Sidewalk Superheroes

I know I just said I’d probably never work the boulevard again, but here I am, asking if anyone I know is working tomorrow and Saturday. (Sunday it’s supposed to rain.) Catwoman’s always doing other things now and I need a work buddy to hang around because I hate being out alone (and for safety’s sake). Plus, I just need some cash. 😉 So if any of you that read this are going to be out, drop me a note! You can either leave a comment or email me through the site, either way I’ll get it.

P.S. Catwoman’s been in contact with that god-awful band that stiffed us last weekend, so I’ll let her write about all that’s been happening in that area. I’m also expecting to get a picture CD by the weekend, so I could maybe slip a few shots up here so you know what we’ve been up to.

Yesterday Catwoman and I had yet another photoshoot, and we should have our pictures shortly. I think they’ll be really good. 🙂 I only got to see a couple on the camera’s playback screen when we were trying to perfect some tricky shots (and now my shins hurt!), but they looked good so far and I’ll be picking up the picture disc in a day or two.

Today I’ll probably be hitting the boulevard by myself and working with Super Guy, so maybe I can get some interesting stories to put up here. Tomorrow we may have another photoshoot, so it’s been busy lately!

Anyway, today I also received word that one of my photographs from the early boulevard days has been chosen as the official Hollywood & Vine representation on Schmap!! It’s a downloadable guide to Los Angeles with lots of text information and snapshots of all the cool areas, and mine represents one of the most famous intersections. Heh heh, I feel so cool right now. Anyway, if you’d like to see it, here it is. If you’re surfing on an iPhone you get a special link here, and I even get a cool little blog widget if I’d like. Hooray! I’m a published photographer now! Of sorts. 🙂

represent!

This afternoon Catwoman and I had a photoshoot in Santa Monica — actually, on, around and under the Santa Monica Pier. It was a really fun day today, and it didn’t feel like working at all. Except we didn’t make any money*, and we were sweating in a most unladylike way under all our latex, vinyl and PVC.

Between poses, or when only one of us was being snapped, the other was videotaping, so I was able to make two — count ’em, two! — videos out of our footage. The first is a straightforward “this is what we did” short:

While the second is a music video. Yay, music video! I’m sort of obsessed with making these right now, and Catwoman asked for one, so this is a sort of Best Of Sidewalk Superheroes (so far) compilation, with some new footage cut in, along with plenty of pictures from today. I don’t want to give away a whole lot, because these pictures are being taken for a reason, but consider this a tasty sample of what’s to come:

*Actually, we did get a tip. It just went to ice cream. We were asked for a lot of pictures and just posed, not expecting anything, and I’m glad we didn’t because there were cops patrolling that seemed a little wary of us until I made sure to mention we were just doing a photoshoot (covering our arses). Then the cop was okay and talked about Watchmen, heh. But we did get some good information while out there, and some great ideas, so expect even more cool new things from us in the near future . . .

Since Zannel was nice enough to gift me a Flip camera to capture superhero life firsthand, I thought I should put it to good use. Otherwise, they might want it back! Unfortunately, I got it just in time for the Oscars to throw all of us off Hollywood Boulevard, but thankfully something else has come up: photoshoots.

While I can’t really film or snap while I’m being snapped, I’ve tried to videotape the in betweens, befores and afters as much as possible to show everyone what it’s really like. Being a superhero isn’t glamorous, as you’ve seen, and now you can see firsthand that being a model isn’t so glamorous either. It does have its moments, though, as you can see from these clips from Wednesday’s Long Beach shoot and Friday’s Los Angeles shoot:

P.S. I posted this video on Zannel before I uploaded it to YouTube, and Zannel does have some added goodies that aren’t on this site. I don’t like to just copy and paste from place to place, and they allow mobile updates, so I send pix messages and texts from the scene that you can’t see here. Just an idea, if you’re really addicted to the superhero life.

Today, early in the morning, Catwoman and I had a photoshoot in downtown Long Beach. I’ll probably be a hot mess in all the pictures, but I have a good excuse: I have a new nephew! Not that there was anything wrong with the old one, but now I have one for each arm. I watched my older nephew overnight Monday, after getting the call at 2 am, and then did double duty by being a coach in the delivery room for the other kid Tuesday. So yes, I’m really wiped out and look like shit on a stick. I’m counting on the awesome skills of Photoshop to salvage this. 😉

Seriously, though, the shoot went great and the photographer and his ceramic coffee mug-toting assistant were great. We all had fun wandering around on foot (I recognized one of our locations as a place I’d passed when lost, because I always tend to get lost in the same area of LB), crawling around freeway underpasses and dreaming up surprises you will thoroughly enjoy. It was great, and we actually ran out of time before ideas. We may work with this guy again — and maybe sneak on the Queen Mary? I love that old boat. What’s even cooler is that while we were shooting at our last location, some guy who lived across the street ran out and offered to buy the pictures for $50. Cool! We also slowed traffic when we weren’t covered in coats, and a lot of guys slowed down to whistle and yell at us. *sigh* Welcome to Long Beach.

There’s something to look forward to for ya, since the Oscars wrecked this weekend for us. 🙂

P.S. If you’re a photographer and would like to snap us around your fair city, contact us. We’d love to cover as many as possible.