Memorable Days

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.

Sneaks Of The Union Address: A Tribute to Ashley Davidson and Everything in Life

First post of Two Thousand Thirteen, and I kinda picked the right day to type this.

Traditionally, I would do a recap of the past year on New Years Day, but I didn't do it this time cause I had to care of some personal shit. It wasn't the best of the past couple of weeks and the past holidays was lame as fuck. I didn't receive anything other than some money, but I didn't fucking care. Adults would rather have money so that they can buy what St. Nick would put under the fake pine tree on their behalf, or they would receive a gift that they're not too fond of and exchange it for cash (if it came with a gift receipt) or store credit at a department store, or they can just re-sell that said gift on eBay or Craigslist. As far as New Years Day, well, I'll just say I had better New Years Days in the past. I didn't do a photoshoot with a gorgeous model or partied for 72 hours straight with friends like I did for the past two New Years. After spending January 1st watching overrated Nigerian films with the family at my uncle's and getting cussed at by my pops while leaving because of my disinterest of the holiday spirit, I was then recollected that New Years Day is just another day, same with Christmas.

I stayed away from reading current events in the news and CNN's website and uploading photos on Facebook and several different forums after that. Just like Brendan Fraiser and Eugene Levy from Blast in the Past, I honestly still don't know whether the Fiscal Cliff had gone through or not, or who won best Actress in the Golden Globes and what designer dress she wore while having drunk, champagne-celebrated sex in the following evening. The year 2013 begun a week before it even officially started after Kanye West announced to the world that he was going to embrace parenthood after going raw on Kimberly. Dude just squished alot of Black men's feelings and potential hopes (excluding mine). Yeah, her family is going to keep Ryan Seacrest and the mass media livid and relevant and irritating for at least the next nine months and about eighteen years at the most (21 years if their offspring takes after his or her mothers' clubbing habits in Vegas). If I never went around Beverly Hills and Robertson Boulevard taking photos of her and her fine ass four to five years ago, then that last sentence would've never existed. This is the new version of the Jay-Z/Beyonce/Blue Ivy Carter-expecting frenzy from a year ago (already a year?) but the exposure is gonna be much more bizarre.

Even though I had a rough couple of weeks (which is why this blogsite had been dry for over a month), I managed to make good use of that time. For example, last December, I went all the way on a long drive to Indio with The Orange Rev (now Astral Fractual) drummer Elena Castro, her sister, and one of their friends to a Tamale festival that was taking place there. I went for several reasons:

1)  I haven't seen Elena for about a year
2)  I haven't tasted Tamales for a decade
3)  I wanted to escape LA on that day
4)  Indio is one of my favorite places, and its in the same city where the infamous Coachella festival event is held every spring

The event was great. Tasted so many different Tamales, had some music-related discuss with Elena, took a few photos on 35mm Film, and listened to Eddie Murphy's Raw stand-up comedy movie through her car stereo on the way back while cruising on the 10 freeway. If the holidays wasn't full of shit last month, I would've blogged about this more at the time. Special thanks to Elena and her sister Lauren Castro for the invite.

Now as if I though that 2013 was gonna be set for another predictability-wasted 365 days and 52 weeks, I got hit with a serious bolt of reality this past weekend. I'll divide it into three segments, which are kinda a play on words from Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and Pursuit, for Happines.

Life
One of my friends' nieces (withholding her name just out of respect) gave birth to a young baby boy last Saturday. I was invited to her baby shower a week prior to that and another different baby shower a week before that as well. I wasn't in the mood to go out to events and gatherings in public this recent month due to the botherness of personal stress, and after this past weekend, and now I wished that I did attend just to show support and give them my blessings in life for their new life blessings. A simple birth will make an immediate impact of someones life, whether you're a family member, a close friend, or a co-worker. Any female who just gave birth to her child won't be the same person as you knew when you first met her, regardless if she's 17 or becoming a mom for the first time at 47.

Whether having a child is intentional or not, just seeing that newborn is an amazing feeling, especially after being inside a woman's stomach for three-quarters of a year. That's statistic gives me much more respect to women dealing with pregnancy, and the husband/father/life partner that has to deal with her emotional mood swings every night as well. I'm not a parent (thankfully), but I was there when all of my siblings and majority of my cousins were born. Half of the females from my high school graduating class already full time moms, and I got a fortunate chance to photograph some of their children, which is another reason why I like to take photos. Young children grow and evolve mentally at an unprecedented rate and before you can realize it, your son can configure and sync your iPhone5 to your computer or your daughter will learn most of her vocabulary from a Katy Perry or Taylor Swift record.

As I look as at my close friends' kids, I realize that these children will never get to select a movie to rent at an actual video store on a Saturday night, or purchase stamps for less than 50 cents so that they can write in their best, awful cursive to a another kid their age in Thailand or Lebanon as a pen pal, and those kids will probably never know what a smog check or an oil change is now that 100% emission-free automobiles are starting to exist now (unless if they treat maintaining modern day Honda Civics and Cadillac Escalades in the future as we treat maintaining Ford Mustangs, Dodge Challengers and Plymouth Barracuda's from the '60s and '70s today). If you were a parent not too fond your kid's legitimate decision of having a kid (say she's over 18 and still living with you for example), you may not like it, but from a challenging standpoint, its best if you respect her decision so that she may be more comfortable and less stressful while she delivers her new part of life. The bottom line is this, however way its put on or viewed, the birth of a living being is the greatest moment in life.

Liberty
As I'm typing while listening to every Sade album on Spotify, not only is today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but also the day that Barack Obama gets sworn in for his second term as President of the United States  again. The last (or First) time that he got sworn in was back in 2009. I know that day very well cause that was the day I joined Twitter, without realizing how much it would have an immediate impact it would have in the years to come. I've told the story before, but the reason why I created a Twitter account was because my Facebook profile at the time got suspended and deleted, just for hitting on a random girl (I was 20 at the time) and she had ovaries to report and flag me. I thought snitching was just a kids thing. So then, just to get over this, I joined Twitter as an alternative to Facebook while they were televising Beyonce performing at one of the inaugural balls that The President was at. Here's the screencaps from exactly four years ago today.

Now a days, its kind of hard to imagine a time when this wasn't possible since we're used to a kind like Barack running the show in this country, let alone the entire world. But there was a time when people were specifically limited to exercise the options and opinions. Today is being recognized for a person who went out and did all he can physically and mentally to show that people are just people, regardless of their appearance and their beliefs. If the Civil Rights act never took place in the 60's, then I would've never lived in the Valley, where at the time its was mostly populated by affluent middle-class Whites. The whole purpose of Dr. King's vision, to me, is not just only about race, but there is more into that. People's hopes shouldn't be put down just by an opinion of another person with a higher authority.  That's like barging into a foreign persons home at their own time and telling them that they should not be practicing their everyday traditional rituals, even though YOU have nothing to do with it. That is was the purpose of this country is.

Many of the views and ideals here are either forbidden or not used in other parts of the world. They're certain places where you have to like something or listen to whatever the media there want to put on the news in that said country. Many people want to take advantage of their lives here either because, no offense, they're fed up with the rules from where they came from and they want to have their kids not deal with the shit that they dealt with when they were growing up. Dr King envisioned this. He didn't want to see the segregation and discrimination for those who have similar interests or achieving the same profession. They are some people out there in America who still don't agree with having Barack in the White House or stuff with that nature, but to each its own.

The impact that Dr. King made from his time done in jail for taking a stand in equal rights, to that march on Washington back on August 28, 1963, being part of the Civil Rights Act the following year as well as receiving the Nobel Piece Prize influenced so many people and activists that it lead for Dr. King to have a legal holiday created after him every Third Monday in January, which is around the time of his birthday. Its one of those type of days that should be respected, which is why a lot of public schools and federal/city offices are closed today. What threw me off was when I saw club promoters posting flyers for their events on the Sunday night before Dr. King day since there is no work or classes on that Monday. I mean, its cool to celebrate Dr King's life, but leave off the VIP lists, the $800 bottles of Cirocs and Grey Gooses, the thick chicks in mini-skirts, and the house DJ mixing the music with his iPad. Anybody here is fortunate to do whatever they want (except take people's lives away) and exercise it. Just respect their work and let them do them since you don't have anything to do with it or have any part in it.

Pursuit, For Happiness
I was gonna label this last segment with the word "Death" instead of "Pursuit, For Happiness", but I though it kinda sounded too dark.

Just this past weekend, I learned that a mutual friend of mine named Ashley Davidson has lost her life from a car accident at the end of last week. That really got me by surprise. She was close friends of the members of Aftergloam and I met her only once at a Christmas party that Aftergloam drummer Tianna Edmonson hosted back in December 2010. After that, she added me on Facebook and we spoke a few times. I wanted to meet up with her and get to know her more. I even wanted to do a photosession of her cause I thought she looked beautiful. But she was always busy and didn't have the time to get together. Out of all the great people that I met through Tianna and her Aftergloam bandmate/vocalist/lead Guitarist Elvis Galvez, Ashley was the one I wanted to meet the most. Afterwards, I stopped messaging her to see whenever she's free, and I don't blame her since many people around my age during 2011 didn't have the time to go out alot. Earlier, wrote that I stayed away from Facebook since New Years Day, but I only went on just to message certain people, not upload a photo or to "like" some random status. After I read that one of my homeboys posted about Ashley's tragic passing, I was surprised. I'm talking "NO FUCKING WAY!!!" surprised. I felt kinda cheated. Its like a business you wanted to work for so bad, that you had to go to a number of years of schooling and invested so much money from your parent's savings to pay for it that when you just a few steps to start your goal, you get stamped on the face saying that the job you deserve to earn is no longer valid since its operations are no longer in existence.

That's just shows that nothing is forever, regardless if its a person, place or thing. Its just takes a few unnecessary words and a slight lack of honesty to lose your girl to another person. You can make out without the rubber to some female you just met at the club in second only to find your swinging days are gone for the next 18 years (even after all the legal custody shit, you'll still be labeled as a father). Also, that $200 21'st birthday money you got from your grandparents will be dry off your wallet after experiencing a Vegas casino for the first time, where "The house always wins" as they say.

What I'm saying is that anybody can obtain anything, whether is cold hard cash, a nice beautiful girl to their desire, the hottest whip, the flyest job, and the bad-ass doberman to guard your crib. However, the hardest part is keeping and maintaining it. People can tell you how to raise something and give you pointers about it, yet its your responsibility to find the answers and resources to keep your possessions active. If not, then its gone just like that. The part that sucks about it the most is that even if we were keeping and maintaining that said possession, sometimes, just out of nowhere, its can disappear just like that. We have no control of it, but the only thing we can control is our emotion and reaction to it.

I feel very sad and disappointed that I'll never get the chance to meet Ashley again. If I knew her alot more, then this portion of the blog post would be five times longer, if not, the whole entire blog post. I'm not used to experiencing losing someone that you have a connection with aside from Steve Jobs' death, a celebrity you saw getting slimed at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards back in the day or a sports athlete that hung over your bed in a poster when you were a kid. From what I heard and talking to her a few times on Facebook, she seemed like a very nice woman. Not to sound like an overused Wiz Khalifa/Drake inspirational-type quote on Tumblr, but whoever you have in your life, hold on very close to him or her. Whatever you have in life, hold on to it. Living is precious and fragile, and everything else is secondary and materialistic. These are the only photos I have of Ashley Davidson from my first and only encounter with her back in December 2010.

Ashley on the left with the homegirl Julie Canizalez. 

Two photos of Ashley with my good friend Christina Campa.

I really hate to post this, but out of respect, this screencap image is one of my last conversations I had with Ashley on Facebook.

I can't think of anything else to say other than to take good advantage of your life and everything about it. Cause once its gone, its gone. In closing, I just wanna say thanks to the little brother for going to church with him over the weekend and to Jim Mcdonald (http://www.jimmcdonald.org/) for taking over the service with his singing voice and his stories from living in Normandy, France. Also, special shoutout to Vanessa Cuenca and Cecilia Navarrete for the luncheon yesterday in Northridge, even though it was rushed, it was all about spending time together and another shoutout to the De La Torre's for a interesting quality time on Sunday Night while watching the Baltimore Ravens get the AFC Championship over the New England Patriots in Gillette Stadium (where the Patriots play at) and reflecting on Ashley's life as well as getting to know some more stuff about her. Finally, my condolences go out to the Davidson family and very close friends of Ashley. 

I really wanted to get to know her more, but that'll never happen. Rest in Paradise Ashley Davidson. 

  

Fifth iPhone Avenue and a tribute to Steve Sabol

So last Tuesday, my favorite filmmaker of 10 years and the head of NFL Films Steve Sabol had passed away from Brain Cancer he was diagnosed with for the past year and a half.

For those of you who stay in touch with me on Facebook, Twitter, and my other websites (like you should be doing), you'd noticed that I wouldn't shut the fuck up about his death and kept flooding other people's comment walls and feeds with a number of tributes I did to him for the past two days. I'm not gonna make this extremely long or anything, but dude was the main reason I started doing filmmaking back in high school, which then lead to photography just from watching his videos of highlights from NFL games that he and his pops have been producing and conducting for over 40 years. I first got into NFL Films when I was ready to watch Super Bowl XXXVII back in 2003 between the Raiders and the Buccaneers (the Pirate Bowl, the Gruden Bowl which that game was referred to from the coincidental storyline and relationship that coach John had with both teams).

That game didn't start until later that afternoon and I had plenty of time to kill after I woke up. I then went to ESPN 2 and saw that they were showing highlights from the past Super Bowls. Prior to this, I wasn't into the NFL as I am now (I haven't watch any of the games yet this season other than the Thursday Night Opener) and they only things I knew about the league at that time was the popular teams like the Cowboys, Raiders and the New York Giants and the only players I knew were Joe Montana, John Elway, Emmit Smith and Troy Aikman. And on top of that, I watched Super Bowls then cause it was very popular with the commercials and the halftime show. That was it. I then spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the highlights, and in every one of them, Steve Sabol would introduce each highlight by giving a synopsis of that particular Super Bowl. I thought he was some washed up high school football coach from the 80's until two years later that I realized he was the founder of NFL Films. That company is a educational tool for those who want to get into pro football from a history aspect, and I'm saying this with experience. I really liked the way the cinematographers captured the athletes up close with their sound coming from the wireless mics attached to them, along with the slow motion and the behind the scenes in the locker room.

The main purpose of NFL Films is storytelling mixed with symphony music and narration from the deep voice narrators which makes watching their highlights like a movie screening at the Hollywood Bowl. If it wasn't for Steve Sabol and NFL Films, the I would've NEVER got into pro football, or professional sports for that matter, and I would've never enrolled at Brooks Institute of Photography for that summer. Hell, I would've been 30 pounds heavier by fixing and studying computers or doing whatever my moms forces me to do after high school without ambitions. I remember when I used to cop whatever out of print VHS and DVD that NFL Films would distribute, or I would just record some of the old highlights off ESPN Classic. But in short, dude was one of the top people I looked up to next to my parents, Steve Jobs, and Ted Turner (before he sold off from Time Warner and made TBS a piece of shit station). Also, Steve Sabol was one of the only few people in existence to have gone to EVERY FUCKING SUPERBOWL in his life, including the NFL championship games before the merger. Thanks again, Steve.

Alright, so that was kinda lengthy. Not only is photography what I'm good at, but writing/typing is also my second interest as well. I've been blogging for almost 6 years already. Speaking of which, check out this one blogsite from a woman out in New York City who is giving up a week to be one of first in line to camp out for the iPhone 5 in front of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store which drops in all other Apple Stores and other cell providers not called T-Mobile tomorrow. She's been keeping readers in touch about how she is occupying her time in front of the store, and its quite interesting to read. The woman's name is Jessica, if that matters. Here's the link http://iphonewhatever.com/

Thanks for your time reading and have fun skipping work and class tomorrow by standing in lines longer than Space Mountain and the DMV for the new four inch device that Samsung does not want you to purchase.