Shortly after my mother got married, my step dad, Juan, thought it would be a good idea to move the family out of the city to the countryside. They agreed that it was the best way for the kids to stay away from trouble because of the high crime rate. It was unfortunate that my siblings and I didn’t get a vote in the matter. So we face the idea of leaving our friends behind after six wonderful years. It’s a depressing thought but we had no choice -momma bear had spoken. So when the time came we packed our stuff, said our goodbyes, and drove away.

When we settled into our new place, I felt the solitude and wonder if I could adjust to this place. We have a big land so in time; my parents bought animals to own. We had (and still have) goats, chickens, turkeys, cows, roosters, and a tiny bulged-eyed Chihuahua. But because of the harsh change of environment, I naturally resented living there. I complained. I was bored. And my only friends were a bunch of chickens.

My mother told me to give it some time and I will adapt to the environment. After all, my mom really liked it, so I kept an effort to get the hang of it for her.

On the other side of the story, Juan grew up a country boy and cherished it. He’s one of those people who say, “When I was a boy in Mexico…” then ranted on about his days. I admit, those got pretty annoying but I think it was his way of encouraging me to help him with his chores outside the house. After some time, I gave in to his encouragements and helped him out. The task was to kill a male goat and prepare it for a dinner party.

I thought that this might not end well.

I never killed an animal before and tried to think of a way to get myself out of this situation. Before I could think of anything, he gave me military knife and a rope and told me to get moving. We arrived at the goat pen and Juan chose an adult sized male to be my victim. I was very nervous and tried to find a clever excuse to abandon the mission.

“uh, I need to pee” I said.

“you just came out of the bathroom.”

Damn, that didn’t work.

“give me the rope” Juan said.

He then began to tie one end of the rope to a tree branch then the other to the goat’s leg.

“I want you to do is cut the right side of the neck, over its artery”

“Can’t we just shoot it?” I said.

“No”

“Give it sleeping pills?”

“No”

“Order pizza?”

He immediately pulled his end of the rope which lifted the goat up the tree by its two back feet. It screamed its lungs out trying to break free. It happened so fast that I froze for a few seconds. Juan shouted at me to focus. I quickly snapped out of it and I walk up to the goat to finish my duty. On the last second while slicing its neck, I closed my eyes.

Then it screamed in so much pain that I was taken back and dropped my knife. I walked backward and realized that I missed his artery and the goat was going berserk. Juan stepped in and finished the task. After a few seconds the goat was dead. I stood there staring down with my face sparkled with its warm blood. Juan told me not to worry about it and I’ll do better next time.

“No, that’s ok. I’m just go over to the chickens and throw up somewhere over there.” I replied.

Juan nodded.

Later that night I didn’t join the dinner party. My mom made something else for me to help me forget meat. The goat killing was still in my head for the rest of the week. I knew that Juan thought this would be a good time for me to teach me about responsibility about living out in the country. He never brought up the goat killing incident again. He figured that I’m not cut out to be a professional crazy goat killer from hell.  So after that day, he decided to teach me other responsibilities outside the house. I was very happy doing those. I did appreciate his effort and knowledge to share with me the about basic responsibility for taking care of my family.  And after a while, I slowly adapted to the lifestyle out on the countryside- I liked it. The chickens and I became pretty cool homies too.

I love to play video games. It’s one of my most favorite past times. I always look forward to play video games after school, even to this day. I don’t mind playing by myself, but the experience is far better when playing with friends. These game nights include screaming, laughing, hugging, punching, crying, and singing. Yes, there was singing and not sure how that happens. Now, I can’t say that I’m good player but there is one game I know where I stand for sure; it’s the Halo games…and I suck at them.

I usually like to play in campaign mode with a buddy for hours because of the tactics we come up with to kill alien covenants. But the moment I step out into the online world by myself, some 11-year-old girl from another country kills me in less than a second. Yeah that’s pretty sad and awkward.

Anyway, I thought it would be a neat idea to try some cosplay photo shoots. I never done this idea before, but I imagine it can’t be that hard. I knew a coworker named Chris, who share the same interest in video games, has a Halo Spartan suit. I was really excited to know about that because Chris is about 6ft 1 and Master Chief John 117 is 7 ft tall. So Chris is the closes I’ll ever to get to photograph in the likeness of John 117.

As for our photo shoot, we mainly shot indoors because it was drizzling outside that day. Chris and I had a great time moving lights around to get some good lightening. Once we were set up, I had Chris do all sorts of poses that would look really cool in photo. After an hour of posing, poor Chris was sweating a lot for being in his suit. I thank Chris for his help and effort to make this photo shoot possible. This was fun!

I only uploaded a few on this page but there will be more photos to come. I’ll let you guys know via Facebook to see new photos of this shoot. I took a lot of photos and it takes a while to process them. For now, I’ll post up these photos and add more throughout time. Until next time! : )

It’s been a challenge juggling school, work, and photography opportunities for the last few months and not blogging for a few months. Therefore, I’m terribly sorry for not sharing you my photography and design adventures, as I should. Therefore I decided to set up a blogging schedule and blog three times a week. I think that would be a  good start for me. I will definitely get into the habit of writing more often. I really like to write, but I don’t have the best grammar right now. My writing need some work. I hope you guys are forgiving as I improve along the way.

And now, what do I have in mind to share with you all? For starters, I bought a new camera! I been without a camera and a cell phone for two months. It was a terrible feeling. No instagram, No fun photo shoots. Oh the horror!!! I sold my old camera and saved some money to buy a new one. As for the cell phone, I “misplaced” it. I know it’s still out there somewhere in this beautiful world.

I’m a proud owner of a Canon 60D and it’s an awesome camera! It’s so awesome that it has the ability to make me breakfast every morning! Actually no. That’s a lie. I’m totally lying. Sorry. But it can take HD Videos! Which gives me an opportunity to post up videos on my photography adventures…or me being silly all over the place. Either way I’m very excited! So watch for new videos coming out. It’s going to be fun : )

So what’s going to be my first photo shoot with my nifty new camera? Well, I think you all would enjoy this  photo teaser. It’s really obvious.  I think this would be a good way to jump back into the photography world again.

The photo shoot will happen this Friday, December 14. As soon as it’s done, I will upload the shoot on the next blog. Until then, Have a great day and we’ll meet up on here next time!

Who loves hiking? I do! do you? You should. It’s an adventure. Some hikes are tough, others are easy. Some hikes require you to swim through water and other require you to run like hell to prevent getting eaten by bears. But whatever lies ahead in southern California hiking trials, you can never go wrong with bringing friends along to enjoy nature. It’s a great exercise too! Although with this particular hiking trail on North Etiwanda Preservation, I was a bit out of shape. My body ached and I felt like crawling on my hands and knees. But I managed and brought some water and snacks to get me going.

If anyone hasn’t been here yet, it’s a ten minute trial and towards the end of the walk, there is a small waterfall. It’s not a place to swim in but just to take lots of pictures and walk deeper into the shady-green forest. The hike is definitely an easy one and anyway one can hike through this trial. This place is located in North Etiwanda Preservation, near Ontario, California. If you’re in the area, give this trial a try!

a graduation photo shoot.

I though of a plan and set it to a 15 minute photo shoot. This package will include: 1 attire, 1 location within the city limits, 1 card design template with the best photos to keep for reprints all for $30. Each graduation design invites are different in colors and styles. I figured this would be a great deal for students, so I got to work right away on designing a poster late that night and upload it to my facbook fan page. I then set up one free photo shoot and design a mock up so my followers would see how my graduation invites would look like.

Then I played the waiting game and see what happens…..

I was pretty nervous for the first few hours and wondered what kind of response I would get. By the end of the day, I received a lot of good responses and people were interested in doing a photo shoot. I’m very thankful for my followers. And for the next few weeks, I booked appointments like crazy. The experience was great and a challenge at the same time because I’m taking MBA courses with my photography business on the side. My first graduation invitation season was a great run. Now that it ended, I have posted up some photos from various shoots without their designs. I hope you guys will love them and stay tune for more photography work. This time, They will be post graduate photos! : )

Good way to start the morning by listening to one of my favorite bands Switchfoot, learning to breathe. If you haven’t heard the song, you should definitely check them out! I would like to send out my apologies to you all for me being m.i.a. on the blog. Life likes to grab me by the ears and demands that I pay attention to graduate school. I mean, it’s fun, I absolutely love Marketing; but my professor is a tough one to figure out. He’s take his class pretty seriously too. One time, I walk into class about 2 minutes late and before I took 2 steps into class, he snarled in his strong Lebanese accent, “Why are you late?”. His question caught me by surprise that the only thing I came up with was the truth…

“I had to go to the bathroom” : /

Anyway, for the main event, my dear friends Anthony and Melanie. I knew both for a couple years now. They are amazing, friendly, highly intelligent, and beautiful people. They always let me give them hugs! (I like hugs ^_^) I must say that Anthony is an amazing cook! a chef I must say! I remember he made some AWESOME firecracker wings and other kinds of yummy food at my birthday party. He’s so talented! Oh and I must point out that Anthony and Mel love Disneyland. The happiest place on Earth with season pass that I can’t afford : (

The photo shoot took place at Prospect Park in Redlands. It’s a very beautiful place with lots of trees and a small chunky birds singing their love songs. it’s cute. We all had a fun time that Saturday afternoon. Thanks guys for an awesome experience! You guys are fun and hope we can do another photo shoot again : )

I gave her a blank stare for a few seconds, then I cried anyway.

Now let’s fast forward a couple decades later. (I don’t like math, so i won’t count how many years it’s been since)

I still have this little kid in me who loves to go on road trips. I mean, who isn’t excited to go to new places? such as New York, Hawaii, and around the globe? Well, I currently don’t make ridiculous amount of money, but maybe one day I would love to travel to a beautiful place for a month or two. but for now, I enjoy what I have.  So just the other day, my beautiful lady Pearl and I decided to take a small adventure to Joshua Tree, Ca. And boy, believe me, it’s a very beautiful desert! Now that says a lot since I’m the kind of guy who grew up in a state filled with forests. As I was growing up, i thought most deserts are ugly and boring. Of coarse, I was wrong. This place has so many Joshua trees a far as my eyes can see and the boulders are HUGE! It’s definitely a place for rock climbers. The weather was a bit windy and sometimes felt the wind’s angry push at us. It was Pearl’s first time at Joshua Tree and she loved it. I Know so because she was always smiling and looking at all the big rocks she would like to climb as if the whole area was a huge playground. In fact, we saw it like a playground and  felt like little kids climbing on these big rocks. It warms my heart to see Pearl smiling and enjoying that place. A trip to Joshua Tree is definitely one of the best days of my life. I’m glad Pearl was with me.

Hope you all enjoy the photos : )

I’m terribly sorry for not writing a post for a while. School and photography shoots had taken a large chunk out of my life. Now that everything has died down a little, I have more time to share my work and thoughts with you all : )

Now, I got something interesting to share. Ever met someone who is not related to you but have the same birthday and same age as you? I did and it feels pretty amazing. Some time ago my friend, let’s call her Katie, approached me and said that her and I have the same birthday. The same age as well! I was amazed and never met someone in this circumstance before. So out of excitement, I ask if she would be interested in doing a birthday shoot. She totally agreed!

We decided the shoot be a casual. Nothing fancy pansy like…. a limousine that ran on a ramp then flies over Katie as she wears a blue Cinderella dress looking cute with her arms in the air while I’m inside the limousine, sticking my head out the driver side window wearing a pink tie and no shirt, throwing up  a peace sign-backwards.

That would be amazing, but I would probably die in the process. ha ha : )

Anyway, we visited a local park that I thought would be nice spot for our photo shoot. There is a lake, paddle boats, oversize scary looking swans, and lots of trees. It’s a very beautiful park. It’s perfect for couples who would like to go on a lunch date. So without anything else…here are some of the photos.

Gather around the camp fire, I’m gonna share you a little story. (pretend there’s a campfire and be careful not to burn your face) ok so, many moons ago, when i was just a little boy, I loved my TV. I loved it so much it’s like my face was always glued to the TV watching many exciting cartoons and movies whenever i’m not playing outside with friends. (I only had two friends anyway) but I absolutely love spending quality movie time my tv because my cute, tiny, adorable and ever-caring mother would always buy VHS movies for me and my siblings to watch. (it was the best way to shut us up anyway because coming from a Mexican family, boy, we can rowdy!)

Anyway, so one night, my mother came home from her work and handed up a VHS movie of Jurassic Park. I remember being so excited about it because I have seen trailers about the movie and they seem very interesting. So during the time I was watching this movie, I was so mesmerized by all the realism of these dinosaurs and how great the story telling was. I had definitely had thought that it would be so cool to have a real dinosaur theme park. (without anyone being killed, of coarse) that park would be some kind of morbid form of Disneyland for me. To make a short story even shorter, Jurassic Park was awesome when i was a kid. (and still is)  ^__^

So flash forward to many moons later, I had a great opportunity video edit two interviews of my close friend/film critic Rama from Ramascreen.com who had recently got a chance to attend a press day interview to celebrate the upcoming release of JURASSIC PARK TRILOGY on blu-ray which will hit the stores on October 25th, 2011.

He had the opportunity to interview 8-time Oscar winning VFX supervisor Dennis Muren of the Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Oscar winning VFX supervisor Phil Tippett of Tippett Studio and Animatronic/special effects supervisor John Rosengrant of the Legacy Effects (formerly Stan Winston Studio) Rama also had a chance to interview actress Ariana Richards whom you may recognize from the first Jurassic Park movie, she played the teen girl named Lex Murphy. Ariana is also an accomplished, professional artist. Steven Spielberg has one of her watercolors in his office, so please make sure to visit her official website at galleryariana.com and view some of her fascinating works. Here are the videos below. Enjoy!

I’m actually not vegetarian, not to offend any of my veggie friends but I grew up eating meat since birth! I just love meat! I mean the first word that came out of my mouth was “Meat!!!!!” then I suddenly bit the doctor on the arm. ha ha ha ha…….No. that’s not true. I’m kidding -that would actually be called cannibalism anyway. (awkward moment)

Well, anyway, in the past month or so, I had a great opportunity to work with my favorite vegetarian restaurant,”Oasis Vegetarian Cafe“. I love that place! and as a carnivore, that says alot! seriously lol

so I been working with them to have a little “face lift” with their logo along with new marketing tactics, and other fun stuff. It’s great working with them because they are very kind, energetic, efficient and friendly in a fast-paste environment work place. I’m sure that takes great skill. I mean, I would be freakin’ out running around all over the place trying to catch up with their pace then fall and break my beautiful face because i tripped on my shoe lace. NO BUENO -_______-

When I got settled in, I got to work on lots of fun design concepts for their menu, logos, and other things. So for now, the photo below is Oasis Vegetarian Cafe‘s new logo. I hope you folks like it.