The BLOG of Freelance Photographer John Schreiber | Los Angeles, South Bay, Redondo Beach

Stars and Milky Way over the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest

John Schreiber — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 21:06:37 +0000

The world’s oldest-living trees sit in California’s Inyo National Forest in an area of the White Mountains known as the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Core samples taken from some of the Bristlecone Pines in this area have determined some trees are more than 5,000 years old despite a relatively small size for their age. Enduring thousands of years of high-altitude harsh winters and other adverse growing conditions, these trees grow just millimeters per year. Because of this, their wood is extremely dense and resistant to things like insects, wood rot, erosion and fire that kill other trees.

The other bonus is that these trees sit at high elevation with one of the darkest night skies in California.

This past weekend, I took the trek up to the forest with fellow photographer Stuart Palley to get shots of the trees (both dead and alive) under a bright Milky Way night sky. I was amazed at how clear the night sky was and just how well the Milky Way showed up on the camera. With the help of an LED flashlight to light the trees and some advance scouting work during the day, we were able to get some pretty neat shots of the trees and surrounding area.

2014 Porsche World Roadshow – For Porsche

John Schreiber — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 19:31:30 +0000

A few months ago, I was hired by Porsche to shoot their traveling experiential marketing tour known as the Porsche World Roadshow.

Participants in this event get to take some of Porsche’s best vehicles out on a professional track at speeds you would normally never be able to hit on normal roads (at least legally). That included getting to drive the 911 Targa 4s, Cayman GTS (my personal favorite), and a Boxster GTS at 120mph around the track. The event was topped off by taking hot laps in a Porsche 911 Turbo with a professional driver at speeds of around 140mph.

My assignment was to simply capture “the excitement, scale and access that you can only get at the Porsche World Roadshow.”

Needless to say, it was a fun experience and should Porsche ever decide to leave a Cayman GTS in my driveway, I wouldn’t complain.

Bee Theft in Bakersfield – For The Weather Channel

John Schreiber — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 08:00:17 +0000

This past spring, I was lucky enough to get an assignment from The Weather Channel to shoot a story about the rise in bee theft up in Bakersfield, California (approximately 2 hours north of Los Angeles).

Unbeknownst to me, each spring, one of the largest honeybee pollination events in the entire world occurs in Bakersfield as millions of bees are used to pollinate the thousands upon thousands of acres of almond trees in the Central Valley. If a bloom on an almond tree does not get pollinated, you don’t get an almond. To make that pollination more efficient and effective, farmers rent beehives to place in their groves.

I’ll let a quote from the accompanying article on Weather.com sum it up better:

“In the California Central Valley, farmers have planted 800,000 acres of almond orchards. Every year, beekeepers bring millions of beehives from across the country to pollinate the almond trees. But with the bees come bee thieves…

It may be a surprise to some, but most of the money in commercial beekeeping doesn’t come from honey production – it comes from pollination rental fees. The bees collect pollen and nectar, the plants become pollinated, the farmers get better yields and the beekeepers get paid. While different crops rely on bees for pollination in different ways, one plant requires lots of bees: the almond tree. Together, expanding almond orchards and a lack of bees have helped make beekeeping a profitable profession – and attracted thieves.”

Having transitioned into a full-time video job, it was refreshing for me to get back to still photography and have the entire day to work on a photo story. The writer and I focused on one beekeeper — Joe Romance — and his business of providing bees to the almond farmers in Bakersfield. We watched as they branded their bee boxes (the only real way to mark the hives as yours) and followed Romance into the fields where his employees worked with the hives.

With healthy fear of angry swarms of bees, I was definitely a bit nervous at first about shooting this assignment. However, I was surprised when I drove home that evening without a single sting on me.

Now that the embargo/exclusivity period is over for these photos, I wanted to share a few here on the blog:

48 Hours in the Southern California Desert

John Schreiber — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 07:11:38 +0000

During a few free days that I had between my old and new job, I headed out to the desert around Palm Springs, Calif. with friend and fellow photographer Stuart Palley. Our only goal was to get out of Los Angeles, have a bit of an adventure and take lots of photos. We spent the better part of two days exploring the desert around Joshua Tree National Park north of Palm Springs as well as the Salton Sea south of Palm Springs.

The following photos are just some of the people, places and random desert findings that we encountered along the way:

“People think there is no life in the desert,” said longtime Bombay Beach resident Deno, who lives next to the Salton Sea. “There is plenty of life in the desert.”

Bubble Man Attempts Run to Catalina Island

John Schreiber — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:28:30 +0000

Reza Baluchi attempted to be the first person in history to “run” the 28 miles from the California mainland to Catalina Island… As in run across water inside a giant bubble he custom designed. To train, he lived in Death Valley for two years and ran an average of 30 miles per day in the heat. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it this time, but will attempt it again in a few weeks. Here are some of my images from his first attempt and you can read my full article here.

2013 Long Beach Grand Prix

John Schreiber — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:53:47 +0000

Last Sunday was the first time I have ever shot any sort of serious motorsport race and I quickly realized that motorsports photography is a whole different beast. I spent the day shooting the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, which is one of the stops on the IndyCar circuit. It takes place on a track that weaves through the city streets of Long Beach which makes it even more interesting.

I found the hardest part of shooting motorsports is getting different angles and not getting stuck in one place on the track. That means running all around the 2-mile circuit spanning multiple city blocks, pushing through crowds, getting lost and finding ways to cross the track, jousting with the 200 other photographers and learning the sometimes crazy restrictions placed on the photographers. I found myself shooting at one far end of the track and then rushing back to the complete opposite end to shoot celebrations.

The other challenge was somehow showing that these cars were going 200 mph and not just cruising by. I liked what I got, but hope the tricks I learned Sunday will help shoot next year’s race.

Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Journey Through Los Angeles

John Schreiber — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 21:34:09 +0000

When I said in my last blog post that photographing Endeavour’s fly over of Los Angeles was one of the coolest assignments ever, I take it back. This was the coolest assignment ever and probably one of the most unique things I will ever photograph.

I started following it as it rolled off of LAX property early Friday morning around 2:00 a.m. and didn’t really stop from there. In all, it was about 50 hours of work in 2.5 days when you factor in all the wait time and early arrivals to get ahead of the shuttle to stake out positions. It was exciting and worth it though.

Space shuttle Endeavour made a tedious 12-mile crawl through city streets this weekend from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center near the USC campus.

With a 78-foot wing span and a tail height of more than 50 feet, you can imagine how measured and coordinated everything had to be. Trees had to be cut down, utility poles removed, power lines raised and large metal plates placed on the streets to keep the 300,000 pounds of weight from crushing the infrastructure underneath. On the narrowest parts of the route, the shuttle’s wing tips came within a credit card’s width of street poles and trees.

Yet, despite this, the shuttle arrived at its new home Sunday without a single scratch.

Officials told us that more than 1 million people turned out at some point during the trek to catch a glimpse of what they called a “once-ever” opportunity. The shuttle was the biggest celebrity in Los Angeles.

To demonstrate that, at one point along the route, actors Robert De Niro and Luke Wilson were standing about 20 feet from us as the shuttle approached a narrow section along Crenshaw Drive. I looked over to a group of people I was standing with and said, “Hey, isn’t that Robert De Niro?” A few of them looked over for a second, said “ooooh, yeah, it is…” then turned straight back to the shuttle and continued taking photos with their cell phones.

Tell me another time when no one would care that Robert De Niro was standing in their front yard. That is how amazing the experience was for so many people.

Photographing Carmageddon II

John Schreiber — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:56:04 +0000

Last weekend, all 10 lanes of the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles shut down for construction work for the second time in a little more than a year. This 10-mile stretch of highway is one of the nation’s busiest with an average 250,000 cars passing through it each day. So, when you shut that who highway down, worries arise about deadly traffic jams. Thus, the nickname “Carmgeddon.”

I spent the whole weekend photographing the spectacle and it thankfully didn’t live up to its name. Because nobody really cared about it this year, it was challenging trying to get unique photos of anything besides workers working on a bridge. The challenge was getting a unique angle on everything and escaping the media viewing platform area. Here is what I came up with:

Space Shuttle Endeavour Los Angeles Fly Over

John Schreiber — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 06:37:43 +0000

I was very lucky to witness history last Friday as Space Shuttle Endeavour, strapped to the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, performed low-altitude fly overs of L.A. landmarks before finally landing at LAX. It was the last time the world would ever seen a NASA space shuttle in any form of flight. As the wheels touched down at LAX, that was pretty much the end of the shuttle program. Very cool to see, but bittersweet at the same time.

I got to shoot the shuttle from the tarmac at LAX and arrived at around 4 a.m. to stake out a spot. The shuttle didn’t land until close to 1 p.m., so it was a lot of sitting around waiting, but totally worth it. Here are a few of my favorites:

Travel Reflections

John Schreiber — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 06:22:24 +0000

Had a busy week of travel in July and it seems like I also took a lot of reflection photos.

The first photo was taken while transiting through Detroit Metro Airport’s McNamara Terminal and the second during a rain storm at Times Square in New York City.