Tea Time
May 17th, 2007
Farmer’s Market
May 16th, 2007
Cupcakes
May 6th, 2007
4.20
April 20th, 2007
420 is police code for marijuana, but for America it means smoking out. I got to do some coverage of marijuana yesterday for the paper at Herbalcure on Pico and Sawtelle.
Sportsshooter Academy IV
April 9th, 2007
…was great! Four days of nothing but shooting sports. I got to photograph with over $10,000 worth of equipment with no rental charge courtesy of Canon. I especially like the 300mm, I don’t need a tripod for it. With a 400mm I had to use a monopod because it was so heavy.
During the Academy I had a chance to shoot beach volleyball, boxing, baseball, indoor men’s volleyball, rugby, water polo, and crew. The hardest sports for me to shoot were men’s volleyball (it was so fast) and baseball (spurts of action at erratic times, with a heavy 400mm lens that I had trouble adjusting to). Here are some pics.
Albuquerque
March 5th, 2007
This post is dedicated to my friend Ethan, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Why? For no other reason than the fact that I had the opportunity to photograph Lita Albuquerque, whose ancestors found the city by the same name in 1721. She’s currently an artist in Santa Monica and her favorite medium is the use of spheres.
Messiness is art
March 2nd, 2007
Here’s a portion of my life: on some days I am driving and I see something happening. Two questions immediately pop into my head. 1) Is the issue/circumstance that I am seeing newsworthy?, and if so, 2) Where do I stop?
I used to have to ask myself if I have my camera with me, but now it’s usually always with me. I always have quarters with me so I can meter it in Los Angeles if I have to, but all in all I’ve heard other photographers say that photojournalists in LA are also called “drivers who navigate through traffic” because one of the biggest components of taking that picture is getting there.
Then I’m rushing to the scene with my notebook and my camera, and half the time I am running and trying to catch my breath because everything is going so fast. There’s police, and if they’re after someone I follow them but I have to make sure I’m not getting in their way. Sometimes I lose the person they’re after in the parking lot, and at other times my camera goes off and security people get really angry and then I have to say sorry and then smile the “I’m a little girl that’s lost can you help me tee hee” smile (but at least I got my picture).
But on the other side of things, there’s the daily grind. Most of the time it’s not adrenaline pumping, and yesterday I got to relax a bit and take pictures of a junk drawer exhibit at the Unurban Coffee House. It’s an exhibit with about 10 pictures of junk drawers, and when my editor gave me the assignment I was a bit confounded but when I went there the room was really neat and it’s a semi-absurd but fascinating idea that what’s in our desk drawers, and how it’s organized, can be one way of defining who we are.
It gave me time to think about things and photograph under low light, so it was relaxing, and enlightening too. I think my ultra organized husband might think differently of this exhibit, but this exhibit makes me feel better about being messy, cause it’s artistic to be messy right?
Valentine’s Day
February 15th, 2007
Valentine’s Day keeps on getting better and better for me. I started off the morning with about 20 men singing a cappella to me and ended the evening babysitting a cute l’il boy and enjoying chocolate covered strawberries and champagne with my husband while watching a movie.
The neat thing about covering this feature is that I got to see them serenade people from all walks of life: from stockbrokers at big corporate buildings to the Albertson’s check-out lady above.
Murphy Brown
February 12th, 2007
As I kid I would always watch Murphy Brown (along with I Love Lucy) with my sister. So it was really neat taking some portraits of “Frank Fontana” (Or Joe Regalbuto) at his home this past Friday for the newspaper. He still gets letters from fans of Murphy Brown, and he’s a great photographer to boot; he has recently been published in Rangefinder Magazine. He tells me he has always had an interest in photography but got into it again courtesy of actor William H. Macy, who is also an avid photographer.
On another note, my editor assigned me Valentine’s Day this week, so it’ll be interesting documenting acts of love around the city. I’ve called a few flower shops; and maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to photograph kids in school exchanging valentines.