Brittany Cavaco // Los Angeles, CA

My initial plan was to shoot with Brittany at the handball courts in Venice Beach, but upon arrival, I was dismayed to see that the courts were overrun with homeless tents. I literally saw a couple of full-size propane grills in front of a few of the bigger tents… but I digress. 

After seeing this mess, I called Brittany and told her that we needed a new location - only 90 minutes before our scheduled shoot time. Thankfully, she had a few ideas, and suggested the JESUS SAVES sign. I had photographed at the sign before, but was interested in shooting again because the time of day would offer drastically different lighting than before, which can dramatically change the mood of an image. 

When we arrived at the parking garage adjacent to the sign, I was dismayed to see a crew of workers painting floor of the top parking garage floor, and was turned down. Turns out the actual owner of the building was on site, and was not happy with me wanting to shoot on his rooftop, so I didn’t push my luck. Brittany suggested we shoot in some corners with good lighting to make the most of our time, and that’s exactly what we did. 

Upon completion, we got to the floor level to checkout, and as we lowered the car window to pay at the booth, we overheard an angry monthly-parking spot tenant yelling at security. Curious what the commotion was, we lowered all the windows in the car. This tenant, it turns out, was angry that security would allow a photo shoot to occur in the parking garage. He was so expressive in his language, he had a vocabulary that would make Al Pacino proud; I didn’t even know some of these words could be used as adjectives and verbs, I was impressed with the creativity of this man’s vocabulary. 

You see, a group of young kids - maybe five or six in total - had parked right next to us and had the same idea as us. Fortunately for us, they started right as we were finishing, and Mr. Angry Tenant never saw us. His wrath was aimed solely at them. I felt bad as he berated the same security guard who very kindly told us that we needed to leave… but what are you gonna do? All I know is that, unequivocally, Jesus Saves, Brittany can make any corner look good, and you can be as creative as you want when you’re mad: apparently those words do count for something. 

April 12, 2021