glow marrow

free show this monday night (1/31) at the silver lake lounge!!!

my buddies' band is playing at 10pm.

you can get their free EP here.

wooden floors

starting the year off with a full cup of nor cal

Our first trip of the year led us north. We, in this case Ryan, Randy, and I, stayed a night and day in Santa Cruz with our buddy Mike, where we cruised downtown, rode some bikes, ate some delicious breakfast, got some cold but clean surf, and did some fun foto shoots.

the sign on the bike was for a place called 'the tiki lounge' - so coco!!

these girls were kicking out the jams on the street

post foto shoot fun - jump around!!

From Santa Cruz, we drove to the city and raged until the weeeeeee hours in the Mission. We ended up crashing at my aunt and uncle's house where my mother was conveniently staying for the weekend. As you may have guessed this aunt I write of is my mother's little sister. and in true mother fashion, she showed up with a gift for us - what she called 'party glasses.' (My mom usually gets me the funniest and most random shit - this Christmas she gave me a 24" inflatable shark that shoots water out of its mouth, a ninja turtles shirt, a calendar of 'bathrooms of the world,' and a spatula in the shape of a guitar so whoever's cooking in the kitchen can play air guitar in between flipping pancakes or burger patties...ya, my mom's a bad ass.)

mother o' mine with 'party glasses' between the curly-haired twins

After another great breakfast, we moved to the coast to celebrate our friends Alex Pasternak's 30th birthday. He had a party, or 'brunch' as he called it at his parents' house in Martins Beach, just south of Half Moon Bay...brunch started at 2pm, and went until 7am the next morning, when Alex opened a bottle of champagne with a sword like a French soldier. There were bowls of dungenous crab, cornish game hens, wine, cheese, beer, booze, live music, and other festivities including fireworks, on the beach at midnight, followed a couple hours of tasty living room dance party...not a bad way to celebrate one's 30th birthday - good work, Alex!!

the long lasting partiers after a delicious juevos rancheros breakfast the next morning

We drove through Santa Cruz on the way back and stopped at a place called 'burger.' (with a period after the word burger). They had served one of the best burgers I've ever had, they have a great bar with Chimay on tap, and it was crawling with a huge influx of cute girls...most of them were probably college girls, but I don't like to discriminate. They also had great shakes...shortly after we got on the road and mozied on home to Ventura...another victory!

tin types

Last weekend, I went down to Corona to do a wet collodion workshop. This was the photo process before film which includes tin types and wet collodion glass plates (negatives & positives).

The workshop was taught by William Dunniway, a renowned tin typist, wet collodion enthusiast, civil war re-enactment photographer, and nice guy. There were only 3 students total: a friend I work with (Kim Kosai) who actually told me about the workshop, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer for the New York Times (Angel Franco), and myself. In addition, two gentlemen by the names of Ted and James, helped out with the workshop while everything was held together by Will's wife Frances, who was in charge of the food...us photo people can get very cranky and nasty after being in the darkroom for long hours without eating - we often forget or fail to recognize the need for energy and sustenance via meals.

It lasted two days and it was a riot. There were funny stories, dirty jokes, not too many 'oops' moments, and at the end an overall satisfaction and wonderment in learning a new process...the only problem being now that I want to continue doing tin types, or making glass plate negatives for platinum printing...all that shit's expensive and it will take a lot of ordering and getting things fine-tuned before I'll be ready...so maybe by summer, I can take civil war esque photos of ye'alls.

Here are the prints I made - both are tin types and Will was nice enough to focus and make the exposures on this sweet old 1850s camera:

formal (for mom)

casual (trying to look like an angry urchin diver)

better late than never