Luminaire Images Blog • by Molly Ann

I’m wearing my shirt proudly today:

Brides, check out Great Green Weddings for tips on how to make yours eco-friendly!

Photographers, be sure to check out Photojojo’s Top 10 Tips for Greener Photography!

Jannette and Pascal
04.19.08
The Hacienda
Santa Ana, CA

This weekend was a very special wedding: it was Matt’s first shoot with me! He did a very good job capturing the magic that I couldn’t when I was preoccupied elsewhere. Thanks, Matt!

The sa-weeeeet bouquet by wonder woman Nancy at Flowers on Mars. I think the little gems are a nice touch…

Jannette’s dress was better than a hundred Monique Lhuilliers, Vera Wangs, and Oscar de la Rentas combined…because her mother made it! Jannette’s mom has actually been creating custom wedding dresses herself for over 20 years!!

Hee!

The stunning Jannette

ZZZZAP!!!! Don’t those electric blues just shoot right through you?

Pascal, who happens to be from Belgium. When I asked him how he wound up in Los Angeles, he deadpanned, “Flew in on a plane.” Smartass!

Check out the boutonniere Nancy designed for him…I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, it seriously looks like it was plucked from a fairy tale forest glade.

Matt caught this trippy shot right outside the hotel and it just zonks me every time I look at it. Can you see why? Trippy!!

Taken by Matt of Jannette and Pascal’s little girl Angelique.

Another by Matt prior to the ceremony. Angelique’s expression cracks me up every time I look at this.

We had the best lighting ever that day…gauzy clouds and no harsh sun. If you’re getting married soon, be sure to order a nice partially overcast day for your wedding (lol)!

A great capture by Matt, with some “God-Light” added

Pascal being a big ol’ goof!

I could tell that Pascal really, REALLY wanted to do some facial cake-smashing, but Jannette begged him not to.

He tried to anyway, and look what happened!

Now THAT is the enthusiasm that I like to see!!

Visual Style: I remember a cinematography teacher telling me once that it’s something that’s acquired through time and experience. A style basically lives within you and can only be perceived after you’ve become comfortable with what you’re doing, and have a sizable body of work to illustrate it.

Anyway, in the past few months I’ve been asked more than once to describe my visual “style,” and most of the time words completely fail me; connecting visual images with concrete words is like fusing left and right brain functions and I can’t just turn that sort of thing on and off like a faucet…I need help!

Luckily, one of the seminars I happened to attend at WPPI touched on this and the speaker suggested that in order to help decide how to best describe one’s “style”, I should pick ten words that I think best fits my photos, and then ask other people to pick five of those ten that they think best fits my photos.

So here it is, people. The ten words that, after much deliberation, I was able to come up with to describe the majority of my work. Now it’s your turn! Pick five from the following eleven (I thought more might make it easier?) that you think best describes my style:

Photojournalistic
Natural
Emotive/Emotional
Relaxed
Artistic
Cinematic
Creative
Genuine
Sensitive
Insightful
Merry

If you think there’s a word missing from this list that you believe definitely belongs up there, submit that too, and I’ll accept it as a “write-in,” hee!

Thanks, everyone!

PS, Thesarus.com is your friend

Time for some featured links!

Light Graffiti
Maybe you’ve seen the sweet Sprint commercials where dozens of slow-exposure stills are run together to create the effect of moving light streaks—very artistic, and apparently now a trend. It’s easy enough to do (I remember trying to effectively mimic this 1924 photo of Picasso painting with light when I was little, using sparklers), all you really require is a flashlight, and a camera.

You can also watch this video of German artist “lichtfaktor“, who I believe is best known for “Light Writing” art, and check out his equipment:

We’re having a heat wave here in Southern California this weekend—it’s so humid, it totally feels tropical, but that doesn’t make the heat less bearable!

Which is why I think I’m going to switch off this afternoon to conserve energy. After all, I don’t want any of my appliances sucking up more power than they need to be!

Last week I had the supreme pleasure of shooting a smokin’ hot TFCD session, thrown together by me and makeup artiste extraordinaire, Jessica.

Marianna getting prepped by Jess and stylist Jeff Stump

Jess really did a slick job on the makeup.

We found this field of mustard-weed in full bloom (seriously, the plant is everywhere right now), and I can’t believe how high it grows! A lot of it was taller than us!

The flowers remind me of little suspended galaxies. They may be weeds, but big fields of them are definitely beautiful.

I think Marianna has this natural gorgeousness to her that you see a lot in surfwear ads and magazines. So I was really feelin’ the vintage color here.

This weekend I had the unique opportunity to shoot some production stills for an independent movie my friends Ed and Tim are making.

A little known fact about me (I guess), in a past life I was on film sets ALLL the time. I majored in cinematography in college so I’m familiar with a lot of the equipment, lingo, positions, and nature of film crews and film sets. It’s been years, though; as much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t pursue cinematography as a career because I decided that the lifestyle didn’t suit me. Seriously, most of the time moviemaking only sounds glamorous.

Anyway, I didn’t wind up on this production due to any of my film school contacts, many of whom I still keep in touch with. No, I know Ed and Tim from weddings! They’re both videographers who work in “the biz” from time to time on the side.

So it was fun to be on set again and this time leisurely taking pictures instead of rigging lights, or coiling cables, or fretting over schedules like how it was in college. The film was a horror movie and the scenes I was present for involved a Halloween costume party, which is why people are dressed in literal costumes.

I had fun.

Tim is such a huge goofball. Here he is groping a set prop.

Andrew, an 18-year-old grip

One of the actors, Phillip, just prior to shooting a scene.

I love this image, it reminds me of something I’d see in Life. It’s just the gaffer (light rigger) goofing off. There is usually lots of fooling around on sets.

Ed being director-ly

Ed and Amy, the producer

I also really like this shot

Tim

Andrew having some fun on the makeshift “dolly”—a wheelchair.

This picture of one of the actors in costume isn’t really one of my favorites, I’m just including it because I marvel at how much beer they had on set. Whether it was for the cast, crew, or set dressing, I am entirely unsure. I’ve never seen so many cases of liquor on a movie set before.