Gabriel Gastelum| Art for Art | Los Angeles Portrait Photography

I absolutely love my personal project for 2014, Art for Art. Once a month, I find a fellow photographer whose work I admire, and I photograph them; they photograph me. We’ll get to see each other work; we’ll explore how different or similar our styles might be; and we can challenge ourselves to step in front of the lens rather than staying comfortably hidden. Best of all, we’ll get to walk away newly inspired by a fellow artist.

View January’s shoot with Melanie Gabrielle here. February’s shoot was in Los Angeles with my friend Gabriel Gastelum.

Our Styles:

Anna: I have been friends with Gabriel for a few years now, through a mutual friend of ours whose wedding I photographed. I’ve watched as Gabe skyrocketed in internet-fame ever since he moved down to Los Angeles and started photographing famous TV stars and YouTube personalities. When I think of the iconic markers of Gabe’s photography, I think of fashion images of hot underwear models, fun and quirky shoots with paint and powder, and lots of awesome self portraits. I think our styles are pretty different– mine being much lighter, brighter, and softer, but I love seeing Gabe’s bold and energetic work.

Gabe: My style is fresh, young and bold. I feel like my style definitely has a photojournalistic aspect to it, which was born from my extensive travel photography. (Travel photography is how I started!) I love color, so I am not afraid to get my subjects dirty with paint or powder in a fun shoot. As Anna learned. I feel like other people can describe my style best. I always think of it as inconsistent.

I feel like Anna’s style is very contemporary, but it has a certain “classic” feel to it. Her photos have a very soft look to them, which I guess is why I feel like its a classic look. But, like me, Anna also has a very photojournalistic view to her photos. She likes to capture the moment. AND she can use film..Props.

The Shoot:

Anna: Gabe was one of the photographers I had at the top of my mind when I thought of this project, so I was very excited to coordinate this shoot with him for my visit to LA. I met Gabe at his house, where he does so many of his other shoots, and we took turns directing and photographing each other. Even though our aesthetics are pretty different, our creative processes are actually very similar. We both just look around, “see” things in our head, and direct very casually. I think all of this, and the fact that we were friends, made the shoot feel very comfortable.

Gabe: She brought me baked goods and she actually forget the ones I bought for her. Basically I am fatter now. I loved it. It was fantastic. My neighborhood in Los Angeles has some great backdrops. So it was great walking around and capturing each other! Anna even agreed to have fun with some powder for me (the same color powder used in India). Its been a long time coming in meeting up and taking photos!

And here are a few of my favorites from Gabe:

Check out the rest of Gabe’s awesome post here: http://gdxblog.com/anna-wu/

Lessons Learned:

Anna: I had a ton of fun on this shoot, because I had not only complete trust in my photographer, but we also had a great rapport that comes from being friends. I think this translates for clients whom I can get to know beyond being just clients.
The coolest thing is that after I pitched my photography exchange idea to Gabe, he was the one who took the idea and ran with it, doing a bunch of exchanges with other artists, and that’s what then return-inspired the Art for Art project name, rather than limiting it to just photographers I had. I love the idea of creative collaborations that just exponentially spin off into more and more collaborations.

Gabe: Join a gym.
Each time I’ve worked with a photographer, I learn a little bit about them and how they work. Anna taught me some awesome posing techniques. Which most likely I will incorporate into future shoots! Boomtown!

Anna Wu is a San Francisco wedding photographer often jetsetting around the world. Follow her Art for Art series and professional work at annawu.com and on Facebook.

Art for Art

Melanie Gabrielle | Snowy Winter in New York City

Gabby Sutori | Art for Art | Barcelona, Spain

Nima Salimi| Art for Art | San Francisco Portrait Photography

Sherry Lu | Art for Art | San Francisco & Vancouver

Rosa Guerra | Art for Art | San Francisco

Fizzah Raza | Art for Art | San Francisco

Jasmine Curtis | Art for Art | San Francisco

Kevin Chin | Art for Art | San Francisco

Matthias | Art for Art | San Francisco

Sarah Dawson | Art for Art | Half Moon Bay

Annie Vovan | Art for Art | Pacific Palisades