Zine note · Folio 01

Made for the archive,
not the feed.

a quiet practice

Abstract studio-light plate in rose and ink

MCS / 01pp. 04–05

Mira Chen runs a small Los Angeles studio: portraits for private clients, hotel and interior studies, and still lifes for editorial pages. The work favors available light and a short edit — pictures made for the book, the wall, and the quiet hour after a sitting.

Recent collaborators include Atelier North magazine, The Kinney House hotel, Harbor & Pine, and private portrait clients across Southern California. A few sittings each season, usually in one place, usually when the windows do most of the work.

Printed as a short edition · Los Angeles

MCS / 01pp. 06–07

If you want noise, this is the wrong room.

Prints are made in short editions for the people in them, and a handful stay in the studio books. Magazines and hotels keep the rights they need; private clients keep the pictures that matter.

Write to the studio

Selected clients · Atelier North · The Kinney House

How a sitting goes

Three steps, and then we stop.

one

A conversation

We talk about what the pictures should hold — a person, a room, a table — and whether a sitting is even the right thing. No mood boards. A short letter is enough.

two

A sitting

Available light, unhurried, usually one location. Two hours at most. Clothes you already own. The camera stays quiet; so does the direction.

three

A small edit

A handful of pictures, not a gallery of hundreds. Proofs first, then a short set of prints. The rest of the files stay in the book.

Client voices

Notes from recent work

“We hired Mira for a hotel story and kept her on retainer for the rooms. Guests notice.”

Noah Kim General manager · The Kinney House

“Patient direction, almost no chatter. The portraits look like people, not campaigns.”

Elena Vargas Photo director · Atelier North

“She photographed our apartment for a private album. Three hours, twelve frames we still love.”

Daniel O. Private commission · Pasadena