Eileen Davidson photographed by Eric Schwabel

Just a quick glimpse of my shoot with actress Eileen Davidson at her Malibu home.

Eileen is probably best known for her role on “the Young and the Resless.”  I looked up the full name of her character and, according to Wikipedia, it’s Ashley Abbott Lassiter Newman Bladeson Howard Carlton Newman McCall

Eileen was wonderful and a gracious host for our quick shoot, a true beauty inside and out.

This is an ongoing project I’m working on with artist Mb Boissonnault.  I decided to begin a project that would allow me to explore video.  Coming from still photography, that meant beginning where I left off with the “Faces” portraits.

Shot on a Nikon D7000, Sennheiser shotgun mic, and some home-made lighting.

Next task is to add a little sound isolation to the studio.

My Human Light Suit project was recently featured in “Vegas Rated,” a beautiful publication (something that you can’t say about too many of ‘em lately) that is, in fact, precisely what it’s title suggests.  Pick it up at your local news stand and check it out!

Shooting Male: Limited Edition by Eric Schwabel

In 2009, Bruno Gmünder published a collection of my work.  I was 28 at the time and… Shall we say… excited.  3,000 copies of the first edition were printed.

This very limited edition re-release contains, as far as I am aware, the last copies remaining (we sold out of our copies ages ago, but they are still floating around on Amazon).  I’ve produced three new covers, each one in a run of only 100 copies, signed and numbered.  An 8×10 photograph is included with each book as well.

I’m honored to have had Ian Roberts write the introduction, with a second introduction by the model who inspired me to shoot this body of work, Matt York.

Shooting Male is hardbound, 120 pages, and printed in Germany.

Get your copy at schwabelstudio.bigcartel.com while they’re still around!

A peek inside for you below…

Prints from Shooting Male are available at archives.schwabelstudio.com

Adam Lambert photographed by Eric Schwabel for the Advocate

View the Advocate article and photos at http://news.advocate.com/post/11571958893/reinventing-adam-lambert

I had the great pleasure of working with Adam Lambert recently for this Advocate cover shoot, which came out today. This was one of the more unique shoot days I’ve ever experienced (on par with photographing Kirk Douglas at his home), as the Advocate wanted not just the set-up cover shot, but a number of candid photos of Adam going about his day.  So, about 15 seconds after we were introduced, I was in his car, speeding through Hollywood, my crew following behind.  We joked that it was a slightly awkward introduction, I met him, I’m in his car, I have a camera in his face. We both knew the job though and went about it, and snapped some pretty great shots, not all of which made it to publication.

Adam Lambert photographed by Eric Schwabel for the Advocate

Adam and I spent a bit of time chatting in the car between each location (and getting yelled at by a gas station manager for taking pictures — but I was able to calm him down…).  It turned out we were both headed to Burning Man in a few weeks, so that was the main topic of discussion.

I shot the candids on my Nikon D7000, with the occasional reflector fill.

Our final location was the recording studio where Adam was preparing his latest single and album (this is his official 2nd album, dropping in Q1 2012, the single, I’m told is coming out in November).  We set up a few shots in the studio but ultimately opted for the outdoor location for the cover shot, which made me a happy camper – I love photographing mixed light outdoor situations, and the grounds of the studio seemed to match Adam’s vibe for this new album.

The studio shots were all shot on my Mamiya with the DM28 digital back – very similar to the setup I used at Burning Man.

Adam was a gracious host to myself and my crew (a few asked for autographs when we were done), very focused on getting the shots and trusting both our teams to get it done. I have to thank Adam and his team for their help, and also to Advocate Creative Director Scott McPherson and Editor Michael Breen.

 

Adam Lambert photographed by Eric Schwabel at Real Raw Live

Adam Lambert photographed by Eric Schwabel

Martin Sugarman sat down with us for the Friends and Neighbors series of video portraits.  Martin is a former war photographer who founded the surf culture magazine “H20.” He is heavily involved in the Venice area arts scene, and recently had a show at the Distillery‘s very own Drive-By Gallery…  Marty in his own words:

Angel was our 10th subject for this video portrait series. I met her through a mutual friend, she did hair and makeup for a number of photographs in my book, “Shooting Male.” We hadn’t spoken in a while, the consequence of busy schedules and living on opposite sides of LA, but I called her for this project for two reasons, (1) I knew she would have something interesting to say and (2) I personally wanted to know more about her.

The “Friends and Neighbors” project is a collaboration between myself and artist Mb Boissonnault.  It originally began as interviews with people from the Venice, CA area (where both Mb’s and my studios are located) but expanded quickly. Mb masterfully guided each subject through the process and many of them ended up making very similar points.  After these 15-minute edits are posted, a more feature-length version will be released as a collection of everyone’s stories.

This project is self-funded, and we are very interested in finding ways to fund it and take it on the road.  If you can help in that endeavor, please eMail us.

In mid-2010, I was chatting with my neighbor, painter MB Boissonnault about my desire to turn my close-up “faces” portraits into video, but that I didn’t know anything about video and had no clue how to go about getting the look (within my budget — friends had all been telling me I needed to use a RED camera).

MB was interested in the project, and in being the interviewer… So we contacted mutual friend Rob Hache, camera man and all around digital video guru.  We did 2 tests on his Canon gear. Being a Nikon man, I was skeptical.  The quality was, of course, amazing, but the software control was lacking.  Later I upgraded to a Nikon D7000, and we were able to get closer to the look I was after.

We filmed 19 subjects.  John was #2 and our first attempt at shooting in color. He was a friend of MBs from the neighborhood (we are based in Venice, CA — come say hi someday), and he passed away earlier this year.  A brilliant — if not troubled — man, John speaks about his life and his views on the current state of the world.  I’ve done my best to keep his words and thoughts preserved in this edit.

If you’ve been following me on Facebook (as opposed to here… where I have a terrible habit of not posting updates) you’re aware of my Kickstarter campaign to photograph the Burning Man festival.  Well, we’re back!  And I’ve put a video of the project up on YouTube. Check it out below, and while you’re at it, check out 2010′s project.  And if you’re feeling especially awesome, check out humanlightsuit.com and see how you can help make 2012′s project a reality.