Rising Stars: Meet Aly Whitman of Lincoln Heights

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aly Whitman

Hi Aly, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It’s clear to me now, that I was always a visual artist, although I tried repeatedly to ignore it. I tried the sciences, writing and cooking. I thought maybe with a journalism degree, I could learn about anything I wanted, but in journalism school, I just ended up taking photos. Ha. I couldn’t get away.
I moved to LA on a whim and some years later ended up working at MILK Studios Los Angeles. It was actually my barista who landed me the job. Strangely, I owe most of my career to hanging around Cafe De Leche in Highland Park. We had a pretty Hemingway-in-Paris community going on there for a few years.
I started packing lighting orders at MILK, and since then I’ve been a production assistant, photo assistant, set decorator, digital tech, and–all-the-while–photographer. I’ve certainly hustled, but I’ve received a lot of support from my community as well.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have to lol here. I would love to read from someone who answered “Yes! It’s been a breeze.”
To pick up on the last question, I landed an internship then job in the grip room at Milk Studios and that place is a real hell. If my old managers read this, they won’t like it, but the truth is truth. We started our shifts at 4pm and finished 2am or later. The entire shift was one long weight-lifting session as we packed and unpacked trucks of heavy lighting equipment. Everything had to be spotless. Everything had to be perfect. Most importantly, everything was our fault.
That said, it was an opportunity like nothing else. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it was the only grip room in the city who was hiring women at the time. I learned everything I needed to know to start working on set with the equipment used at the highest level. I also became really strong. I was always scawny and bad at sports. I looked like a football player after one month at MILK Studios. I could lift full-grown men in my arms like babies, and I would do it at parties for attention.
There was and still is a lot of sexism in the industry as well. There’s a lot of racism too. Before the Me Too movement, it was much harder to get work as a photo assistant with any of the major players unless you were a white, male, north face-wearing man with a tattoo of a lens shutter on your forearm. Ok that last bit is a bit of a joke, but things really started to open up the week that the Weinstein story broke. Producers started to take seriously how uncomfortable female talent was when there weren’t any other women around.
Now days, it’s a bad look to hire an all-male photography team. Even still, I had three male photographers last year alone tell me to my face that they didn’t think women could do my job.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Having spent many years in advertising, I love working alongside film-makers who are often telling a story that matters to them. And actors are mega fun to shoot. If you ask them to give a range of expressions for the camera, you’ll get a full-on show. Plus they are so passionate. That’s why shooting key art and PR for film and television excites me.
Actually you’ll see my work pop up on Apple TV+ on January 17th for the release of “Good Side of Bad” Check it out. It’s an excellent film.
I’m also going deeper into portraiture this year. I love the intimacy. I’m notably good at making people comfortable. My subjects have told me on many occasions that I’ve taken the only photo that truly looks like them. That lights me up.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’ve had a lot of interesting luck. I was lucky in being born looking the way I do, which got me a ticket out of rural, small-town America. I got lucky to have college-educated parents. I got lucky with many opportunities that have come my way.
I squandered too many. It wasn’t until I learned how to honor the opportunities with hard work and dedication that my career blossomed.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alywhitman.com
• Instagram: @alywhitman

Image Credits
Aly Whitman