This weekend has been a refreshing trip to Los Angeles. Landing before the sun could break through overcast skies on Saturday, I spent the first few hours shooting both outside of LAX to capture an undercarriage of an airplane landing…

I've made it no secret that I love Los Angeles. It's a beautiful, sprawling city with so much history, and a hub of the entertainment world. Working with entertainers and talent, giving them images that they can use for promo, marketing and behind the scenes, it's a city I want to get way more familiar navigating. 

I've been trying to come up with a new project for YouTube, something I would get enjoyment out of making. What I ended up with was coming back here to the blog as a reference point, and looking at a post I made, called "Starter Series". The initial concept of that post was to give myself the advice I wish I had been given when I was first starting out with buying equipment for photography.

Hi there. It's Chris. If you're reading this, you may have noticed it got quiet around here. Really, really quiet. There's good reason for that, and I'll explain. 

When starting out in photography, you might not have access to the best lenses. If you're lucky enough to jump into this with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, more power to you. But for the rest of us, we might start from a more humble origin, in the form of kit lenses.

When it comes to future work, I'm looking at video monopods. They cover so many bases, it's hard to compete for run and gun jobs. Here are three reasons why video monopods are wonderful and would make a great addition to your kit.