I had an opportunity over the Memorial Day weekend to do a shoot for my niece. Its fun to work with friends and family because everyone is comfortable, no strangers telling you to get into odd poses. This was also an opportunity for me to discover a few local locations to shoot in. One would think there are endless places to shoot in the LA area and there are, but as I’m finding out if they’re also very expensive.  One of my top choices was Descanso Gardens. You can take all the pictures you want there for free until you break out a tripod, light modifiers etc.  A photography permit at Descanso is actually on the cheap side at $250 for 2 hours. My second choice proved even more expensive. Mentryville, the longest running oil well in the country was there, is managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. They want $1000 per day plus $70/hour for a Park Ranger and large insurance policy. So what do we do? We use two city parks and a city bus stop. I would have liked the rustic look of Mentryville but I think it was out of my clients budget.

You can see the rest of the shoot here

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