LUCIMA Podcast

This is a two-hour podcast. I was going to break it into two or three pieces but what's the point? You're either going to love it or hate it. I'm betting if you've gotten this far, the subject of conversation will interest you. Further.

I can't remember what we talk about but really, I can't remember what we don't talk about.

Brian (http://brianventh.com) is visiting LA and you might be able to catch him before he leaves. You'll find all the links to his social media and sites there. Brian was on the podcast a while back so this is his second stint as a guest.

In this podcast, I shoot fashion nudes with Brian Venth.

That was funny until I imagined what that might actually look like.

Anyway, Brian (http://brianventh.com) is visiting LA and you might be able to catch him before he leaves. You'll find all the links to his social media and sites there. Brian was on the podcast a while back so this is his second stint as a guest.

And we really do talk about fashion nudity and other things. It winds up being a 2.5 hour conversation but this is the first segment.

2 shoots and 4 models drop out in a few minutes. This podcast talks about how I schedule shoots, how to address dropouts, and how to learn from these situations.

Defining and recognizing a cycle. Knowing how to stoke a cycle and how to get out of a funk. How I work with my own cycles.

I talk about a few shoots I've had in recent history and my thoughts about them. Sorry about the sound quality!

What am I literally looking for when I'm shooting? What am I analyzing? What am I processing? What am I aware of? What am I not looking for?

I had a chance to think about these questions during a private workshop. The results were a little surprising since it's been a while since I've given this series of questions any thought.

Apologies for the poor sound quality. I might have to find a better way to do this going forward!

Photographers often tell me stories where they are the victim of circumstances they create. Everything from letting models and agents choose pictures to retouch, shooting all the new faces at an agency, assembling full teams and paying for extravagant shoots for agency models...

And they cry about how they are unappreciated and how these people take advantage of them.

What do you want me to say? :)

Getting grilled was no fun. But now that I've had a little bit to process all the questions, I fire back.

Photographer Gianni Skolnick visits the studio and I get a chance to bounce my ideas off of him.

What is the major difference between a pro and an amateur? Why have I historically hated the questions about clients and money? Why do you guys have such a curiosity and at the same time failure developing your own style?

I have a theory.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Part I wasn't enough. I decided to push the conversation and have Jang ask me more questions.

This time we talk about skin, makeup, beauty, fashion/clothes, models, nude male models (what???), white/asian/black models, racism in fashion, photographer influences, the fashion nudity movement, shooting frequency, evaluating the shoot I had yesterday...

And much MUCH more.

I complain when people ask bad questions. And then when they ask good questions, I complain that they're hard questions.

You just can't win with me.

I invited Atlanta-based photographer Jang Choe to the studio when he mentioned he was coming to LA. Jang is one of the few photographers that has perhaps consumed everything I've ever written or said. He could probably guess how I was going to ask each of the questions but I tried my best to surprise him.

We talk about a ton of things. I want to make a correction on record and say that Keith was employed at LUCIMA, Inc. for over a year. Based upon this specific podcast, it sounds like he was an intern. No one is crazy enough to intern for me for a whole year.

These two recorded conversations with Jang were eye-opening for me. We hit a lot of topics and answered a lot of questions which then raised new questions. This is one of my favorite conversations ever.

Brutally good conversation.

You can find Jang and his work here:

https://www.instagram.com/jwctp/

https://jwctp.tumblr.com/