TEN...

What does is mean to turn 10? Some of the girls rattled off phrases to me that were important to them like, “double digits”, or “oh my god! You guys we are PRE-TEENS”. I am pretty confident, although I don’t know for sure, that these phrases would never come up at a boy’s 10th birthday party. So, what is it about young girls wanting to look and feel so much older than they are? Is it just me or is the age in which you begin to wish you were older gotten younger?

The 10th year of life for girls is important, to them it's a pivotal time, and I really like the idea of meeting up with these girls and documenting their 10th year.

Here are some more photos of the girls from Friday night. Hopefully their parents will allow me to photograph them again.















(these last four images were taken during a game of "paparazzi", where the girls run around posing and screaming while they pretend that viscous photographers are after them)

I want to be clear that these girls didn't show up to the party like this. They are normal kids who if given the opportunity would probably dress and look like this everyday, but they aren't so they don't. I didn't give them the cell phones, the ipods, some of the makeup and most of the clothing, or the sassy attitudes, but this was a birthday party where dressing up was the main attraction.

Thanks for looking!

Menifee, CA.

preview...

This past weekend I had the honor of spending time with my niece, Chloe, at her 10th birthday party/sleepover. Other than Chloe I don't think I have spent any time with another 10 year old. I planned on taking some photos at the party but was pretty shocked to discover than 10 year olds are kind of insane. They are nothing like I was when I was 10, but I was a tomboy who dissected bugs for fun. They texted, sang Justin Bieber, liked makeup and high heels, basically they are 10 going on 18. Here are two photos from Friday night, more to come tomorrow....

oh ya and they look 18 too...

Menifee, CA.

Chef Farid Zadi...

My second cover for Pasadena Weekly was on this awesome guy who has just opened an affordable cooking school in Pasadena. When we went to photograph and interview him he cooked us a really great meal of calamari, sheep kidney and mussels. Here is a link to the story.



Here are a few images from the shoot...

Reverend Rick...

I just started shooting for Pasadena Weekly and my first two stories ended up landing me two covers. This story was on an openly gay reverend in Pasadena who just started a church with the intent to reach out to gay teens and offer them a safe place to turn to in time of need. Here is a link to the story.



This was my first cover ever and this was really cool to me... haha


here are a few of my favorite shots...

JPG Magazine...

Last month JPG Magazine published my Elizabeth series as their featured photo essay. This was my first multi-page spread which was really exciting for me. They published the whole story behind the series along with images from the house and the portraits I created. Here is a link to the images and the story!

Inn at Morro Bay...

Micael and I went to San Luis Obispo last weekend to look at a wedding venue, which ended up being amazing and perfect. That night we headed up to Morro Bay where we stayed for the next two nights. The hotel we stayed in was so awesome, we had a private hot tub on our patio that overlooked the ocean... amaaaazzzing :)

Morro Bay, CA.

Samus and Abraham...

Echo Park, CA.

The sky over Echo Park has been crazy!

My friend Brian...

Echo Park, CA.

JPG Magazine

My Elizabeth series was published in this month's issue of JPG Magazine!

Samus!

We adopted a kitten from the Pasadena Humane Society last week. Her name is Samus, she is so cute and small, I love her, but Abe hates her so far (we're workin on it haha).

Echo Park, CA.

The final image for grad show...

Last Sunday I shot my final image for grad show, which is August 21st at 6pm @ Art Center College of Design. The Friday evening before the shoot everything fell apart. The WB wardrobe house declined to rent me my reserved costumes due to some ridiculous and confusing policies. The original shoot I had planned was an elaborate cocktail party scene involving eight people total. I had been planning the shoot for over a month, I had an amazing location booked, props and styling all planned out, assistants, hair and makeup and of course excluding me my seven wonderful models, well to make a long story short I found myself with all of this except the key component pulling it all together and that was of course the costumes. In a calm panic I drove to school to see what I could do which unfortunately turned out to be nothing. I had to start from scratch with one day to plan an entire 1960's themed shoot. Luckily, I ran into Alyssa Lavine, we talked things out and a new shoot started to form. From there I had to call everyone and cancel the original shoot, but luckily Megan Mack and her boyfriend Ian agreed to pose in my new shoot. Saturday I got up early and drove all over Los Angeles in search of props and wardrobe. A good friend of mine accompanied me on my excursion and by 10pm on Saturday night I had just about everything for the shoot the next day. Except of course the tablecloth, which was purchased from Joanne's bright and early on Sunday morning. My sister, Katie and Tina arrived Sunday at about 1:30 ready to make all of us over. From there on out everything went great. Without the encouragement of my sister and friends I don't think I could of pulled this shoot off. I am not one who usually deals well with stress but even Micael was impressed at my ability to push through without a breakdown. I really owe a big thank you to everyone that helped out on Sunday, so THANKS! You guys are the greatest. Here are some images from the day...












Echo Park & Silverlake, CA.

Elizabeth's chair...

I hadn't been back to Elizabeth's house for a while until yesterday. My wonderful friend Brian accompanied me down to Menifee to retrieve more items from the houses. My graduation show is coming up on Aug 21st and I wanted to have some more letters to display with the images I've made. Well, due to some extreme traffic we didn't get to Menifee until about 8:30pm, right as any light left in the sky quickly disappears. We decided to sneak in to the houses anyway. I can honestly say I've never been scared being there until last night. The eerie way the wind moves through that house and causes every door and window to creak really sends an uneasy feeling up your spine. Since we were scared and had no flashlights we didn't come back with much, but! we were able to take a chair with us. I am so excited to include this in my installation. I spent a few hours scrubbing off rust from it today and it's starting to look pretty good.



This podcast explains exactly why I am doing my project:
This American Life - House on Loon Lake

Needles and skid row...

My landlord Michael works for this really cool non-profit called Clean Needles Now, you should definitely check them out and give them money.

This morning he let me tag along with them while they did a needle exchange down on skid row. For those of you who have been down in that area before you know how insane it is and for those of you who haven't I am not sure anything I could write could really convey the mania in those couple of blocks. It's only like 3.5 miles from my house but it is a completely different world.

I went today with the intention of taking photos but it wasn't an easy place to shoot and I didn't want to invade anyone's privacy or prevent them from taking part in the needle exchange. I think in the 3 hours I was there I ended up snapping about 6 photos and 4 came out all right... so here they are...






Although I didn't get a lot of images from going this morning it was really great to be around the Clean Needles Now team. What they are doing for people out on the streets is extremely important. Check them out and spread the word.

More behind the scenes...

still workin on that video haha :D