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.
Happy 25th years of life, Nicole Stetter.
