shutter to think

tacadi masks

here's an outtake of wooden masks from a christmas day procession in michoacan.

!the mojito revolution!

another one from the vault...
I just saw the annie leibowitz exhibit on sunday. the last day of the show. i regret not going sooner as it was just packed. it was not very enjoyable. the pushing, the crowds, people bumping into, walking in front of you, i t was the worst show i've ever been too.but it was the last day and i had to see it. i was surprised to see a couple of pictures in her proof section she shot in pinar del rio. the same stadium, the non-expressive baseball players. so here's my tribute to modern day baseball....

 

!the mojito revolution!

ahh food
i initially thought that the island would have amazing food. how wrong i was. so sad. after a week of eating peso pizza, ice cream 2x day and fried chicken, we finally decided to choose our next casa based on its food. we were dying to know what the cuisine was all about. one of the highlights of our adventure was when our casa momma in trinidad came out of the kitchen with a flan for dessert. not just any ole flan, it was FLAN. deliciousness. mouthwatering, i could eat the whole pie but i'm too full from the pork and congri, i thought i just about died. it was perfect. the perfect flan. the top just burnt enough with flavor, the carmely liquid on the plate, and the slight jiggle of the flan. now, you haven't had flan til you've eaten this one.


so our next night was another feast. we asked for fish, because after a week of fried chicken every night we were ready for something good and different. she brought out a red snapper. whole. i didn't think cubans can buy a whole big fish like this one, and i would of loved to know how and where they got it. but it was a feast with just the two of us so we asked the family to join us for dinner. ah i tell ya it was so worth it. after 2 days of shooting in scorching heat in pinar del rio, dripping soaked with sweat and then a 7 hr car ride to trinidad, yeah, we were stoked. like it was all worth the sweat heat and drive.

how beautful is that. holly and i tried to do a food story. i think next time we go, it will be more focused. because there is good food there, not in the expensive restaurants only, but in the homes. and not every house cooks well either. you have to find it, ask for it, search for it, and once you do, its just amazing.its well worth the hunt. it becomes discovery of what the island food is all about, given that every one lives off of ration cards. think about it. the same food for everybody everyday.

!the mojito revolution!

my journey with my buddy holly through this incredible country sparked a huge learning curve for me with my photography. landscapes, portraits, overcoming my own selfish insecurities. damn it. i am a good photographer...always learning, growing, trying new things, understandng my subject matter, etc. without it my photography would otherwise be dull, and well so would my life. as long as keep trying. here are two pictures: one of a tobacco drying house and the other, a portrait of a boy carrying a bird cage. i wonder how Holly shot the portrait. The residents of Trinidad love their little canary song birds. these little birds in wooden cages that hang from windows and doorways up high.

wine pix

when you know you've had too much to drink this is what you see...






 okay i give up i hate this new typepad design. i can't get them to even line up right stupid......tech...i like how it was before someone fix it the typeing is really sllllooooooowwww....

back to work...

ahh sports. that's when i know i'm back to work. when the weeks of assignments are, for the most part, shooting high school sports. so this is what i do, in case your curious...what i'm assigned to shoot. not exactly what i had envisioned myself upon entering into the world of photojournalism. here are some images from the past week.

i don't like this new template typepad. the pictures don't upload like before....

long live the concerned photographer

Cornell Capa (b. 1918, Hungary) died today at the age of 90. He was the brother of Robert Capa; a former Life magazine and Magnum agency photographer; and founder of the International Center of Photography; coined the term "the concerned photographer" which is the title of his book published in 1968.

from a ny times article: the concerned photographer
"He used the phrase often to describe any photographer who was passionately dedicated to doing work that contributed to the understanding and well-being of humanity and who produced “images in which genuine human feeling predominates over commercial cynicism or disinterested formalism.”

link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/arts/design/23cnd-capa.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

he also photographed one of my favorite vintage cars! the ford falcon in the early sixties.

sichuan wedding

This wedding photographer continued to take pictures during the sichuan earthquake.

a turbulent wedding day...
http://blog.photoshelter.com/2008/05/a-wedding-in-sichuan.html

and if you can read chinese, here's the story;
http://news.sohu.com/20080517/n256926605.shtml

the photographer's blog and photos -
http://www.xanga.com/lelandwong/657607591/photographing-a-wedding-and-then-an-earthquake.html

weddings

ahhh its the season for dry weather...for tourism and sunday drivers...and weddings. I am embarking on a new adventure with my buddy holly. we are adventurous and fun! we love love taking pictures, passionate about storytelling and we work well together! so why not join forces? just think, you would hire two incredible photographers, double the coverage, to photograph the story of your wedding day. Not only will you receive fabulous pictures filled with emotion, and moments, and celebrations, but you are also supporting photographers who are passionate about shooting human interest stories to help make difference throughout the world. doesn't that just make you feel good : )

I suppose that's would our ad would say...we've been tooling around with some names for ourselves. haven't come up with something clever so if you have an idea, please share! hmmm...maybe shutter to think photography?

I'm really hoping our newest adventure will help me afford my documentary work. for certain i would no longer be receiving a bi-monthly paycheck for the work. i haven't left my newspaper job yet but seeing the world upside down right now makes me feel stagnant that i'm not out there working on significant stories and documenting history that could and does motivate people to act and to help...

 

!the mojito revolution!

the new army -
across from an old printing shop that holly and I stumbled upon, we saw these kids playing bang bang in the street with toy guns. in front of a yellow wall and door way, holly photographed portraits of the kids while i shot candidly from the sidelines. a man comes up to us, i thought to question why we were photographing kids with guns, but what he said surprised me: "They are getting ready for the Americans when they invade."

!the mojito revolution!

beisbol -
when music and dancing is the rhythm and soul of life on this island, baseball is passion. it's what makes them feel free, like in the motion and movement of dancing. it gives them something to dance to and something to cheer for when there's little else. baseball is everywhere. in the streets, on the tv, or empty fields. its in conversations over peso pizza, or debates in the plaza. so when holly smacked the ball down center field, it gave us something to cheer about too. we cheered for each other. i can't believe she hit the ball! my turn. clank! the kids couldn't see the ball as Holly and I ran around bases after sunset. There were only two. First and third. the important ones in this barren field in vinales. i can't believe we hit the ball!

Holly smacks one down center field -

Homeplate -

At bat -

The players -

Waiting -

!the mojito revolution!

i was feeling a little low-confident one day in vinales riding in our little white rental car...whats the name, the wheels were so little that they looked like buttons. i was wierded out on this shooting spree and since i had never really gone on a shooting trip before with other photographers, it was my first time. yeah. it made me feel wierd.

jeje or eheheheh. anyhoo, i love my friend holly. and holly i'm sorry i was a poop. but it only lasted for 1/2 the day right!! i was feeling like my picture-taking was sucking. i was out of the groove. totally out of the groove. like off the track and in the ditch (another story). ultimately what it was, i was feeling shitty because i thought my pictures looked like crap. what i was seeing looked like crap. does that make sense? or so i thought. its all about confidence. my eyes and my head sometimes conflict.

so she pushed me out of our little white jellybean car and i hopped onto this bus. its not your ordinary bus. it was a tonka truck bus. it was so cool. i hopped in with my bad spanish and just starting talking. asking where the bus was going, where they were going (they were a bunch of teenagers in the tonka truck). they were laughing at me probably thinking how silly i am that i'm in there with them taking pictures of them laughing about having their picture taken, realizing that my friend holly is driving the little white jellybean car behind us. but i swear to god, i was chasing laughter. it was all i needed to entirely lift my spirits.

so then they had the truck stop for me. the truck skidded to a stop, spilling fish water all over the feet of this mom, who's child was sleeping next to her. that's a bummer. fish water.

oooh i just realized. why didn't i take a picture of holly in the jelly bean behind the tonka truck!!!! why!!!!!

the blogosphere...

i can't even believe that is a word. this world. the blog world. and i am a blogger. a blogggaa. hah. you blog too if you are reading this. i just went into this blogosphere, how do you spell it. yep. i can't believe i made it out. i mean the lists were endless. the names. i dont' even know who these people are that i've added to my own bloggaz list but i did. i don't even know you...family guy. hui-u. if you say that right it should like peter saying who are you but with that funny accent, my dad, says, oh yeah, they talk (tawk) funny down there (thare). you know because he's from boston, and they don't talk funny. there. r.

so i discovered this whole world of people who blog. i mean some blogs are personally interesting to me, so i save them bc they have good pictures, or have something funny to say. sarcastic. mostly, my own friends. but this other world. so normally i have my routine. i check all my formal email accounts. yes i stupidly have many. 4. i dont' even know why. i don't even get that many emails to have 4. then i check for jobs, religiously on the jib, and elsewhere. then i check to see if anyone out there is reading my blog. not really. i've got more hits on the suchiate river and guatemala than for me. i scan the nytimes for my worldly news. sometimes i check lightstalker to see if there's any interesting. not really. it just makes me want to travel more so that i can add more dots on my world map. and that's about it. if i remember, i'll post some pictures on my own blog. but after coming out of the blogosphere, wholly words. look whose talking out there. look at me. i hate my blog. i'm not even funny. i just post shit because i know that there's really only one person who reads this damn thing. and it gives me a sort of purpose. gotta get the blog out today. you know, make my own deadline.

people can write. youlll see. i just loaded up a couple of new ones. so far, i really like a photo editor. he finally came out of the tube. hee. bunch of tubes out there. anyway, its resourceful with character. thank gawd because i cannot find any contacts to magazines or newspapers anywhere to pitch my stories to and its really frkn annoying. and also, its just nice to have a photo editor out there looking out. not many do that. and a new york rep. that one is interesting to me too. so youll see them, wonder, maybe click on them.

sick of writing now. i'm going to post some pictures.

our upside down world

there is a picture of a woman lying on the ground, with her arm around her dead son, taken by jason lee of reuters. that is the picture that broke me. i actually cried from the photograph. it wasn't a compelling image, but rather how straight-foward it was. there was no complexity necessary to make it an interesting picture. i didn't need to see pain on her face but rather it was her body language, her arm around her dead son. and she was with him while the dead person next to them was left alone. the earthquake in china is devastatingly sad. it was so disasterous that it literally took the Chinese army to be the first responders. if only our country could have responded as fast as the Chinese govt to the Katrina disaster....

and shame on the burma govt....they are literally killing their own people by preventing humanitarian aid, food and water to enter the country, while people in China are trying to survive, under concrete rubble, in hospitals, or on roadsides, with broken hearts. It doesn't take a natural disaster to act in genocide. and it doesn't take a war or religious differences. it takes a government's stupidity and selfishness...to do something like this. intentionally. when the people are strong again, they will remember how were neglected. and with their unity, they will overthrow their government.

Celebrating Israel from Napa

Napa's local Jewish community celebrates the 60th Anniversary of Israel......

"Israel"

"Pioneer"

Beard trimming: "Theodor Herzl would not look like a cave man."

Backstage of "This is your life Israel."

A little Israeli folk dancing in the synagogue -