beauty

Throwback Thursday AGAIN! — Fashion’s Night Out 2011 in Beverly Hills

Getting back to some Leica photography. The date has been announced for the annual Fashion’s Night Out 2012 and it is September 6th.

Sooo… this entry today here at 50lux.com has a triple purpose.

First, I would like to give Leica and other lowlight shooters a heads-up to the coming FNO extravaganza, Vogue Magazine’s world-wide phenomena and to let you all know that this very impressive event is probably coming to a city somewhere near you.

It’s an incredible opportunity to get out and photograph great style and beauty and all in the vibrant colors and exact low-light conditions where our super-fast Leica glass really shows its stuff.

Second, of course, I want to showcase my own humble efforts in that regard from last year. All the images you see here were shot on film, with my trusty M7. Mostly with a Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5 mounted, but there’s more than a few with the Leica 35mm Summicron 2.0 ASPH. Also shot mostly Kodak 800 Ultramax film but I also put a couple of rolls of TMAX 32oo through the M7 which I will post in a few days.

But now, and thirdly, I’m also going to turn my attention to a gentle constructive review of the event itself with the hope that this critique will find whomever might be in the organizing group planning this year’s festivities in Beverly Hills, where the FNO event I attended took place. You’ll get an idea of why I would want to get this into their hands if you read on.

Okay, right up front I should say that my attending last year’s Fashion’s Night Out in Beverly Hills event was for the sole purpose of shooting some frames of fast film with some even faster Leica and Zeiss glass mounted on my M7.

But I’m a critical sort. So in between trying to catch some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my camera’s viewfinder, I did manage to cast a critical eye towards the event itself.

First, I think it’s a great idea. I’m a photographer. I love beauty and fashion. I have no connection, however, with the beauty or fashion industry as a photographer, or in any other way except as a admiring male who doesn’t leer from behind a camera.

Much. Come on, I am perfectly capable of taking a great picture of a beautiful woman without leering. In theory.

Anyway, I didn’t attend the event in 2010 so I have no reference point to compare 2011 with the previous year. But I was surprised at how little there was actually going on at this event on the very premier boulevard of shopping and fashion: Rodeo of Beverly Hills.

Leica M7, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar 1.5

Not to be overly critical, but I expected many small continuous fashion shows outside of some of the major trendy stores. A little more effort from the big fashion houses. An appreciable media presence. A few big names.

Pretty much nothing like that here. There was a set up for a fashion show, so maybe I was late. Got there at 8:00 and the event was scheduled till 10:00. Stores were pretty much an indoor thing, just like any other day. Except this was night.

There was a makeover area which was certainly busy. A street portrait artist working in charcoal, I believe. Food was supplied by a handful of not very interesting food trucks. People were lounging on the curb eating.

At one or two of the stores, there was an actual doorman allowing entry to only, I supposed, an invited few. Nice touch there as some pretty fancy Beverly Hills wives were turned away. Ouch. I have pictures of that.

I’m sorry, BH. I just think this is a great idea that should be done with a little more attention to class and detail and results. The number of people in attendance clearly demonstrated that there is an appetite for this type of event right there on Rodeo Drive.

Come on, Beverly Hills, you can do much MUCH better than this.

That said, please enjoy the pictures.

db

Leica M7, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5, Kodak Ultra 800

LEICA M7, 35mm Summicron-M 2.0 ASPH

Leica M7, 35mm Sumicron 2.0 ASPH

Leica M7, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5

Click on these last two shots for larger versions.

Leica M7, Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5

Winogrand at the Met: The Genius of His Reviled Late Works

donald barnat / 50lux.com

There’s an anecdote buried deep inside the footnotes of the catalog for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Garry Winogrand survey that speaks volumes about the present exhibition. In it, his better known contemporary, Lee Friedlander, watches Winogrand release the shutter of his camera with nearly every passerby encountered on a New York street. Thirty years after Winogrand’s quick dispatch from cancer in 1984, Friedlander’s shocked response to his friend’s incontinence appears more informative than lapidary: “Garry, you’re not photographing, you’re taking the census.”

via Garry Winogrand at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Genius of His Reviled Late Works.

donald barnat / 50lux.com

Style Recollections

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Some women and their personal styles are timeless. Simple and sharp like the young lady above. Some are more complicated. 😉 These are all from the Nikon days.

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Happy Birthday, Mrs. 50Lux!!!

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Happy Birthday, Sweetie!!!

To know you is to know someone special,
Someone with a warm and thoughtful way
Of making life especially nice for others
And adding so much sunshine to each day…

To know you is to want you to be happy
To have your every wish and dream come true
And so, not just at birthday time, but always,
You’re wished the best that life can bring to you!

Love you! Have a great day!

bern
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Jessica Alba’s Back

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I attended a luncheon on Friday that had originally been scheduled at the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel. Well, as the principle owner of the Pink Palace is the Sultan of Brunei, and Brunei has just passed laws permitting the stoning of women for… well… we can stop right there. What else do you think anyone here in LA needed to know? Event cancellations become the norm for the Beverly Hills Hotel and this particular event, The Helping Hands 2014 Mother of the Year awards, was moved to the Beverly Hilton.

Anyway, Jessica Alba was awarded 2014 Mother of the Year. We all sat down and ate our lunch and I, of course, had no idea that the movie star was sitting about ten feet directly behind me. I was there as a guest and I couldn’t stalk the situation for shots or even make myself obvious to anyone. My Leica M-E is discreet, that’s for sure. But I wasn’t able to get up from my seat and take images.

Nevertheless, I was able to grab a handful but certainly nothing to write home about. I sure hope the shots at least get you in the room for a moment. 😉

Thank you!

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T-Max 3200 at Beverly Hills Fashion’s Night Out 2011

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A Rodeo Drive Wedding

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Sussudio

20131108-L1034903I don’t know if I can explain the title here… or if I should even try. It’s just the whole beyond carefree package of LA woman. Age? Ambiguous. Toned and striding up a tonier part of the Sunset Strip in the soft California winter light. Everything that her clothes and confidence and the zip code she’s owning right there conjures up for me exactly the girl I always pictured when I heard that great Phil Collins song.

Proof of Heaven

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Okay, the thing is, it’s here on Earth and it’s just for some lucky guy down in Laguna Niguel, Orange County, CA. But there it is. And we can all experience heaven vicariously through him, right?

Actually, I’m pretty much in heaven shooting this Leica 90mm Elmarit 2.8. Oh yes I am. This image above is actually a crop of the one below.

Now I could have cropped to the blonde in the thong. Yes, she is blonde and she is wearing a thong. Then many of you would probably be in heaven for a moment or two. But you’d hate yourselves later and I wouldn’t want that. 😉

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Nikon at the Playboy Mansion

Reblogging this one from June of last year.

donald barnat's avatar50'Lux

To mark the passing of Hugh Hefner I’m reposting this from years gone by. RIP Hef. Lord knows you’d need some rest by now. 😉

So let me tell you the story.

I get a call from a BET producer on a Friday night asking if I can go shoot an event for her at the Playboy Mansion the next night. It might come as a surprise to most people but the Playboy Mansion is the site of innumerable charity functions. I’d been up there before. Swam in the grotto pool. Blah blah blah.

But never, slow my rapidly beating heart, had I ever been there with a camera and a press credential.

So of course, I say yes! The problem, however, is that at that time in my life my health was absolutely miserable. So when the next day dawned blisteringly hot, I was both sick and apprehensive.

To…

View original post 481 more words

La Reina Blanca

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Never saw a woman so alone

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It’s only a lyric from the Doors’ classic LA Woman. Not saying the images don’t reflect my impressions based on the postures and expressions of the subjects of these photographs. But they’re only my creative  projections. Don’t sue me, ladies!

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The Unconventional Sharing of a Hoodie

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Public transportation, the lowly bus, doesn’t roll over the rarified pavement of Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue anywhere near as often as it does a mile or so south, on the more common asphalt of Wilshire Blvd. So these ladies were waiting a long time on a gloomy chilly late afternoon just a stone’s throw from the icy Pacific. July notwithstanding. Sooner or later people will do what they have to to keep warm. The not-poor things. 😉 Top photo is the last (or thereabouts) in the sequence.

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Gorgeous

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Pretty Shabby Chic: Fashion’s Night Out 2011 in Beverly Hills

Reposting an old entry from last year for all my new beauty and fashion followers.

donald barnat's avatar50'Lux

Getting back to some Leica photography. The date has been announced for the annual Fashion’s Night Out 2012 and it is September 6th.

Sooo… this entry today here at 50lux.com has a triple purpose.

First, I would like to give Leica and other lowlight shooters a heads-up to the coming FNO extravaganza, Vogue Magazine’s world-wide phenomena and to let you all know that this very impressive event is probably coming to a city somewhere near you.

It’s an incredible opportunity to get out and photograph great style and beauty and all in the vibrant colors and exact low-light conditions where our super-fast Leica glass really shows its stuff.

Second, of course, I want to showcase my own humble efforts in that regard from last year. All the images you see here were shot on film, with my trusty M7. Mostly with a Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f1.5 mounted, but there’s more…

View original post 541 more words

The Three Graces

triplets at night_barnat1600I took this shot about five years ago and have never really shown it to anyone. I think the reason for that is that I never thought I could adequately explain how amazing it is to me. I guess I’ve felt it needed explaining and I guess I’m finally in the mood now to try.

No part of the West LA area is really that bad. But this is nearly as gritty a corner on the Westside as there is. It’s directly underneath the intersection of the 405 and 10 freeways, which is to say, the junction of the two busiest roadways in the United States of America. There are homeless people camped out under the overpasses and exit ramps. It was fairly late in the evening. The feel there at that hour is probably worse than the reality. Or vice versa. Who really knows?

I travel by that way innumerable times a year. At any hour, but especially late in the evening, the very LAST thing you would expect to find there is three truly lovely sisters, possibly triplets, on bicycles, cooling their jets waiting for the light to change. Trust me, you just don’t see this in LA at that hour. In most of Los Angeles, they kind of roll up the sidewalks. That’s a common complaint of people from New York and elsewhere who have moved to LA from cities with a more active night life.

I’m a man. The car was being driven by my lady of 38 years. We both were like, DID YOU SEE THAT? And then she asks, Did you GET it? I don’t know how I got it. The green light was with us and we never even slowed down going through the intersection. I probably was pre-focused to some degree and the amazing Nikon D3 sang the song. I put the camera to my face, framed the ladies and slammed down the shutter release. It just happened. It’s one of those moments that makes me so happy that I had a camera, not to create some work of art or anything like that, but just to capture the natural beauty I witnessed there at the grimy and otherwise unsightly corner of Sawtelle and Pico Blvds that night.

Alone, a younger man, I would have probably slammed on the brakes and went down the line asking for their hands in marriage. Because these sisters are not afraid of the dark or probably anything else. I thought maybe there was someone filming them, like a reality show or something. Truly gutsy young ladies. And reason #90454 I’m glad I never had children.

Not sure what was going on here…

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I know it’s Polish model Joanna Krupa. But I don’t understand the photography aspect. Can’t be paparazzi, they’re too geared up and professional and paparazzi would have NO interest in whatever her name is. Can’t be a photo shoot. Photo shoots uh.. usually involve ONE photographer. Why would there be so many photographers fighting for a shot? Of Joanna Krupa. I just don’t get this. Someone enlighten me please. The only thing I can think of is that she’s got a really good publicist and it was a slow day in pseudo-celebrity land.

Fashion’s Night Out Beverly Hills 2011: T-MAX P3200

Leica M7, Zeiss 50 Sonnar 1.5, T-MAX P3200 (click for larger version)

Nothing much to say here. Just a slideshow from a couple of rolls of this very fast and grainy film. I liked it. I just didn’t really have the easiest time scanning it. Actually shooting it was also something to get used to as well. Would have to get used to it and think about shooting it much differently than I did.