Los Angeles Downtown City Lifestyle Photoshoot Part 01
Back in June 2024, I had the opportunity to collaborate with talented model Nolan O’Connor for a lifestyle street photoshoot in Downtown Los Angeles. For this photoshoot, I was looking to get a variety of urban lifestyle shots in the city with high-rise buildings. Because we only had a few hours to do the photoshoot for sunset, we ended up staying near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The beautiful steel architecture makes for a great backdrop and the stairs assist in getting a variety of different poses.
We were very fortunate that we did the shoot on the evening of a weekday, so there weren’t many people regularly walking by. However, there was an event happening at the Concert Hall so we had to work around a few table booths set up on the top of the stairs. This challenged me to focus on achieving a certain composition that wouldn’t be too distracting in that location. The Sigma 85mm lens was the best lens to get close up portraits for this reason.
One of my favorite things about a photoshoot in Downtown Los Angeles is the variety of backdrops within a small walking distance. Although we had to move quickly to catch sunset portraits, we didn’t have to move too far to get a variety of textured backgrounds.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned in doing sunset portrait photography is to keep shooting into blue hour. You get a variety of clean images with fairly even lighting even after the sunset has set, and you still have enough light to capture sharp images without having to blast your ISO.
All photographs were edited in Adobe Lightroom and retouched in Adobe Photoshop.
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/5.6 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/320 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/200 sec. | f/5.6 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/320 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/250 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/320 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/5.6 | ISO 125
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/320 sec. | f/4.0 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 250
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 160
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/250 sec. | f/3.5 | ISO 320
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 160
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 160
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 200
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 200
Sony A7R III | Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/160 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 500