California
Los Angeles is not one market. A headshot in Burbank, a branding session in Silver Lake and an engagement shoot at El Matador are three different cities with three different hours, and the thing that decides what is possible in a session is not the camera but the 405. A two-location booking here means choosing two places within about twenty minutes of each other, and a photographer who knows which twenty minutes. The permit picture is unusually clear for a city this size, because FilmLA administers it for both the City and the County and publishes its rates. Still photography on public property needs a permit. The exceptions worth knowing are that many of the most-photographed locations are not city property at all — state beaches answer to California State Parks, the Getty and the Walt Disney Concert Hall are private, and Griffith Observatory has its own rules on top of the Department of Recreation and Parks. What the city gives you in exchange is reliability. From May to October there is essentially no weather, the marine layer burns off on a schedule you can plan around, and the sun sets over water every single evening.
The marine layer — "May Gray" and "June Gloom" — holds a soft overcast over the coast until late morning through late spring, which is excellent portrait light and a problem only if you wanted blue sky. September and October are the clearest and warmest months and the best of the year for coastal work. Winter brings the sharpest air and the most dramatic skies, with a short rain season between December and March. Midsummer midday light is harsh and high; nobody shoots in it who has a choice.
Sea stacks, arches and caves in a cove reached by a steep stair. The best coastal frames in the county and the most tide-dependent — at high tide half the beach does not exist.
The building, the city below it and the Hollywood sign from the east lawn. Blue hour is the reason to be here — the copper domes and the grid of lights below come up together for about fifteen minutes.
Footbridges, still water and small gardens, two blocks from the beach and nothing like it. It is a residential neighbourhood, which sets the rule: early, quiet, and off the private paths.
Brick warehouses, murals and loading docks — the standing backdrop for branding and band photography in this city. Murals change constantly, so a location scouted last year may not be there.
Oak savannah and volcanic rock forty minutes from the coast, and the reason a session here can include mountains and ocean in one afternoon. Dry gold from June; genuinely green only from February to April.
These come under the Los Angeles rate: a photographer travels out from the city at no extra charge, and the session is priced exactly as it would be in Los Angeles itself.
Still photography on public property in the City and County of Los Angeles requires a permit administered by FilmLA, and handheld shooting on a public sidewalk without equipment is generally treated as an exception. The complication is that many of the best-known locations are not city property: state beaches like El Matador are California State Parks and need their own permit, and the Getty Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall are private property with their own rules.
June Gloom is the marine layer that holds a low overcast over the Los Angeles coast into the late morning from roughly May through June. It does not ruin a shoot — it produces the softest, most even portrait light available anywhere in the city, with no squinting and no harsh shadows. It is a problem only if you specifically wanted blue sky behind you, in which case shoot inland or later in the day.
Two, realistically, and only if they are within about twenty minutes of each other. Traffic, not the photography, is the binding constraint in this city: a Malibu beach and a Downtown mural are a 90-minute drive apart in the afternoon, which would consume most of a two-hour engagement session. Pairs that work well are Venice with Santa Monica, or Griffith Observatory with Los Feliz.