Bill Leyden's Blog

Wolfs Robe can’t help playing no matter what the weather condition!

Los Angeles-based writer/director steps under an arcade for me to get this study. Look for his feature Painting in the Rain, now in post-production.

I am always interested to see what this mother/daughter team will want to do for their annual portrait. This year we visited a botanical garden near Palos Verdes, CA. I ran for shade, as the sun was stark this day.

Cristal is at the age where she would rather be texting, and did so during every break; I just kept shooting!

For mother/daughter shots.

The end of the day of the end of the weekend.

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I returned to Sedona to photograph Wolfs Robe.  We ended up driving to the south rim of the Grand Canyon to make some images.  I love this one:

The clouds started to darken and then the clouds burst.  But we kept shooting in the rain.

Luckily the equipment and Wolfs Robe survived the cloudburst and we got some additional great images.

In an intimate theater near Hollywood, an actor rehearses her one-woman show as her director, Rod Menzies looks on.

It may be harder than it looks!

After a brief coaching, she delivers the performance.

Deedee was about that specific about where she wanted to take her senior picture.  I wanted it to be a good one,  so I suggested a park in Malibu.

It was 102 degrees in Malibu Creek State Park (nice sweater), but the Creek was still running.  We found the oak trees and and the creek and made some images.

I left the radio controller in the car and grabbed the Monte silver reflector to bring a touch of directional light from her right side.

I love it when images like this come right out of the camera.  Thank you, Monte!

When Prana asked to be photographed, I gently approached the idea of a location. I was hoping he would say, “I like the water,” which he did.

So we went down to the Santa Monica Pier at about dusk.

I thought of Monte’s rule, “when you’re outdoors, run for cover! [to find directional light].”

So I led him and my assistant under the pier, where the light at dusk metered at about F4.0 at ASA 1000, 1/60 sec.

I placed a radio-controlled bare-bulb flash to his right and a remote kicker behind him and took the shot.

Now that’s fun!