Peyton Szuberla
At the Noguchi Gardens and in studio
Peyton Szuberla and I shot at a public sculpture display called “Noguchi Gardens” located in California.
The garden sits between some business buildings and a parking garage. It’s less of a traditional garden and more like walking through an outdoor museum filled with huge pieces of art. It’s kept insanely clean and is often used for various photoshoots. (I had never shot there, but the location had been on my radar for years) While we were there, there was two wedding parties and some locals snapping photos and enjoying the sights.
There’s several very large pieces of art that each individually stand on their own, and together they all combine to form one grand piece which is the garden itself.
It wasn’t until after our shoot that I researched to find out more about the location. It turns out it was designed by renowned artist Isamu Noguchi.
Here is the Wikipedia headline info about Isamu Noguchi;
“Noguchi Isamu (November 17, 1904 – December 30, 1988) was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.”
How wild that he designed sets for Martha Graham? You can see in his work that it absolutely lends itself to dance with all the curves and aesthetically pleasing shapes.
Here is more information on the garden’s from the official website;
“Commissioned by the Segerstrom family in 1979 and completed in 1982, Isamu Noguchi’s California Scenario is recognized as one of the country’s preeminent sculpture gardens and the most vital publicly accessible outdoor sculpture oasis in Southern California. One of the artist’s most important public sculpture gardens, its design symbolizes various geographical characteristics of California, incorporating indigenous plants and materials.”
( https://www.southcoastplaza.com/stories/2016/12/noguchi-garden/ )
Everything looks so beautiful and intentional at this place that at one point I thought an outdoor garbage can was an art piece. (Which I thought was especially funny since in the movie “Wonder Woman 1984” they make this exact joke as they stroll thru an outdoor sculpture garden.)
After we finished at Noguchi, we headed to a photo studio that we had reserved for 2 hours. The studio had skylights above a cyc-wall, so we used all natural light for the set up.
Peyton’s Mother, Jessica, was the stylist for the shoot. I told Jessica for colors and outfit inspiration that we wanted anything neutral for the gardens, and for the studio we wanted anything “Barbie” centric. (That movie has amazing fashion and both Jessica and myself were inspired by it)
Jessica knocked it out of the park on both themes.
Love these gloves and the lines they created with Peyton’s port de bras
This converse look was especially fun to shoot. Peyton’s movements maximized the flow of the blue top and really brought an electric energy to the look.
Towards the end of our time we started losing light, (we shot at the studio from 6-8 PM) So Peyton wore this unique white fluffy top that we paired with a maroon leotard. The white top picked up the remaining soft light and Peyton’s body was nearly silhouetted.
This was a phenomenal shoot. I was feeling extremely inspired by the Noguchi Gardens, Peyton’s movements and Jessica’s passion/great taste for styling.
Keep an eye on the Zine fore more shoots with Peyton and Jessica Szuberla.
-Oliver Endahl