The making of.....

A photographer friend asked how I made the first shot of the coming to LA story. I had to make another one for my client Kristen Don and thought I would record it for your viewing pleasure. Most of the time I am a "get it right in camera" kind of guy but there are times when it just makes more sense to leave your self some photoshop work. The location for the highway with the view of the city was an hour away and I knew we were not going to fit it in into our schedule. Since I was building the image in photoshop anyway I made the city a little closer than it normally is. It took me about 45 minutes to complete the the final image but here you see it in super fast motion.

Making of from Carl Stevens on Vimeo.

Back to the Lakefont

Now that I'm back in Milwaukee I can get back to my lakefront waves project. These images were taken at Doctors Park, a park I remember going to as a child with my father. He would go down to the beach and make sculptures out of drift wood with his friends. I might try my hand at that on my next visit and photograph the results.

One More

Last night I was going over some of the images from my road trip that didn't make it to the blog. I managed to find one more to post. The mountain stream in this image is almost glowing. Most of my images are color but sometimes removing that color can add so much to the image. It was taken on my first drive through the Superstition Mountains of Arizona so I was thinking of "Superstitious Fog" as the title.

Coming to LA: a fashion story

I had the privilege of working with a talented fashion designer in Los Angeles last week. We came up with a fashion story about a girl who comes to Los Angeles and becomes a star. It's the same dream that everyone has when they come to Hollywood. The story fallows our protagonist as she hitchhikes to the city, finds her new home, reads some scripts, has a head shot done, and becomes famous. I love the first shot, downtown Los Angeles reminds me of the first shot of the emerald city at the edge of the poppy field in The Wizard of OZ.

The Road Home

The road home was full of long days in the car. It has been amazing being on the road these last two months. The rumble of the engine on my feet the feel of the rising sun on my back and a horizon begging to be found.