Category: Photography

Ikebana

Ikebana

I’ve been wanting to put this cover up since the beginning of November but life has gotten in the way.  Not the good life mind you but life.  It can really just come out of nowhere and really put you on a different path.

But back to the cover…

I don’t like to sing too many praises to myself at times but I must admit I am very impressed with my ikebana, or Japanese flower arrangement,  photo appearing on the cover of Halekulani Living, the resort’s in-house magazine.  One of the editors I work with seems to never give me the easy jobs.  She never hires me to snap photos of bikini girls or beautiful celebrities as she’s always throwing the hardest and most difficult subjects on my plate.  The jobs are usually obscure, never obvious or easy to capture.  Either she wants me to fail or she knows I can pull something out of nothing, as they say, and come up with something bordering on the fantastic.

If you could only imagine how this picture was taken and the little photoshop it took to make it sparkle, you’d be surprised.  Well, more than surprised.  I won’t say much more other than “damn, that’s a good shot!”

 

Museo Nacional de Antropología

Museo Nacional de Antropología

A man stood next to me in a Korean owned deli in Palisades Park, NJ.  His boots were fake, not real lizard but still in the style of  botas de vaquero none the less.  The boots you can buy in any norteno town where the men have paid thousands to sneak across the border to work as low paid laborers in the US.  His trim mustache and dark skin, tucked-in shirt and ironed blue jeans might have made him a short Lotharo back in Piedras Negras but here, he was just a a guy who worked as a baker in a Korean pastry shop.  Maybe he cut grass, painted, lifted, delivered, hauled, got spit on, harassed, not paid, paid lowly, hid, ducked, drank, shivered, and maybe he did none of the above.  But he was here, not in his country, and trying to work.

The Spanish I heard in Times Square coming from Minny Mouse wasn’t the native tongue of the native Puerto Ricans or Dominicanos.  It was la lengua of the Mexican.  Maybe the Chapinas or the Peruvian.  But it was the accent of the new comers.  They  dressed as Elmo, Spiderman, and Minnie to pose for a dollar or two with the kids of those who stayed in $300 a night hotels in the City.  They crossed borders to stand next to white kids so that their parents could snap pictures of them in the blinking lights.

One guy gets hot and lets slip his facade.  The mask slips revealing a face more fitting inside the Museo Nacional de Antropología than on the streets of Times Square.  Cada de indio as my mother would say of the neighbors.  The face of an indigenista, a face from Southern Mexcio, of Guatemala, of the south.

So Spiderman crossed 9th ave near Port Authority.  Wherever he went, he seemed tired.  Worn from dancing for the Spanish and Italian tourists.  Of hearing the accents of his conquerors and taking the money of his master.  He probably walked to his next job.  His delivery job where he would make a dollar or two running msg-filled Chinese food up six floors up to an uppity Iowan who now calls Manhattan home.  The Iowan feels its his new right to belittle the delivery guy who was five minutes late because he couldn’t walk fast enough.  The rain was too hard, the snow was too cold.

Santiago once pointed out the only people out on the streets during a blizzard were the mojados who were delivering food.

I learned on this trip New York works because of it’s illegal infestation.  An infestation that makes the City move.

 

a quick post about tear sheets

a quick post about tear sheets

I’ve been busy…which is good but haven’t had time to think much about blogging.  So here’s a quick post on a few tear sheets from a couple of jobs I’ve had in the last few weeks.

Melissa Rivera is a babe.  An art babe no less.  Further…a RISD artists and a Chilanga!  And when you’re able to shoot a creative person, they do all the work.  Melissa made a great portrait for Modern Luxury.  I actually didn’t do much but just point the camera.  Shes a great designer and could only hope…rather…strive to have the creativity she oozes when you’re around her.  Check out her designs on her website.

The Wall Street Journal sent me to the Four Seasons Maui to shoot their updated resort shopping.  Always exciting to see a 3/4 page with all my images.  Fun Stuff.

And the lead image is of a job I’m proud of as its for Texas Monthly, a mag from my home state.  Oddly, a Texan blogger by the name of Kev Jumba was in Honolulu by chance and I had a quick portrait session with him.  I contacted Diane Ako at the Halekulani and rented a banquet room to shoot a clean white background.  The fit was a bit tight but we got the job done quickly.  Erica was a big help.  Great portrait and he used my camera as a prop.

Not worthy for the wire…

Not worthy for the wire...

A day of shooting election primaries for a wire news agency isn’t loads of fun.  It usually consists of chasing the fake smiles of hopeful candidates and shooting their manicured smiles and prom queen waves.   You drive all around town to different locations where the politicians are doing their last minute sign waving trying to capture that one undecided voter passing by.

So last week’s coverage of the primaries gave me some of the better pictures I’ve taken in some time.  As I drove down Beretania St. on the way to see Ed Case waving down on the Pali Hwy, the traffic slowed down a bit as we neared the Capital.  Several police cars with flashing lights caused just enough rubbernecking to make traffic just that more irritating but I noticed something slightly out of place.

She’s naked!

So I weaved my way through the rubberneckers spinning around the Capital to rush up on the small group of Occupy Wall Streeters turn Honolulu and found a porty protestor, a cop, and a leggy blonde with plenty of tattoos and just enough tape to cover the naughty bits.  With these type of elements forming all around, its hard not to get a great photo.  Her sign of getting screwed bu the politicians works very well.

I had just enough time to capture them waving their signs and cops around them to capture a few pictures and move on. So I hopped back in the car and was driving past the protest when I noticed the large lady in the wheelchair rolling down the cross walk nearing the Occupiers.  I only had my 24-70mm lens at hand and the light was green so I had no other option but to shoot and just crop.  Little did I know I captured a great moment.

So I get back and transmit my take to NYC and sadly found the editors didn’t have the courage to move the “graphic content” or so they say.  They can run headless bodies, blood and guts, and whatnot but no boobs.  Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.

A note on pictures…sometimes you can’t plan it.  It just happens.  Looking through past great photographs, it seems most photographers didn’t plan to be at that place at that moment.  Things just unraveled in front of them.  This New York Times piece has a POWERFUL image of a Tibetan protestor who set himself on fire protesting Ju Jintao’s visit to India this year.  Its a powerful moment that could have never been planned.  I can only imagine the photographer, Manish Swarup, never would have thought he have a shot like this.  There was no time to think about composure, f stops, what type of lens is on the camera, filters, iso, etc…nothing.  Absolutely no time to think as its just a reaction. And sometimes those reactions are things that happen out of no where.

My picture is not award winning  nor is it life changing for me and I shouldn’t event mention my name in the same breath as Manish Swarp, but its those moments that are unplanned and just happen.

Funny, AP ran the image of the self-immolation…but they didn’t run mine.