Sechelt photographer Kaylyn Mclachlan got to stroll down one of the red carpets in Los Angeles last weekend when she attended a pre-Oscar event to shoot the stars.
“It was a whirlwind of a weekend,” she told Coast Reporter on Monday.
The day before the Academy Awards were handed out, she attended the Gift Suites at the Los Angeles Center Studios, a kind of trade show for actors and other celebrities to stop by and enjoy free swag from companies seeking promotion. Mclachlan’s mother works for Nucerity, a high end skin care line, and she recommended her daughter as a photographer for the event. Her task was to take photos of each celebrity as they tried out the product.
Many of the invited celebrities were known through television — none of the big names managed to get to the Gift Suites, although Maddalena Ischiale, actor in the Academy Award nominee Unbroken and Marnette Patterson from nominee American Sniper joined the visiting crowd. Mclachlan got to chat with Erik Estrada, long-running TV actor, and she met Joann Worley, who many remember from the popular Laugh-In TV series. She took photos of stars Marc Anthony Samuel and Andrea Bogart from General Hospital and of Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond.
“Nobody was pompous,” she said. “Everyone was down to earth.”
The actor who plays General Jong (Charles Rahi Chun) in the controversial hacked movie The Interview turned up for his celebrity junket, as did Chris Reed, who plays Filthy Phil in Sons of Anarchy.
Mclachlan returned to her Beverly Hills hotel situated under the big Hollywood sign for the night, having taken more than 100 photos.
“Coming from a small town to this big event was exciting,” she said.
She and her husband, who is also a photographer, moved to Sechelt one year ago and their professional business has taken off. They do portraiture for all ages, from children to grandparents, incorporating hair, make-up and wardrobe attention to capture natural poses. (See www.kaylynAphotography.com for more.)
Will she go on from here to more celebrity events? Talk of photographing at the Grammys or the Junos is in the wind. Mclachlan is hopeful.
