LOVE LIFE

Mt. Hood Oregon, 2019

Since I was on my first trip to Oregon and I did it solo, I had full rights to call the shots and flow with the wind. In this moment above after I made it to the top of the Mt Hood Highway by taking the 26 from Portland, I decided to descend y taking the 35 so I can take a look at the Columbia river on the way back home. Along the way I found this small park that ran along side of the hood river and my camera and I thought with would be a good idea to stop and get some shots. 

After the new year, I made the decision that I would give my photography the respect that it deserves. What that means is that if I make the choice to take my camera out of the bag I will do so with the intention of making a post or framing a print soon after I’ve put it my Canon back into the bag from which it came. 

This all started because I, like many others, went into deep thought, after the ball dropped, about what I could do different to make sure that I’m using my gifts to create something that’s timeless. I realized achieving that goal, or in this case, capturing that memorable photo, is not going to happen if I just let every picture I take live, or die, on a hard drive.

Think of going through the magical journey with hopes to create a child then as soon as the child is born you leave them in their bedroom for the rest of their natural lives. That’s an extreme, but in many ways they’re equal, in my opinion. Much like a child these photos are full of energy, and though not every moment is remembered as their best moment, there’s that 1 out of 20 that sticks with us, it tells us something profound, and encourages us to do better next time. That’s what I said I would honor at the beginning of this year, I’m honoring the element in Art that breaths life into the future version of ourselves giving us the energy we need to do more.

At that moment, in the beginning of the new year, when I defined what was important to me, I received a phone call from a talented dancer named Ajah requesting new photos for her portfolio. Luckily for me, she’s my friend and that first 20 mins of awkward that we all encounter during a photoshoot was pretty much nonexistent. It was cold though and we had to get warmed up. So we started with the dynamic poses first and then we moved on to the stretches and that’s when the magic happened. 

Anyone who’s a professional mover of their body knows that there’s a place you go to in your mind when you sink into a deep stretch. That place can be nostalgic, difficult to understand, and calming all in the same breath. With my single speedlight with umbrella, my 60D, and my 24mm, I was able to capture Ajah living in that moment that I’m describing. We came out with so many good shots but I knew right away that this was my favorite. It almost felt like I was in a room full of mirror because I too went to a similar place while shooting this image. 

I thought that it was only right that I saved a day to visit the more natural side of Oregon while I spent my week in Portland. So I rented a car, grabbed my tripod, and took a 1hr ride out to Mt. Hood. 

Almost all of the trailheads were covered in snow and I packed light so there was no room in my carry-on for boots, which means that I spent most of my sight seeing from the car or on the side of the road. I did manage to find a little hike at the bottom of the mountain that led me to a beautiful river, but I’m saving that for my post about rivers.

What loved about my drive up to Mt. Hood was the sense of peace that gained, and how little time it took me to get to that place mentally. I found a couple of spots closer to the mountain where I could really take in how marvelous the earth is, but it wasn’t until I found a good stop on the side of the road to reflect that I realized how much is being thrown at me 24/7 in LA. I live in south LA so I’m right in the heart of it all and there’s always some type of constant form of distraction and stimulation going off, even at 3am. My neighbors dog loves to howl to let everyone know that he’s there. 

What this overactive lifestyle means is that I’m never settled, I never feel like I’m doing enough, I don’t sleep as deeply, and no matter how much I exercise I’m probably not as healthy as I could be. My 30 minutes of staring at the mountain and breathing in fresh air told me all of this. It’s still got me thinking about how I’m going to improve this while I’m here in LA. So far, I’ve started hiking more, I meditate more frequently, I breathe deeper, and more importantly, I tell myself that it’s ok if my phone battery dies. I’ll get back to it eventually. 

Portland Oregon is the best things that I could have done for these coffee loving taste buds of mine. Late this winter, Southwest airlines was offering deals starting at $39 and I could not pass up my chance to take off to the pacific northwest for my very first time. In this post, I’m not so focused on the taste of the coffee I tried because it became very clear to me that you really have to try hard to find terrible coffee in that city. 

Instead, I just want you to check out the amount of  quality, care, artistry these baristas put into something that I believe is to be so powerful in our everyday that it deserves a real level of love and attention. 

These photos are featuring cups from:

@ristrettoroasters

Stumptown Coffee

Heart Coffee PDX

Last weekend I was inspired to see what I could do with silhouettes. Silhouettes are awesome to me because they have the ability to add so much drama and mystery to our everyday sights. Lucky me God decided to paint the sky and give me some colors to play with. 

Good friends are EEEEEVerything. Sometimes when you don’t have enough left in the tank a high quality companion will give you that extra push you need.

This was hard to shoot. I was unprepared, I was super tired, and honestly I just wanted to stare at this beautiful eclipse with my own two eyes. I was lucky to have my camera with me after a stressful trip to IKEA. My good friend convinced me to seize the opportunity instead of catching some much needed Zzzzz.

This was a Super Blood Wolf Moon. The most interesting point to me is the “Wolf” Part of the title. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, Native Americans and colonial Europeans dubbed the January full moon the wolf moon, because wolves in the region would purportedly start howling in hunger due to midwinter paucity.

Christmas Morning:

I remember most Christmas mornings as a kid being decorated with colorful lights and snow. It wasn’t until I moved from Ohio to Southern Cali that I really grew to miss it. This year, the morning of, I woke up with a strong urge to see the snow again. Nostalgia was screaming in my ear telling me that I was not allowed to sit by the ocean to stare at the waves like I’ve done almost every year I’ve been an LA resident. 

That was that. I finished my coffee, grabbed my camera bag, packed my coat and gloves, and I took off to Mt. Baldy. I wasn’t 100% sure that there would even be snow there but Mt. Baldy was the closest destination that I could think of just in case they didn’t have any powder at 7000ft, I wouldn’t have been completely let down.

The motivation behind my photos have always been for the sake of interacting with nature. I grew up watching 2 things, The Power Rangers and The Discovery channel (back when it was like BBC’s “Planet Earth” 24/7)

Now that I’m old enough to hop in a car and drive, I took a ride out to Sequoia National Park and caught this beautiful being eating food. What I did not expect was for it to catch me in its lenses too. 

I absolutely love the color red. I feel like it’s been apart of my life since birth. My mother graduated from, worked for, and then retired from The Ohio State University. Scarlet has been there for me as long as I can remember.

Exceptional Football schools aside, Red is a color that encourages me to be introspective, motivated and focused. I go home to Columbus every fall to visit my family and to sing happy birthday to one of my brothers beautiful kids. I always plan 2 days of my trip to take a coast through a sea of colors riding with the windows down along the country roads. This time it took me all of 2 minutes to turn out of my parents driveway before I stumbled upon this sea of fiery transformation. I was hypnotized by it for a few minutes until I finally remembered that I was there to take a picture.

The amount of patience this one had for the people, petting, awwing, complaining, eating and taking pictures of and around this old pug. To me it seem like the key to its longevity was the peace that it chose. Or maybe it just had too many snaps on its wrap-sheet.

“One of my life-long goals is to deconstruct these elitist ideals and notions of conformity so that fashion can be a tool of empowerment, as opposed to being a tool of marginalization.” -Bobo Matjila  (Johannesburg, South Africa)