Voyage LA

I'm excited to announce that Lucie Aleks Photography was featured in Voyage LA Magazine!

Here is an excerpt from the interview about how I initially got into photography.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My passion for photography originated in my father’s veins. He had an old, Russian Lubitel Twin Lens 6×6 Medium Format camera. That vintage camera was my first and favorite toy, and I grew up exploring life through its lens. When I was thirteen, I watched my parents buy a 35mm camera for my cousin as a birthday gift. My jealousy did not subside until his interests turned elsewhere, and he passed the camera down to me. This is when I officially began developing prints for both myself and other people. My room was so small that I turned my family’s bathroom into a darkroom. Their memories of my childhood consist mainly of me being behind a camera or in that bathroom developing the prints.

I think that the motivating force behind turning my passion into my profession is my deep love for people. I love trying to read the subtle expressions in people’s faces. I love their unpredictability, their unique differences, and who they become in front of my camera. Photography is my way of capturing an aspect of their character and recording the instant in which they reveal themselves. I have always had a really good visual memory and my photography is an extension of that. It’s just how my mind has always worked. Sharing my photography allows me to show others how I see the world so that they can see it too. That connection between me and the camera, or the camera and the subject, or even the photo and the viewer is what makes my photography different.

Check out the full article here!

8 Ways to Drive Your Photographer Crazy (What NOT to Do During a Shoot)

1) Tense Up

The best headshots and portraits are the ones that look natural. Sitting straight as a ramrod with a big plastic smile plastered on your face is probably going to end up looking as fake as it feels.

2) Ask to See Every Picture After It’s Taken

This slows down the shoot’s momentum and makes it take way longer than it ever should. The beautiful thing about photography is that the capture is instantaneous and can be deleted just as quickly. It’s way easier and more time efficient to take a large group of photos and cherry pick the best ones than to nitpick over every single one.  Remember, if you don’t like them, you can always take more!

3) Show Up Tired/ Hung-Over / Distracted

If you’re paying to have your headshots taken then why would you show up feeling any less than your best? Those dark rings under your eyes or that sick green hue reminiscent of the copious amounts of liquor you drank the night before are not going to turn out well in the finished result. Avoid this altogether by getting enough sleep and making the commitment to BE PRESENT.

4) Wear Large Logos and Busy Patterns

Is this photo session about you or your sponsors? Large logos in portraits beg the question of whether or not you’re getting paid to promote the brands that you’re wearing. Large logos distract the viewer from the true subject of the photo, YOU. The same goes for bright or busy patterns. That funky sweater might go over great with the ladies, but on print it might make people want to avert their gaze.

5) Expect the Photographer to do your Makeup in Photoshop

Going for the natural look is perfectly respectable; expecting the photographer to work miracles is not. If you are insecure about a particular aspect of your physique, come prepared for that. This will allow the photographer to limit their work to small touch ups that won’t leave you looking like a plastic doll.

6) Be Late

Being late is never advisable, but in a photo shoot, it can throw the whole session off. It takes a certain amount of time for the photographer and client to get comfortable with each other. Being late means that you’ll have less time to take the great photos that happen after the studio warms up.

7) Wear Unflattering Clothes

They say that the camera adds 10 pounds. That being said, if your clothes are hanging on you like a plastic bag, chances are that you won’t look your best in the photos. On this same note, wearing clothes that are too tight will also be obvious in the final prints. For the sake of your portraits, wear clothes that fit and that you feel comfortable in.

8) Pretend Like You’re Someone Else

While it’s great to step into a different character every once in a while, the day of your photo shoot is not the time to experiment with your identity.

Wedding Trends with Renee Strauss

On January 22 2015, I was the official photographer for Bella Nella, who offers beauty, makeup, massage and hair services for brides. They were showcased among an elite list of others at a unique wedding showcase, covered by "Wedding Trends" with Renee Strauss and aired on KTLA 5 News.

The wedding showcase featured the best of the best in the bridal industry, with a collection of luxury bridal brands, exquisitely designed bridal vignettes and an esteemed panel of wedding experts dedicated to helping couples make their wedding visions a reality. As a photographer, you have to be prepared for a long busy working day when covering events such as these, starting and ending at unusual hours. My working day began at 5am, which is normally the time I go to sleep! It was a long full day, and I worked until 12am the following morning.

This is part of doing what I do, and of course, as always, it was worth it. I'm happy to be working in partnership with the wonderful Bella Nella.

Resort Theresienstadt from the life of vacationers (2012)

The Resort (2012), is a documentary film that I worked on as an editor. The documentary is based on Terezin, one of the first concentration camps of World War II, used by the Nazis as a way station before sending jewish prisoners on to one of the many extermination camps. Described to the public as an "exemplary German camp for the re-education of Jewish citizens" this camp perpetuated propaganda in order to dispel the horrific rumours about extermination camps.

"The film gives individual faces and personalities to some of those who entered the camp and who were able to maintain their optimism and humanity through the misery and death surrounding them. They managed to save their own lives against all odds. The stories are not only of personal survival; they also reveal how the small city of Terezin had been turned into a transit camp for than 150,000 Jews and gained the name 'Little Zionist Experiment' by being host to one of the strangest and most horrific perpetrations of humanity ever inflicted on the Jewish people and how their wilful creative spirit rose above it." - Galina Kalashnikova

You can watch the trailer to this documentary here.

Chuy Bravo

Everyone knows Chuy Bravo from Chelsea Lately as the host's latino sidekick aka "little nugget". Check out Chuy's appearance on the The John Kerwin Show here.

"Alice in Wonderland"

I've been brainstorming for new photography concepts recently and this is the first of many to follow.

I teamed up with a makeup artist from London to design a shoot based on the fairytale concept of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. We collaborated with Audrey and Lenny Boutique in downtown, LA. They provided a stunning collection of vintage clothes and accessories for the shoot, allowing us to invoke the strange yet beautiful aesthetic for which Wonderland is so well known.

Our amazing stylist Roki Torres assembled some original and appropriately theatrical themed looks prior to the shoot and was there on hand to pull it all together. Model Chenelle Aaron Badgett was the star of the show. I am very excited to have worked with this team of creative and talented individuals who helped make the project a success.

Stay tuned for the final images, we're extremely pleased with them and worked on several different looks, all depicting different aspects of characters and themes of the Alice in Wonderland surreal style. I look forward to sharing them with you.

Jonathan Winters

I had the great pleasure of meeting Jonathan Winters when John Kerwin interviewed him on the 100th episode of The John Kerwin Show. The interview took place at Jonathan's home in Santa Barbara, California. Jonathan was very funny and friendly to our crew, and his innate sense of humor definitely made the interview a lasting experience. He was once described as the funniest man alive, and we walked out of that shoot considering that an understatement.

Jonathan Winter's career spanned many decades, and he was seen as a comedic legend by not only his fans, but his peers as well. "The Jonathan Winters Show"  first aired in the mid 1950's and made television history that year when it broadcasted the first public demonstration of color videotape.

Another highlight of his career was when he starred in the 1963, MGM film classic, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” written by William Rose and Director Stanley Kramer’s first comedy. Jonathan, was in rarest of form as he worked alongside "the greats" such as Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Spencer Tracy, Peter Falk, Ethel Merman, The Three Stooges, Zasu Pitts, Edie Adams, Sid Caesar, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Joe E. Brown, Dorothy Provine, Carl Reiner, Jimmy Durante, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, Larry Fine, Buster Keaton, Phil Silvers, Stan Freberg, Andy Devine and so many more, which I regret not being able to list. 

The majority of the actors recalled how Jonathan ad-libbed and kept them in stitches throughout the making of the film. As an actor he won an Emmy in 1992 for his role as Randy Quaid's father on the sitcom Davis Rules. He succumbed to natural causes on April 11, 2013, at the age of 87 at his home in Montecito, California. I was honored to have met this man. I would recommend everyone to check out, “ It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Documentary Story,” then view the actual film.

The interview, along with my stills of the comedic duo, was featured in the "Santa Monica Daily Press". Click here to read the full article!