Simon Ackerman Photography Blog

During my summer stay in America I was lucky enough to spend some time in in LA with my good friends Carlos and Ashlee who told me all about Joshua Tree's amazing landscapes, rocks and cacti. I also heard some stories about people camping out in the desert and eating Native American magic mushrooms for a spiritual experience. The next day we decided to set with Braxton the dog of for a day in the desert and check out the amazing nature and rock formations there there.

Joshua Tree National Park is located 2 hours drive east of Los Angeles, California. During the drive there we passed some indian reservations and some curious lone houses way out in the desert miles away from any town or signs of life.

We happened to visit on one of the hottest days of the year, it was pushing 47 degrees C (115 degrees F) This was around the same time that the hottest day of the year.

Joshua Tree forms the parts of two deserts, the higher being the Mojave Desert and the lower being the Colorado Desert.

We had fun hunting for Night Gecko's which unfortunately were the only creatures we saw. Due to the searing heat we only stayed outside of the car for around 15 minutes before getting back in the car and cooling off.

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I previously posted some work on my blog during a 10 day stay in New York, which received some particularly great feedback. This summer is was lucky enough to leave England and jet off across the pond for a 90 day stay in the USA. A majority of my time was spent living in New York in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Since my first trips to the Big Apple last year in 2012 I discovered that NYC has an enormous wealth of interesting and beautiful things to photograph.

During my time living in NYC I shot many portfolio shoots with some amazingly talented creatives and we had a whole plethora of fantastic locations to choose from.

The first shot featuring the Empire State Building shot from the top of a high rise of apartments I was staying in on 6 ave and 24th Street in Manhattan about a block from Macey's. The model is Kelly Gray from MC2 Model Management.

The 2nd shot is from a half days shooting in Dumbo in Brooklyn. It was particularly tricky to get the shot as I we had to keep stopping for traffic, I was however really pleased with the final shots that we got from the shoot. The model is Caroline Thompson also from MC2.

Just before I left to fly to New York I was watching an episode of Doctor Who. It was the story Angels in Manhattan and it gave me a little bit of inspiration for a shoot in Central Park, two of which are below. There's a scene with Matt Smith sat on a rock reading a book in Central Park which is where the original idea was conceived. We shot in early July using available light and a 5 in 1 reflector, it just happened to be during a heatwave so between sessions my assistant had to shield model Guilia from the sun so she didn't break out in a sweat. We prepped at David Ryan salon in Hell's Kitchen which is where the book prop came from. It was a joke book of bad haircuts containing mullets and just general bad hair from the 1970's.

The hair was done by Jill Schnapp and the makeup by Jen Evans.

The image below was shot on location around Hell's Kitchen, this shot was taken next to the USS Intrepid which left for some interesting backdrops.

The hair was again done by Jill Schnapp and makeup by Courtney Culkin.

I've put together a few of my favourite cityscape and architecture shots from the trip. This are just shots that are taken out of passion, I however contacted by a real estate company in Manhattan who follow my Instagram who wanted to commission me to shoot four of their buildings in Midtown so they could frame them in their office. I've included many of my Instagrams, feel free to follow my account: simon_ackerman