Dan Kitchens

Making Her Way To Sea - Ari

Ari is a funny character to me in one sense - she LOVES the beach and the ocean and water, but at the same time she cannot swim and has long feared being in the water.  This might be why every single shoot we have ever done have involved water in some way (mountain creeks, pools, tide pools).  i love the water and and am quite happy being submerged, so our trips together have always had some therapeutic element to them - from becoming more comfortable in her own skin, in front of th...

Above and Below - Ari

I shoot with my friend Ari about once a year.  We go someplace different each year, more a way to catch up and have a nice day exploring some new place, than it is a proper shoot.  She does have wondrous curves, so I feel quite lucky to be the one person she allows to photograph her sans clothing. ;-)  

The second annual get together was in Palos Verdes at some tide pools I like to visit (they are often empty since there isn't a proper trail down the cliff to access them). ...

Last Day - Alex

The last day of 2016, I found myself in the woods with Moss von Faustenberg and Alex, exploring in the cold, and rain, and mist, and lush greenery just outside Los Angeles.  Alex braved the cold and gave her all for Moss and myself - I was pretty impressed with her attitude and work ethic, not to mention her beauty.

Winter Apparition - Alex

The first time i met Alex was also the first time my pal Moss Von Faustenberg asked me to come along on a shoot with him - I felt truly honored to be asked. It was a lot of firsts - firsts! First time shooting a nude alongside another photographer, first time working with Alex, first time shooting in the rain.

Since it was cold and wet and it was the very last day of the year, we had the trail entirely to ourselves to play in the mist and running creek in my favorite local canyon outside ...

Teach Me Tiger - Cindy (Extras)

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More images from Teach Me Tiger for Full Patrons.  I am glad that I have this tier since there tends to be a lot of images made during a shoot that don't quite fit what we were trying to do, but are still nice images. Thank you!

Teach Me Tiger - Cindy

I think most people interested in photographing people use animal masks at some point (and often times this exact brand of animal masks - you can see the same rabbit, bear, and tiger masks in SO many photos across the net), but for me, this was just a first solution to a problem inherent in shooting underwater - MOST people's faces just look odd underwater. I haven't figured out what the combination of characteristics is that might cause a face to look great or strange underwater though, so t...

Waking Lioness - Cindy

This is one of my earliest underwater model shoots, and looking back on it there are so many technical mistakes evident to me in the images (silly things like my lens was stuck on 10mm the entire shoot because i didn't have an underwater housing with a zoom ring for my lens, the strobes are pulled in way close and pointed straight at the model in a lot of shots, etc) and nowadays i wouldn't think of shooting in a pool when ash from a wildfire was raining down from the sky into the water.
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Statueque Lioness - Cindy

When shooting underwater I click away fast because, unlike on land, where most elements of a shot are stationary, underwater everything is moving in multiple axis of motion - I am drifting, the model is drifting, because we could both be going in any direction, the light is changing every moment as well. So i just shoot at lot.  It is always interesting to see how one moment a subject can look so awkward, but a frame or two later there is a moment of synchronicity where by ...

Rising Lioness - Cindy

One of my earliest pool shoots, and one that was rather eye opening for me.

I was looking for some people to skinny dip for me for some photos - i basically wanted to shoot some reference for some paintings my wife wanted to make of ama (Japanese diver women - erroneously referred to in the West as "pearl divers").  I thought it would be good practice for working my camera in its underwater housing so I could take better photos of fish and sharks and sea lions and such while on scuba...

Scout - Emily

My friend Emily asked me to take the first outdoor nudes or her, or maybe the first nudes of her, period, and we happened to pick a day that turned out to be the heaviest single day of rain in Los Angeles in years.  The trail was empty, wet, cool, and alive.  Seeing Emily (who has a look that is hard to place, a face that could pass for any number of ethnicities) quietly and slowly moving through that canyon, water and white wash dripping down her bare skin, I was totally transported t...

Scout 2 - Emily

My friend Emily (who is not a model, but does act, and is a writer, as well as being a barista at a coffee shop I used to frequent most mornings when i lived in Culver City, CA, which is where we met) kept telling me how much she liked the photos I was shooting in nature and asked me if i would taking her into the woods to shoot her (that sounds bad! hah!) even though has cannot really model, and isn't rail thin.  I told her "Of Course!" She probably had no idea that I had wanted to shoot h...

Raising the Walls - Jess

Sometimes people end up on the road with me for a day trip because they really need an escape from their life at that moment.  Nothing like a little adventure and seeing someplace beautiful, strange, or amazing for the first  time to put one's troubles on hold for a bit and hit the reset button.  From my experience, that point where someone is letting go and being reminded that there is also good things in life - discovery, quiet places, sunsets, new experiences, new chapters - is...

Bear Canyon Seductress - Anita

From the first time I took Anita to my favorite secret canyon in the Angeles National Forest to shoot, back in January 2015. I like to take different people to the same locations and see how their different personalities lead them to interact with that environment and different the results are.  When you throw in varying factors, like weather, the changing seasons, chance animal encounters, props, etc - I can get such different shots in the same location over time.  I want to make a li...

Peaks, Ridges, Valleys - Amanda

Taken on the last day of the first trip I ever took with my friend Amanda.  It was a bit of a dreamy trip, the sort of thing i am looking for in life from time to time, something that plays out a bit like a road trip movie, with encounters with unexpected characters, getting lost in the snow without GPS and wondering where we'd end up, wild animal encounters, having beautiful spots to ourselves, all the while getting to know one another finally after being acquaintances for several years. &...

The Emergence of Magic 1 - Lilith

For sure Lilith, whose origins are unknown, must have come from some magical place because she is truly a unique being. Vibrant, full of energy, passion, and bound to spark adventure.

Lilith Kundalini in  Palos Verdes, CA.  September 2016