December 9, 2011

Lost Highway

This is Jennifer. She runs marathons.

Jennifer the runner is different than Jennifer from the previous post. I've known Jennifer the runner for close to 10 years now. We used to have a movie night every Friday night which we nicknamed "Ukyu" after some weird anime thing we watched. She's been living just outside of Berkeley for the past few years and is teaching at one of the colleges in SF. She is also an ambassador for the San Francisco Marathon, which is pretty amazing. I've ran one marathon my entire life and it was 26.2 miles of sweat and tears. She has run... I'm not sure how many, but at least 4 of them! We have a mutual obsession for Lord of the Rings, though she might be even more into it than I am.

October 29, 2011

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

This is Jennifer. She is a classy dame living on her own in the dangerous city of Los Angeles. We're planning on putting together a Mad Men themed photoshoot one of these days.

Here are some pictures from a test shoot we did





October 9, 2011

Find a Penny, Pick it up...

... And all the day you'll have good luck.

I'm all packed up and about to leave London. Lots of stories in store! For now though, a few pictures from the first couple days of the trip.




September 18, 2011

Going the Distance

"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." -Maya Angelou

Thanks to my younger brother, I've had a unique opportunity to travel to many places this year. Two months ago, a number of random variables added together in such a way that I found myself in New York visiting my friend Lauren. That led to planning a return trip to drop off some costume parts for Lauren, put a super-computer together for her roommate Kevin, and see an art exhibit done by her roommate Yuri. The greatest thing I've gotten from traveling is the friendship and insight of others, so I thought I'd write a bit about that...


(Samus Light Suit Canon - Brooklyn rooftop)

Lauren Baker

Lauren, Lo, Stripedwine, Pilot, Jukebox. She has many nicknames, but they are just different ways of addressing this multifaceted individual. Before going to New York, I didn't know Lauren that well. I just knew she was really good at drawing and had a fun personality. I've gotten to know her a bit better though! She listens to 60s and 70s rock music, which is the COOLEST music ever (I grew up listening to it so it makes me feel all sorts of happy when I hear it). Normally, people are good at memorizing lyrics or song melodies, or neither if they're unlucky. But Lauren remembers the song melodies and lyrics as a pair (hence the nickname Jukebox). She has cybernetic implants that allow her to create 3D rendered models in her brain and create them as drawings or perfectly fitting and correctly measured costumes. This is all really neat, but what really surprised me was how much of an outdoors person she is. Lauren has been camping as far south as beaches in Mexico and hiking as far north as Alaska. She can speak nearly fluent Canadian and is getting married soon! She's currently a comic book digital inker and a fantastic cook. Without a doubt, she's one of the most incredible people I've ever met!

Kevin Hsi

Kevin is a funny character and a fantastic friend! He is from Taiwan and speaks both Chinese and English. He went to art school with Lo, Yuri, and Liz, and he spends almost every waking moment drawing. Kevin has a particular knack for drawing tanks and doing suuuper awesome watercolor coloring. He wants to experience more of the outdoors because all the comic book work kind of traps him indoors. He has a nice SLR camera and a great eye for picture composition, so I showed him how to use everything on the camera in hopes that he'll use his talents to grace the world of photography. Kevin sort of led me and Lauren on an adventure through Flushing, NY on my last day visiting and ordered all sorts of crazy food things for us to eat at a "Hot Pot" Chinese restaurant. One of which was chicken hearts. Kevin and I built his super computer earlier last week. It has a 3ghz quad core CPU with 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a 2GB DRR5 256bit Radeon HD graphics card, and several other what nots.

Yuri Leonov

Yuri is one of those people that will look at something and see layers upon layers of interesting things buried beneath the surface that other people wouldn't realize are there. He's from St. Petersburg, Russia and went to art school in NY with Lauren, Kevin, and Liz, but he is the only full fledged painter living there. Last time I was visiting, he showed me the preliminary sketch on one of the canvases he was going to paint. It had a Golden Spiral drawn lightly on it, which is a spiral based on the Fibonacci Sequence that is made up of a series of quarter-circular arcs whose radii are consecutively increasing. Sort of like a nautilus shell. This shape was the basis for some of the compositions of his paintings, as you can see in this picture from Yuri's Exhibit (Art Exhibit picture). Aside from being extremely artistic and having a unique perspective on everything, Yuri is also a super genius! He has a wealth of interesting knowledge that is apparent whenever you talk to him. If you were ever interested in collecting incredible artwork before the artist becomes famous, I'd recommend getting a piece of Yuri's work while he's still starting out... because he is going to be crazy famous one day!

Liz Kim

Liz! She is so much fun! She came from Baltimore, MY to NYC to attend art school and has one more semester before she graduates. Everyone should have a Liz living under their roof; she will cook all sorts of sweets ALL the time just for the heck of it. Popcorn cake, upside-down pineapple cake, sushi, and ice-brewed coffee are the few things I had the great opportunity of experiencing on my visit. Liz and I went on a spur of the moment adventure one day across the east side of Manhattan which started at a nice little Cafe called OST Cafe. Next door to this cafe was a store called Vampire Freaks which we HAD to check out and we ended up staying there for a good hour talking to the people who worked there. Then we went to several music shops including one called Cobra Guitars where we met a really nice guy at the doorway to the shop who was spraying a guitar body with lacquer stuff. He brought us into the shop and showed us a whole bunch of custom built guitars and basses (all made by them) and works in progress. We made our way down into China Town to look for white umbrellas, and eventually around the southern Manhattan peninsula towards Wall St., then we headed back to Brooklyn. Liz aspires to write a comic about herself and all her roommates in pokemon form.

September 11, 2011

Remembering..

All the men and women who lost their lives on 9-11-2001


Trinity Church - New York, NY 9-11-2011









September 3, 2011

J'aime le dessin

Washboards in fashion photo shoots?

Um, yes!


Did some shooting with Robert & Bethany and their friends Emmy & Josh earlier today and it went really well! Bethany's clothes are great!

I'm heading back to New York on Wednesday to help my friend Lauren put LEDs in her Metroid costume, see Yuri's art show and to build a computer for Kevin. Oh, and of course explore the heck out of New York :3

I was at a little get together last night with some people who I've taken photo classes with and we had all sorts of geeky discussions. There was a good hour spend talking about whether or not artist statements should exist and if it seemed acceptable for a body of work to rely on it. And more time spent talking about lighting, composition, famous photographers, models, locations, yibbity dibbity, and blobbity bloooo. At one point we all shared bits of our portfolios and I realized that there wasn't anything that I wanted to show or was proud of from this entire year. My friend Jon Castillo (who taught me so much of what I know) suggested that I do at least one shoot per month for myself. Sounds good, thanks Jon!


Emmy Jones


August 23, 2011

Something Sinister

I spent the better part of yesterday following a strange sort of "delicious but hidden bakery/cafe/restaurant" map through San Francisco, splitting meals with friends so we could try as many things as possible. We went to Humphry Slocombe Ice Creamery where they had some of the strangest ice cream flavors ever. There was a "Jesus Juice" flavor that actually tasted like red wine and coke, a "salt and pepper" flavor that wasn't so great (it tasted like salt and pepper), and several other more tasty ones. We tried out Sol Food where they had a great assortment of vegan friendly entrees as well as a tasty Arnold Palmer tea & lemonade. There was a place called Cowgirl Creamery's Artisan Cheese that smelled really scary because they had so many extremely smelly cheeses, but the samples turned out to be very unique and fantastic! We visited a honey shop called "Bee Kind" where I got to try out honey from all over the world! It was very surprising how many different textures, colors, thicknesses, and flavors of honey there were. We got a bunch of donuts from Dynamo Donuts. Among those were Apricot Cardamom, Candied Orange Blossom, Bacon Maple Apple, Strawberry Earl Grey, Ginger Orange, and Open Hand Peanut Buddy. We visited a burrito place that I can't remember the name on, but it was on Mission St. and it was really good! We went to Far West Fungi where they sold every type of mushroom and truffle you could imagine. There was Boccalone Salumeria too, though I didn't try that place.

We were in the SF Ferry Building near pier 1 close to sunset and they locked us inside of the building and warned us that a large group of BART protesters were angry and outside of the building. So basically people inside were saying they wanted to get out and the protesters outside were shouting they wanted to get in. After that point in the eveining, there were numerous times I walked past groups of 30ish protesters being followed by twice as many cops.. and all the subway stations were closed.


Geoff with his wooden hand


Jo in front of a mural on Mission St.


BART protesters along Market St.

August 19, 2011

Can't teach an old bird new tricks

I was thinking about getting in touch with my friend who is working at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, which is near East Bay in the SF Bay area. We met at Moorpark college at the campus zoo where she was training a Bobcat, a Sheep, and a really cool Amazonian Parrot! They can be as intelligent as a 3 year old child.. which is pretty incredible.

Long story short, I haven't posted any zoo pictures from any of the two weeks of zoo shoots. So here are a couple pictures of my friend Jacqueline!





And here's a salty little quote to go along with dolphin training and following your dreams

"Who is staring at the sea is already sailing a little."
Paul Carvel

August 15, 2011

New York, France, and Six Toed Kittens

Going to Europe was an interesting experience. It really didn't feel that different from some other places I've been aside from the language barrier and not being able to use my cell phone. I got to do a lot of touristy things such as seeing museums, landmarks, and eating a lot. The most fun I had came from the simpler things though, like talking to people on the subways and wandering a french mall with my friend Devon. Did you know they sell leather converse in France?

The rainy weather forecast for the entire upcoming week prevented me from continuing on to the United Kingdom, so I bought a ticket back to California with a layover in New Jersey. Upon landing in Jersey, I asked my friend Lauren if she wanted to hang out for a few days and she said yes! So I ditched the Jersey airport while they were boarding my flight and took a train over to Manhattan. I ended up spending a week and a half in Lauren's loft in Brooklyn and meeting a whole bunch of incredible, friendly artists and going on lots of adventures. Some of these included perusing vintage book stores, seeing movies, going to a few museums, and going to the beach! On the second to last day, Lo and I were walking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and adopted a homeless kitten with six toes. Lauren named her Lucky because she was lucky to be adopted and she is lucky to be able to make kitty fists with her extra toes. We proceeded to buy her all the kitty necessities such as litter, food, and toys. After some shopping, we continued on our journey to the museum for an awesome time.


Pictured above: Lucky the Six Toed Kitten


Hannah Banana

My friend Hannah and I were messing with her studio lights. This is overexposed, but I still like it for some reason.


June 3, 2011

Fresca

My friend Garrett has been traveling around the United States over the past two weeks and I will be meeting up with him next week on Tuesday the 6th if things work out correctly. We'll be meeting in Minneapolis, MN then driving west for an hour to Darwin, MN where the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota is located. Then we'll head to Montana to meet up with my amazing friend, Erika, and do some fun hiking and camping in Glacier. We'll probably be there for a week then we'll drive over to Seattle, WA.

I got to do some headshots with the lovely and talented Shashona Brooks a few days ago. She's an actress who moved here from the bay area in NorCal and just recently starred in a short film that was put together by the amazing team at Finite-Films.

(pictured: Shashona Brooks at IMDb)

April 19, 2011

Play Nice

I don't think photography will ever be more than a hobby for me. I might even take a break from it; way too exhausting. The more you shoot, the more people come asking you to shoot.

March 30, 2011

The Medusa

I had the amazing opportunity this evening of shooting pictures of the Medusa, a fire-spewing muscle car that was used in the movie Bellflower. I also got to meet the writer/director/lead actor, Evan Glodell, who built tons of cool gadgets and camera lenses that were used in the movie.

Check out Bellflower on IMDb.

March 25, 2011

Sideways Ladder

I drove to Denver with my brother. Then to Nebraska. Then I flew to New Jersey. Then back home.


February 17, 2011

ISO-50

This photo series makes me smile. The photographer (Irina Werning) recreated old photographs several years later using the same people and locations.


Pictured is Nick McCallum.

February 15, 2011

Aussie

I've been taking a much needed break from everything, and today was the first break from that break since late January. I think it went well; the girl (Cathy) I did pictures with was really nice and super pretty, plus she had a super neat Australian accent. It was the positive sort of experience I needed to become motivated again :)

Pictured is Catherine Velarde.

January 26, 2011

Prendre une Bouchée

"Every new beginning comes from another beginning's end.."

Some very big things have happened in the past week, and it's so hard to open up and say what those things are. None of these things would be considered "Good" in anyone's book, but in a way they feel wonderful. Almost as if my life has been pushed into motion because of them. Really hard! I can relate so well to this picture right now, which is fitting because it was taken in the midst of all that's been going on.

January 15, 2011

All Aboard

Garrett's and my birthday party last night was a lot of fun. We hung out in Garrett's pad out in Silverlake and played some games, ate some meatballs, played some guitar, accordian, and apples-to-apples box (drum). And had a very fun headshot session with !Evan Jennings! this morning. I'm crossing my fingers for her to get cast in a McDonalds commercial so she can hook me up with some chiggin nuggets.

There are a lot of exciting things happening in the near future! I'm going to be starting my Music Appreciation class with a teacher that my friend's brother claims is the best teacher ever. I'll also be applying for an independent study photography class with John Grey, which would give me a lot of freedom to do my own projects. I don't have to work this coming Monday, I've got a photo-job meeting Thursday night, an Adam and Eve themed photoshoot Saturday, and a fun night of board games on Sunday. Fun engagement photoshoot next weekend for my longest-time friend, Danica and her fiancee Ian! And behind all of this, my younger brother is adding me to his flight plan thingy so I'll be able to travel all over the world.

Pictured is Evan Jennings.

January 13, 2011

Unfamiliar Ground

First day of class for the semester!

January 10, 2011

Cow Pies

Getting this shot was fun, and I got to hear Ryan's crazy talented music skills.



Check out Ryan's EP here!

January 4, 2011

San Francisco - Take 2

I did my first shoot with a stranger from a far off city last week on Thursday. She had BLUE hair! The weather forecast said it would be overcast all day, so I thought it would be fine if we planned to shoot around noon. It turned out to be a very cloudless, sunny day however. The original spots we had planned to shoot were terrible because of the sun's location and the direction we -had- to face for the locations to be worthwhile. Since those didn't work out, we went to an abandoned greenhouse and shot some nice pictures.


We had very limited time to shoot there. Two days later, I went back with my friend Jordan. She had PURPLE hair! We added a bit more of a theme to the pictures, but took forever getting ready and driving out there, so we ran out of light much too soon.


Now I have a cold, and have almost no desire to edit any of the photos :( I somehow managed to do 3 yesterday before going to bed at 7pm.