What do talk about today?! I don't know. Hmmm.

I know! Lets post a picture or two!

It amazes me how discreet you can be with a professional body and lens mounted onto an equally massive tripod. Ok, so I was not discreet, just ignored. Fine with me. Photographing this project, I would walk up and down each side the street moving from one building to the next. I do not photograph every building, but I photograph most of them. This kid knew I was coming, and still just pretended I didn't exist.

The civic center in downtown Santa Ana is a Mecca to Orange County homeless. Any day that you are down there you will find the landscape dotted with trash bags, sleeping bags, a tent or two, and the homeless that they belong to. I didn't want to directly photograph the clusters of homeless people, but I still wanted them to be a part of this project. As a society we try to ignore them, but they are always around, and there is always signs.

The children in the background is jut the icing on the cake. Their mother was trying to take a picture of them with the fighter jet on a cell phone. I offered to take a picture of them with my camera and I would send it to her. I switched to a longer lens for the kids, and I went back to my wide angle for my shot. This project is thick with symbolism, and this image is no different.

I was walking back to my truck late in the afternoon after spending the last few hours photographing the Henniger Park neighborhood. I passed a school bus that was parking along the street, the bus was filled with what looked like the Santa Ana High school baseball team. I set up just passed the bus facing a fence with their home field in the background. I was hoping to get a few shots of the team passing by. One at a time, they slipped through this hole in the fence to get back to their school. One of the kids asked what I was photographing for. I answered that I was photographing a documentary about Santa Ana. The kid yelled back as he was walking "Ahh so you can see how ghetto it is here!". A second kid chimed in "Yeah don't come here!". Half truths and sarcasm.

Continuting with my Santa Ana project, I have a few more pictures to show you. All of these were shot with a Canon 5D mk1 with a 24mm lens mounted to a tripod. Just thought I'd get that out of the way.

One Broadway Plaza. The goal is to build the tallest building in Orange County, the drawing of it is nice and all, but when you climb the fence to see what is on the other side, it is just an empty lot. A lot of dirt, a tractor, and a temporary building set up as what I am guessing, an office. The plan is for it to be almost 40 floors of office space, and if I am not mistaken, apartments too. It is too bad its been a vacant lot since about 2005.

This is a great example of what Cartier-Bresson would dub "the Decisive Moment", or in my case, the accidental decisive moment. The woman peering through the windows open hours sign as I snapped the picture made it that much better for me. The size is a little too small to read, but the sign that hangs in the window reads "please use other door" and points to the left. Two "open" signs a faded American flag and a ratty welcome mat round it out. The woman came out and talked to me a moment later. She invited me to come back and take more pictures once she had cleaned up a bit.

This is the Lacy Neighborhood. Just a few blocks East of the civic center. When I was there, it seemed like at least half of the houses within the neighborhood were boarded up and abandoned. The houses are all small, one and two bedroom things. Probably dating to the 30s and 40s for many of them. I asked around as to why so many buildings were boarded up and I received a variety of answers. It was the city buying them out, they lost their jobs and the banks bought them, but many simply couldn't answer as to why this was happening in their neighborhood. As it turns out, the city is buying them. The city is attempting to re-make the neighborhood into what is being called the Station District. Gentrification marches on. Or at least it tries to. I love the little girl in this photo. Children in general do not display the same fears and paranoia that adults display. She is more curious about it, and looks directly into my lens, her head held high as she is lead past by her father, who displays completely opposite body language. He is simply walking past and ignores me, his head hangs low as he watches the street.

Chris and Brittany's Wedding

I received the opportunity to photograph one of my good friends weddings last month, here are some of the photographs. :-) I won't bore you with any more writing and will let the photographs do the talking.

Lets end this hiatus

First the only hiatus I have been on; is this blog. I have actually been shooting a butt-crap of my own projects. Yes, that is a real word. I declare it. Tonight though I am going to be easing back into it. I am in the middle of a lot of work. Including wrapping up a documentary project I have been photographing since January, and curating my first show which is opening in June! I won't mention that I am moving ...

Anyways. Tonight is about derby, roller derby. OC roller derby.  I had the honor of photographing the OC roller girls opening bout on Saturday May 7th. It was their first every game on their new banked track that they went completely DIY with and built themselves. I should re-state got to photograph part. I am friends with a couple of the girls, and I requested a pass to shoot early on. Things get busy and stuff gets pushed back, lets just say I didn't get the pass. After talking to one of the women in charge I was advised "just got for it". So I did. I walked in without a problem, definitely one of the plus's of having a camera far too large too JUST be doing it for fun (even though I was just doing it just for fun), a good chunk of security won't bother checking you for the proper passes. I photographed starting in the 2nd period and got a good five minutes before getting kicked out. Back to my seats in the next level up for the rest of the period. Following half time, I went for it again. This time minus my jacket and hat. Ah Ha! I thought, a disguise will get me all the time I want! It almost did too. I spent a good ten minutes down on the floor before security kindly requested I show them a photo pass. I was just about to leave too. Definitely the down side of real venues, security. Oh well. I got what I wanted. The game was really fun, I really liked derby on the banked track, and I really want to go see them when they play the LA Derby Dolls in August. So I guess pictures? Have I typed enough words with catch phrases for this possibly be picked up by google? Maybe on page 3 or 4 ...

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Starting to shoot a new documentary project on Santa Ana in a few hours ... will I share? Duh. Will I share right away? Ummm ... probably not until I figure out what I am doing. Right now I just have ideas in my head and a potential way to put it all together.

Brittany and Chris Engagment Photos

I met up with Brit and Chris in Old Town Orange at 3:30 last Saturday, the meeting point was O'Hara's. You can guess how we started.



After a couple of warm up beverages we were ready to embark on a short walk across moderately historic Old Town Orange.

I have been friends with Chris for more than a few years now, and it was really cool to see him make this leap. Getting engaged is quite the leap, and the next step is the really big leap. They are a great couple and I wish them the best in the future, if there is anyone out there in the world for Chris, it is going to be Brittany.

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St Johns Tattooery

My long time friend Johnny called me up the other week "Hey I am doing a Twilight Zone themed shoot for the shop, want to help?"

Hell yes I do.

Our influence for this shoot came from the episode Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up. I showed up about 2:30 and the makeup artists Matt and Bianca where already hard at working applying third eyes to Johnny and his crew. Eight fake eyes all together!

Click on the link for more ...