a while back (march) i had the pleasure of travelling to london. and the pleasure of meeting some wonderful individuals.

although i did take my m along, i liked shooting color this time around:

War Protests

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

i haven’t updated in a long time. and since then i have travelled. a lot.

Kansas City

went to kansas city to check out some friends and to meet with an interesting character. went to KU in lawrence, chilled, partied, drank, chilled, mcD’d. met up with a buddy i haven’t seen in 7 years (until last december), and his maternal unit. showed me around KC and lawrence, and we stopped at a party.

some random chick’s party at some random apartment. scary dog.

they don’t call it slutoween for nothing.

poor youngsters need to make IDs.

and the man himself

holding onto the shell of a .50 AE round. i shot the desert eagle the day before. fuckin deadly.

Nick Vedros

and then it was on to the big ol’

Boston, MA

the T

from the hip. this guy was studying the street. at harvard T station i believe

sleeping on trains is a worldwide trend

mass.

we were served by bruce willis

and my bus driver was a baller

so was this german

met with some friends from home

and japan

duck tour, museum of science, tour of downtown, cambridge, harvard, MIT, tufts, BU, Clark, Babson. lots of crap crammed into the weekend. but it was worth it. and i got to see Mr. Craig. though the guy was a busy fuck. we shall meet again. and eat fusion noodles.

what’s next. who knows.

all i know is that i am coming back with souvenirs, etched into little pieces of plastic.

weddings give off mixed feelings. they can be fun, but they can be pure torture.

a few weeks back we were shooting a wedding and it was 27 outside. that’s fahrenheit for you europeans. equivalent to about -2 Celsius. outside. strong ass winds.

inside i took out the m and did the job

enjoy.

in the past month or so i’ve had a priviledge to hang out/party with two great ballers. coincidentally, both of them are owners of cigar companies. Nick Perdomo owns Perdomo cigars and Rocky Patel is at the head of Rocky Patel cigars.

i had the chance to shoot 2 openings/parties in the past month for a friend who owns the local cigar store. it was fun, extremely smoky. and some crazy shit happened the first time around. all in all, good times.

i don’t have the photos from rocky patel scanned, but here’s three shots of Nick Perdomo and his master cigar roller who came in.

The man himself. Nick perdomo

Master Cigar Roller

and that’s it for the weekend. i am damn tired from shooting. need to actually get some studying done.

cheers.

you know i sat in a journalism class a few days ago and i couldn’t believe it.

tsunami? blank stares

rwanda? blank stares

there they are. the young, the bright, our next generation of journalists. and they have no clue what is going on in the world. and this isn’t the first time i saw this going on. it happened last year when a professor wrote “darfur” on the board, and nobody could identify it. please.

the professor summed it up. americans are concerned with themselves before anything else. to the extent of being selfish.

and then people are surprised that the anti-american sentiment is on the rise. at least william jefferson seemed to care. he made a point talking to mike wallace that he turned the world’s view of america around. and that’s true, there was a lot of respect for him. and people hated him because of a little something on the side with an intern. fucking please. firstly its his private life and didn’t affect his presidency. if he’d been stealing money for her, oh yes. secondly, the divorce rate in this country is above 50%. this shit happens all the time. so who cares.

i digress.

anyways.

all i can say is wake the fuck up. i had this same conversation with my friend in japan. R.G. is going places let me tell you that. and though personally i didn’t agree with him all of the time, i know he’s going places. give it a few years and he’ll come up on the political radar.

wake the fuck up. this crap isn’t going to fix itself. and the next generation of “journalists”, the next generation of people doesn’t seem to give a shit. you’ll have to fix it. you can enjoy life (read: get wasted every weekend), but you can also pay attention to what’s going on outside your backyard.

this man is paying a lot of attention. and i believe his rhetoric has some amazing power:

his words are very very powerful, and very wise. all the best in the future.

and he has soft hands. must use moisturizer or something.

could work on his handshake.

there was also this man, who’s not quite as powerful. but he was still a baller.

DWF
works for TIME Magazine and Redux Photography. and shoots a six.

and now i am going out for a drink. all of mine was confiscated and poured down the drain. i’ve never wished so much for a glass of chivas.

c’est la vie

here’s a few shots from that first wedding. only m shots, cause the other ones are at work and i’m too lazy to resize them and everything. and i have a 2nd wedding from this past weekend with nicer work (at least i think so).

i never knew that weddings were such hard work. got back on saturday and almost died. but then again, carrying 2 full size cameras all damn day and following everyone around is definitely hard work.

for some reason i didn’t shoot the m at all at the wedding this past weekend. it was strange. prolly because i put some velvia in and then the clouds rolled in. but i don’t know. it was great fun. and i got a bottle of wine as a gift from the vineyard.

too bad it got confiscated yesterday. alcohol violation. fuckin laws and policies.

i have a lot to say about that. mainly, it’s bullshit.

how someone can buy porn, cigarettes, go to jail and go to war; basically be accountable/liable/responsible for all the decisions they make, but cannot buy a beer with dinner is ridiculous.

“you should have hidden it”

i am not hiding my alcohol. i have been legal to drink in every other normal country for the past two years. call me a stubborn git if you want, i don’t care. this is stupid

AAANYWAYS, enjoy these:

so i am twenty today.

wow.

enjoy:

yes weddings are wonderful days…

i love them. no joke. not that i will be in one anytime soon. don’t want to deal with that kind of stuff anytime soon. but i love to shoot them. especially the kids during the weddings.

here’s some from one last weekend. was assisting my boss and snagged a few with the M in between digital shots:

the flowergirls.

this guy was out of control. but he stopped and smiled.

violinists can be hot

for some reason they were reluctant to do this

the women

i have a great deal of fun assisting at weddings. in fact, i hvae a wedding this saturday. the only difference is that i’m not assisting. i am shooting a wedding myself. big step you can call it. and i will be shitting my pants till about 10 pm on saturday. but i’m confident.

so for the next 2 days i am studying wedding albums.

peace and enjoy.

lest we forget

my last 4 rolls from Japan were developed in the US. so I have them available.

my last week in Japan was full of everything. sightseeing, shopping, partying, drinking, eating, seeing everybody. my last wednesday there, most of my friends went on a grueling hike up mt. fuji to watch the sunrise from the top. for my own reasons i chose not to. as hardcore as it seemed.

but that wasn’t going to stop me from having fun too.

a friend of mine, eri, invited me to a movie with her and her friend, rie. i guess movie in japan means “let’s watch a movie, then go to and all-you-can-drink dinner and get obliterated”.

and you know what

i like that definition.

johnny was great. though i was pretty disappointed that the movie ends with, oh wait, you have to watch pirates 3 to see the ending. FUCK.

not before we stopped in some photo booth to take some sticker photos.

now let me tell you these people are fucking nuts when it comes to sticker photos. but i didn’t care. i was all for embracing this japanese culture.

afterwards is when the fun started. part of this japanese culture is the all-you-can-drink specials at restaurants. the focus is moreso on the alcohol than the actual food. for about $25 bucks you can get a “package”. all you can drink beer + a certain number of appetizer dishes.

the best thing about this. japanese can’t drink. eri was an exception. for a young japanese lady she held out pretty damn fuckin well.

rie on the other hand. she was funny herself. didn’t speak a word of english but was determined to go to the US to study in university. dunno how far that was gonna go. she sounded horrible.

either way, by the end of the evening, they were both smashed. rie was forcing english. it sounded like a really bad violinist.

and the two hours was up. it was really too bad. i wish i’d done this thing a little more often while in japan. but my host dad was a great cook.

we went outside

saw some poor soul working overtime in the streets

went out to the UFO catchers and fucked around for a little bit. I won a Stich doll and gave it to Rie.

And the fun ended on the train ride back to my home station.

c’est la vie.

trix + 1