to see the
Sony body as the second body. I have heard that this was happening
and obviously this is good for Sony. It perhaps makes them the third
professional photography brand behind Canon and Nikon.
Earlier
in the day, in Culver City, I had walked by a film shoot on location
and I asked what project. The security guard said it was a
commercial. So that suggests that on this Sunday we had not one but
two professional commercial shoots going on in Culver City that I just happened to run into. This suggests to
me that advertising production is healthy in Los Angeles, which is
certainly good for the economy.