ImagingStudio wrote:
Hi all,
I will be visiting SoCal in September and looking to play a Photoshoot there.
Any suggestions of cool places to shoot? Studios, quirky outdoors, quirky hotels...
Thanks in advance from London,
Adrian

Hi Adrian,

Oh where to start? LA is so vast and has so many contrasting locations, many many cool spots and plenty of 'quirky' areas.

First off, West LA (anywhere west of the Palms area going west and NW towards Santa Monica and beyond to Malibu are all safe and very cool areas to shoot.

Santa Monica has lots of great areas to shoot outdoors, cool wide streets etc. West of here are the beaches, with Venice Beach being an ideal spot for that cool and quirky look (it's packed full of very interesting and diverse people, tourists and locals and has some interesting side streets).

The beaches north of Venice are the most famous and probably most photographed (beware that a permit might be required unless you play it cool and keep it low profile), there's Santa Monica beach which is very wide and has plenty of scope for great shots, then as you keep going north the beaches get better and better, as in Malibu, Zuma Beach (especially awesome) and beyond way up towards Santa Barbara.

Going south from Venice Beach is also very nice, there's Marina Del Rey which is beautiful, then the beaches south of here are superb, as in Manhattan Beach (my fav place of all), Hermosa, Redondo Beach etc, all very nice and these beaches tend to have a young almost college feel about them.

Even further south from Manhattan Beach is the Palos Verdes area, very rugged and picturesque, but also very photogenic.

Ok, so that's some of the beaches.

Going inland there's so much choice, but you need to be aware of certain areas to avoid (unless you want that gangland look to your images), such as Compton, Downey and basically anwyhere in south central LA close to downtown. Don't get me wrong, there are some very cool spots to shoot downtown (old buildings, warehouses, rooftops) but best avoided at nighttime.

The Hollywood area will definitely give you that quirky look and there are essentially two sides to Hollywood, the seedy side (hookers, pushers, lot's of vice activity) all scattered around the Hollywood Blvd area, and then there's a more cool and fashionable side which is west of Hollywood, known funnily enough as West Hollywood, which then heads towards Beverly Hills, Westwood (very cool around the UCLA area) and further west into Brentwood and Bel-Air where all the elite live.

Aside from all this there's so many cool areas up into the mountains above LA, Big Bear, Arrowhead etc.

There's also pornland, this is basically the Valley north of LA, head north on I-405 or I-5 and it's surprisingly very cool and safe. You wouldn't think that this is the area where so much banging is going on and porn starlets are getting hammered poolside as it's so vast and spread out (the area, not the starlets!).

Just be careful where you choose to stay and if driving (absolutely essential here) then avoid the peak times, 7-9am, 4-7pm etc. And as mentioned, keep any shoots low key otherwise you may need to obtain a permit, even for shooting in the streets.

Also, head north and east out of the city over the mountains and you'll see some of the most beautiful desert scenery to be found anywhere in the world!

All of this is a tiny guide to this vast area, there's so much to see in the greater LA basin which is impossible to cover in one visit.

Hope you have a great time!

L o n d o n   F o g wrote:
Hi Adrian,

Oh where to start? LA is so vast and has so many contrasting locations, many many cool spots and plenty of 'quirky' areas.

First off, West LA (anywhere west of the Palms area going west and NW towards Santa Monica and beyond to Malibu are all safe and very cool areas to shoot.

Santa Monica has lots of great areas to shoot outdoors, cool wide streets etc. West of here are the beaches, with Venice Beach being an ideal spot for that cool and quirky look (it's packed full of very interesting and diverse people, tourists and locals and has some interesting side streets).

The beaches north of Venice are the most famous and probably most photographed (beware that a permit might be required unless you play it cool and keep it low profile), there's Santa Monica beach which is very wide and has plenty of scope for great shots, then as you keep going north the beaches get better and better, as in Malibu, Zuma Beach (especially awesome) and beyond way up towards Santa Barbara.

Going south from Venice Beach is also very nice, there's Marina Del Rey which is beautiful, then the beaches south of here are superb, as in Manhattan Beach (my fav place of all), Hermosa, Redondo Beach etc, all very nice and these beaches tend to have a young almost college feel about them.

Even further south from Manhattan Beach is the Palos Verdes area, very rugged and picturesque, but also very photogenic.

Ok, so that's some of the beaches.

Going inland there's so much choice, but you need to be aware of certain areas to avoid (unless you want that gangland look to your images), such as Compton, Downey and basically anwyhere in south central LA close to downtown. Don't get me wrong, there are some very cool spots to shoot downtown (old buildings, warehouses, rooftops) but best avoided at nighttime.

The Hollywood area will definitely give you that quirky look and there are essentially two sides to Hollywood, the seedy side (hookers, pushers, lot's of vice activity) all scattered around the Hollywood Blvd area, and then there's a more cool and fashionable side which is west of Hollywood, known funnily enough as West Hollywood, which then heads towards Beverly Hills, Westwood (very cool around the UCLA area) and further west into Brentwood and Bel-Air where all the elite live.

Aside from all this there's so many cool areas up into the mountains above LA, Big Bear, Arrowhead etc.

There's also pornland, this is basically the Valley north of LA, head north on I-405 or I-5 and it's surprisingly very cool and safe. You wouldn't think that this is the area where so much banging is going on and porn starlets are getting hammered poolside as it's so vast and spread out (the area, not the starlets!).

Just be careful where you choose to stay and if driving (absolutely essential here) then avoid the peak times, 7-9am, 4-7pm etc. And as mentioned, keep any shoots low key otherwise you may need to obtain a permit, even for shooting in the streets.

Also, head north and east out of the city over the mountains and you'll see some of the most beautiful desert scenery to be found anywhere in the world!

All of this is a tiny guide to this vast area, there's so much to see in the greater LA basin which is impossible to cover in one visit.

Hope you have a great time!

I agree with all this. 

And there’s also Topanga Canyon and the Mountain Mermaid, which is a little quirky.

http://www.themountainmermaid.com

Your comment about West Hollywood being west of Hollywood is amusing, because it might seem so obvious... unless you know that Hollywood's a neighbourhood and West Hollywood is a city .  A different jurisdiction with a different police force.

As for what's known as North Hollywood, that's nowhere near and certainly not a place to hang out at night with a big, obvious camera bag IMHO.

Maxximages wrote:
Jesus Wall studio http://www.kevinsstudios.com/

Cool place to shoot and a nice guy too.  You can ask him if you can shoot on the roof to get a landscape shot of LA.  I don't know if he still allows it but it's worth asking.  His studio isn't too expensive to rent.