I'm very late on uploading this, so blame my crazy schedule runs.
I had the privilege to attend my friend Annamarie's graduation party back in October. She completed a Nursing program that she's been taking and I went to congratulate and show support for her culmination. While being there, I was talking to her friends and her family members and having great conversations with them, and they also served Tamales that were delicious. Here are some of the few images I took with my Nikon 35mm film SLR. Must respect and thanks to Annamarie.
It's 3:30 AM on Monday morning as I'm typing this. Damn, as I look back the past three years, she really did made an impact on my life.
If it wasn't for her, I would've been a basic ass black dude being remotely bored with his life. If it wasn't for her, then 90% of y'all would've never gotten professional quality photos being taken by me. And because of her, my photography has improved and increased in terms of business and networking. One of the reasons I stayed in touch with her is cause she also has a similar interest in taking photos as well, in both film and digital. Hell, I even saw her rocking two Canon SLRs (each film and digital) at her twin's second birthday party. Once I saw that, I knew she was legit.
That day, August 13, 2010, pretty much started the whole thing. I already discussed it on this site a week after it happened, but fuck it, I'll tell it again since it was one of my most memorable days of 2010.
The day of my brother's 18th birthday, I first met her at the Robert Frost Middle School class reunion at the Sugar Suite bar in Granada Hills. She was one of the few people that hosted the event. I know there's high school reunions but I would never think there would be one for 8th graders who graduated in 2002. So I went since I was one of the well known people from my middle school who got into fights there and got sent to the office several times for hitting on girls. That school was in a affluent area of Granada Hills and the people there looked like rich private school students since we had to wear uniforms. I was the skinny black kid with the cheap Payless shoes and fucked up haircuts done by my moms with uneven line-ups. But back to the reunion, as I got there, there were several people that I recognized and haven't seen in 8 years. We reminisced about all the crazy shit that happen at Frost and all the teachers we used to piss off. Then later, she came, and not to be disrespectful, but out of everyone that attended, she was the only one that I don't remember from junior high. Everybody else I did remember, pretty much the whole entire graduating class, but not her for some weird reason. She was also well known at Frost. I took photos of the reunion and posted them up on Facebook the next day, and I don't know if I sent her a friend request or if she sent me one, but regardless, she sent me an invite for attending her twin's birthday party taking place a week after that. My photography was increasing that summer just from doing multiple photoshoots and working with my uncle every week, so to gain more confidence, I asked her if I can take photographs of her kids birthday party and she said yes. I was thinking of charging her at that point, but since I offered to do it, I just did it for no charge.
Now as I was about get ready to go to her kid's birthday party on that Saturday, I learned at the last minute that Paul Rodriguez Jr. was doing a meet and greet at Primitive, the skating boutique that he owns in Encino, for the store's two year anniversary. Prior to this, I heard of Primitive a few times but I never stepped inside there and also that year, I was still into photographing celebrities and famous people, so I figured why not just add Paul Rodriguez, one of most popular professional skateboarders ever, into the list.
The thing was that the anniversary party happened around the same time that her twin's birhtday party started. I stayed there for a short bit and took about 20 pictures of the store, the people who attended, Paul Rodriguez, and the rest of the photos were of Filipina model Justene Jaro, who fucking shocked me by surprise when she came out looking tight and sexy by wearing the Infrared Nike Air Max 90s that got re-released that summer. Reason I took very little photos was because I didn't want to take up battery life and storage space for the birthday party I was going to attend later on that day. After I left Primitive, I never thought that I would return to that store unless if there was an exclusive Nike SB Dunk that was released, but a several months later, I ran into Harry Kim, one of the staff at Primitive, at a Thai festival in Hollywood. He was wearing a dope ass greyscale Primitive t-shirt with the Los Angeles skyline on it. I asked him about it and he told me that I should stop by at the shop to pick it up, which I did. Since then, I never stopped going to Primitive and I kept supporting them, just like what I was about to do with her.
When I got to her kids party, I didn't know what to expect. At first, it started out just eating some BBQ that was provided. Then later on, her kids showed up and that was when the show began. I just went all over the place snapping photos like I was at one of the events my uncle and I would cover during that summer. When the party was almost over, I told her that I would make a slideshow DVD of it as I left. I spent the next two weeks on my uncle's iMac working on editing the photos and placing them on iDVD. I made like a few copies so that she can give it to her family members. Here's the video slideshow I made form that party.
A month later after I presented her the photos from her kids party, she then invited me to attend another party to take photos of, but this time it was for two of her friends Annamarie Rhyne and Cristina Campa. It took place at her house on a Saturday Night. There were originally gonna be three bands performing that night, but it went down to two since the last band backed out at the last minute. The performers were Aftergloam and Darger De Milo, and this was the first of many performances that I witnessed and photographed of them. I was even surprised when she was gonna perform with Darger De Milo during that party. That night was were I met so many people who I would be somewhat involved with their lives for the next three years. It was one of the many greatest night ever.
As the months went on, I started going to several different gathering and meet-ups every week. Whether it was a show, a birthday party, or a last minute kickback, I was there just to take photos. Not only that, I kept meeting more people and their families and developed good relationships with them. If it wasn't for that night, I would've never met the homie Elvis and his awesome extended family. I was fortunate to go to the NBA All Star weekend with his brother and brother-in-law at the Convention Center the following year, something that I thought I wouldn't ever experience (thank you William Galvez). But in all seriousness, I really got a hard hit on life since I started hanging out and going around Los Angeles with her and a her friends, from a diverse perspective. I saw the reality of life, meeting different people and listening to the different opinions the spit out. All the late night shows in downtown, and hanging out with her friends family members was like a spinoff of a television series. Fuck, I really enjoyed it.
I really couldn't imagine what my life for the last three years would've been if I never met her. I learned so much about the different aspect of life through her than I would've throughout my entire lifetime.Through her I experience about the joys and the mindsets of children through her friends' kids, newborns in life (such as seeing Katie Galvez's daughter Marilyn at one day old), experiencing losing life partners (RIP Ashley Davidson), the responsibilities and lives of young and old parents, giving respect to talented musicians and watching them craft their work behind the scenes during their practice sessions, having conversations with other photographers who have doing this longer than I have, staying up late at night till sunrise, driving her friend's cars since they were too intoxicated to go behind the wheel, spending Christmas Day with her family, hanging out at the DLT's, running into Nikolai Frature of The Strokes at the Five Star Bar right after he performed at Coachella that weekend, and witnessing the homeboy Eric Jackson getting married to Jessica Torres this past weekend at Franklin Canyon park, which was a great event. I wanted to stay longer for the reception, but I had to leave early due to work issues. If I never got to experience all of these, I seriously would've been some un-social vocational school student living with my moms and I would've had that one-dimension mentality thinking that too many people having kids is negative and that everyone was too lazy to clean themselves up and get a job. Shit, I would've lost interest in photography if I never met her, cause she was a major part of expanding my portfolio and the main reason why I started blogging a lot more.
Its not everyday that you would run into a blonde hair girl with tattoos and a serious infatuation with BMWs (she named her son after one of them) who would all of a sudden quietly put some kind of a dent in your life. I'm returning all of this by not only writing this long ass piece on her 25th birthday, as well as Memorial Day today, but by saying thanks to her for giving me a boost forward in expecting and looking out for life's challenges and social obstacles. I write all this cause I really do love her, just like the Thousands (yes, THOUSANDS) of her friends on her Facebook page. Even though I haven't seen her that much aside from seeing her at Eric and Jessica's wedding last Saturday (sorry that I didn't stay to watch your Disc Jockey talents) I'm very blessed to have her as a part in my life and hopefully it will continue for a very long time, and that she'll do the same impact she has done to me back in the summer of 2010 to others out there who don't have an true idea with social direction their going.
It was just another weekend for me. Mostly with friends and some excellent pro-football.
Saturday was just mostly spent at the DLT's for my friend Marlene's daughter, Yvonne, for her baby shower that was taking place. I went there for two purposes: to take photos of the event and to show support as well. As I was heading my way over there, I needed to stop someplace to eat since I didn't consume anything after waking up late as usual. I could've gone to my church for their weekly potluck, but instead, I went to this pizza parlor just up a block on Glenoaks and Roxford. The Subway there was my original choice, but since I've passed by that place a hundred thousand times for the past nine years, I decided to try out their pizza for the first time.
It was very decent. I like it, probably the best 5 bucks I spent for two slices. It was run by this Hispanic lady in her late 20's and another girl, who I assume might be her sister or cousin in high school, that's probably doing a weekend gig for some cash. Place was small with a 4 arcade machines and a regular size flat screen TV hovering on the ceiling. They were showing a bullshit episode of True Life profiling this teenage girl who has to deal with their embarrassing mom's that has very large fake breasts and some crying shit. I didn't want to watch that while I was eating in risking regurgitation, so I made the owner of the restaurant change it to the Stanford/Oregon Pac-12 college football game. This Andrew Luck kid is gonna be the talk on the sports world for the next couple of months. I won't be surprised if he gets drafted by Indianapolis next year, if he decides to not play his senior year with Stanford. After consuming those two slices and a cup of water, I then dipped out to the DLT's. Shoutout to Bella's Pizza for the quick, delicious lunch.
The baby shower for Yvonne was pretty much handled like another regular kickback at her place like before. Only difference was that it was mostly women that was in attendance, and obviously, I didn't have a problem with that. I brought a black tarp as a background for a "prom night portrait" style photoshoot that I did for everyone there, the first time I ever did that for any event I did. The stock photos actually came out well, but I might tweak them up a bit. I didn't have any strobes or studio lighting to use, just some of the light that's occupied in the house and the built in flash on the camera. My uncle is getting his SB-600 flashgun repaired. Aside from that, everything else was absolutely chill. Spent the night there and watched a bit of football as soon as I woke up from a two hour sleep, cause I drank some Pepsi the night before that kept me awake the whole night.
I didn't go to test drive some Cadillacs at The Grove on like I said in the last post, but whatever, I drove several of them in Glendale last month. They also had the annual Glamourcon event at the Long Beach Convention Center, which is a meet and greet of former Playboy bunnies from the 1970's, 80's and 90's. I could've gone, but I rather take photos of those models from the way the looked 20 or 30 years ago. Sunday was just mostly spent at the DLT's just checking out the Niners/Redskins game, which ended up with San Francisco becoming 7-1 since Steve Young was the starting Quarterback there in that ball club in the 90's. The rest of the early games were blowouts. I thought FOX was gonna air the Packers/Chargers game in the afternoon, but they showed the Giants/Patriots game that had the shittiest scoreless first half I've ever seen. I left when halftime started (thanks to Katie Galvez for the lift back to my place).
When I got back home, I wanted to rest to make up for the loss of hours that I didn't sleep, but one of my housemates was going off with his karaoke system in the living room, and to be honest, I FUCKING DON'T LIKE BEING IN KARAOKE SCENES. I can't sing for shit, and I'm glad I've never tried it in my life, ever. To avoid hearing him from my room singing every catalog more than twice for the remainder of the time (no joke, EVERY SONG MORE THAN TWICE) I shook over to my friend Frank's house just not too far from where I live. got a chance to see the final seconds of the Giants/Patriots game and damn, that shit felt ALOT like their duel in Super Bowl XLII. Brady losing at home for the first time is like him breaking his team perfect season record in the 2007 season. That feeling was just... damn, with a different New York Giants team. Hopefully, Eli Manning earned a lot of confidence from that game. I also got a chance to see the end of the Packers/Chargers game thanks to Frank's DirecTV Game Mix feature, where its every game in one screen. Resulted with Green Bay still proving why they're the World Champions by defeating San Diego in a crazy 45-38 win. The Sunday Night game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore was brilliant. A lot of defense was displayed and it was worth watching. I still think that Ray Lewis has several years left in the league, but it was a great game nonetheless with the Ravens embarrassing the Steelers fans at their stadium.
That was my weekend. Its pretty much the usual that I do every week, friends and football. Thanks as always to the De La Torre's and the Galvez's for inviting me to Yvonne's baby shower and shoutout to the young female cashier at the Burger King in San Fernando for complementing my red St. John's Bay shirt on Sunday Night. The rest of this week was emotional news so far for some African American notable figures in the news. Dr. Conrad Murrary is finally going to jail, boxing legend Joe Frazier died from liver cancer last night and now this afternoon, hip hop legend Heavy D passed away. I wasn't alive to see Joe Frazier duke it out in the ring, but I was jumping from different nursery schools in North Hollywood every six months with my little sister in the 90's when Heavy D was getting exposure then. I remember glancing on some of his videos back when BET did a top 20 video countdown every Saturday afternoon with a different guest host paying their favorite music videos back in 2005, and a few of them chose Heavy D and the Boyz. I also remember seeing him making special guest appearances in a few repeat episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and A Different World.
Damn, his passing got me by surprise. I was coming back from taking photos of Shakira's Walk of Fame ceremony at Hollywood and Vine today (she is VERY fine and I've fucked with her music since Laundry Service back in 8th grade), and found out about Heav's death as soon as got on the internet. I actually could've spent this last paragraph blabbering about witnessing Shakira in person for the first time and how it was the CRAZIEST Walk Of Fame that I've ever been to in 5 years, but two deaths withing 24 hours is just as bizarre as the passings I've seen vanished back in 2009. Just be blessed and thankful for your life, and give back to those who helped you got to where you're at right now. Enjoy the rest of the week.
The title LITERALLY speaks for itself this past weekend.
I spent majority of the past 3 days with my family, my friends and their families. It was great attending my pops' and my brother's church for the first time since.... I-really-do-not-know-when. It felt like a year, but I remember visiting the place sometime around this year, or was it because I keep seeing the Pastor and the members at my uncle's house for my cousin's wedding this past summer?
Anyway, my other cousin and the youth of his church were taking over the service for the day. I really wanted to stay and hear my cousin deliver his sermonette that he conducted, but I had to leave to drive to the A.V. to go return the Nikon Speedlight SB-600 flash unit to my uncle in Lancaster, cause he had a gig to go take photos at around that time. So after I dreaded the 14 freeway North and chilled at his place for a bit, I then took the beautiful-ass flawless Sierra Highway back to my pop's house in Granada Hills. When I got home, I read that one of the Aftergloam members was throwing a last minute potluck kickback at her place, and I just bought 2 Double Cheeseburgers and a Side Salad from McDonald's before I got home, which I haven't eaten yet. So then I took my untouched $3.61 plus tax lunch to Tianna Edmonson's place, who happens to be the excellent, talented drummer for the band Aftergloam.
Usually whenever I go to her place, which is not too far from where I'm staying at, there would always be a grip of twenty somethings that would fill up her pad, but when I got there around 4pm, there was about like 6 or 7 people that attended. I think I shut down the entire potluck with the McDonald's in my hand but I just gave one of my sandwiches to one of the dudes there that was starving. During that time I mingled, took photos, watched some decent amount of television at their living room such as a portion of the USC-Arizona Wildcats game, the movie Biker Boyz which I haven't seen since my trip from Nigeria on the airplane as an in-flight movie back in 2003, and I got a chance to check out Inside the NFL on Showtime, which I thought was a damn good show unlike NFL Live and alot of other pro football related highlight programs. Man, Phil Simms even cussed during the discussion about the situation with the Dallas Cowboys after the first five minutes at the start of the program. No wonder this shit used to be aired on HBO. Big shoutout to the De La Torre family for for getting to know y'all more, making me feel at home, and for the excellent, delicious Pupusas you guys served me.
The next day I was supposed to cover a wedding on that Sunday, which I happened to found out at the last second when I turned my phone on after I woke up. I tried calling my uncle back, but he didn't pick up. I could've made at least $200 that day. Instead, I did some laundry, helped my pops around the house by doing yard maintenance, and just kept it low key for a while. For some reason, I didn't feel like watching some NFL games that day, but I followed up some of the games online during the score updates.
Later on that day, I drove to Chatsworth to go pick up my friend Natasha to go hiking at Stoney Point next to Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the Santa Susana Pass intersection. I always drive by that place over the years and I never got a chance to check it out. It was a very great spot, especially for doing photoshoots. Took a good amount of photos there, mostly landscape pictures of Porter Ranch, and we just talked and had good discussions as we were hiking. Natasha and I went to the same high school and I started talking to her back in 2005, but only for a short while. I ran into her again this past summer when I started going to Nicole's house, since they're both young mothers and good close friends. Small ass world, isn't it. She's a very cool person to be around with. Hell, she even introduced me to the film American Psycho on Friday, which I heard of but never saw. For some reason, I always think of Kourtney Kardashian's son's father Scott Disick instead of the Patrick Bateman character the film. They look and dress TOTALLY alike.
After I dropped Natasha off at her place, I then drove to one of my friend's crib Burbank to watch the Los Angeles Lakers go against the Phoenix Suns, which was a disappointing loss thanks to Hedo Turkoglu crazy ass 3 pointers, which was almost a record that night, more like a Ray-Allen-in-the-2010-NBA-Finals type performance. Thanks to the Galvez family for inviting me over and thanks to Ginger for the slice of Pumpkin Pie, which was my first time trying it.
I'll just end this post here. Seriously, I really can't ask for more. I'm pretty much already full and stuffed with all the blessings I counted this weekend, as well as this past year so far. To me, there's really no need for Turkeys (not Hedo Turkoglu's country by the way). I rather give them to those unfortunate people who really need it more than I do. That's the type of person I am, especially during the upcoming holidays.
