It's hard to believe

Ryan: This guy is so interesting to me. What started out as a last minute shoot for my QOL class, turned into my next project


School is so soon. I decided to take this semester but do only two classes that will def. transfer over to any other school I may go to in the future. I read that SF AI lost 25% of their instructors last semester, and apparently Academy snagged some good instructors and I'll be with Brian Hewitt I guess for digital printing. Nice.

Wondering when I will get around to all the small little tasks before school starts...

I'm missing my family a lot. Ever since I got my new job I've been working my ass off trying to make some money and hopefully pay full rent. I'd feel more content I hate having my family pay for things...

Been listening to The Zombies lately. Loving it!
I'll write more later.

I fail at life

Apologies for not updating at all. Life has been slow to say the least. And when I'm in a funk I usually don't take as many photos as I'd like to.

Updates..

Nastiia and I are roommates shes the best.
Niyaz left and moved to ohio... but came up and surprised me for the weekend

Considering either finishing school online or transferring and opening up my own gallery. It's something
I've always wanted to do so I think I'll definitely work towards that.

Will update later.

Almost done...

So much life has happened over one semester. I won't go into much detail
But it's such a trip from leaving the country and being so extremely detached from a regular society
And to be back in San Francisco.

June 5th I'll have a show for Bay Area Documentary Association at this Publishing house (if I got that right?) across from SF Chronicle. I'm extremely excited for that.

I hope I do at least decent in most my classes, I kind of fell off track mid semester taking care of my family
But everything seems to be alright now

I'm not happy with one of my final assignments. It's this one year project I've been doing in San Jose
Documenting some convalescent homes and I'm still developing film for it for thursday. I went home this weekend
And shot as much as I could but I have this underlying feeling I still don't have a fully polished finished piece..
Which makes me just agitated. There are some projects I do for myself and there are some projects that I just
Fully en-golf myself in... and I get dissapointed easily because I have such high expectations of what I want to convey....

But in 6 days I will be on a plane leaving for Hawaii
I have a few gigs lined up and hopefully by the time I get back I'll have paid off the plane ticket

Looking for a new apartment as well with nastiia today in a few hours. I still have to type up an essay so I should do that now..

SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT

It's been a while since I've been able to update. If I'm not IN school, I'm AT school, either in the dark room (which hasn't been much of lately unfortunately)...or in the digital rooms. I've been getting a lot of shoots together and in this one semester alone I've made enough for my new imac. I need a computer just for editing my photos and finally I can afford one! I've set some $ from my shoots aside as well.. because I can never spend all the money I earn.







I'm so lucky to have such sweet boys assist me. I honestly don't know what I'd do without them.

So far I've been working my ass off/calling every small gallery that I know/trying to go through any connections to find a space for the BADA show... I'm worrying when it comes down to it we won't be able to pull anything off within the next month or so...

I need to buy some more chemicals/film.... I've had one roll in my AE1 for almost 2 weeks now.. wtf. I'm trying to push myself to do at least one final in all film so I can still have time to do it ... I haven't shot much of what I want with film lately..

Monday is going to kill me... 3-4 different shoots 10 am till possibly 9 at night in 2 different cities... I need to start resting up!


PS- I've fallen in LOVE with Solve Sundsbo. I wish I could do some of his high fashion work in film...something I might try over break.

Liberation

Photo by Anastasiia Sapon


Being on the road was good for me. I needed it. Everything going on with my mom and grandmother kept getting to me.. and I'm glad I was able to spend 5 days with great amazing people who I call my friends.

It felt nice to not worry about washing my hair every night... not having to put on makeup every morning and just enjoying the sun.

I missed this weather. I missed grey skies. I love the sun, really... but I also missed that cold crisp air that hits your face after being cooped up in a warm house.

I need to go to Wells Fargo and open a new bank account. And eat!

Day 3

Can I just say.... I HATE LA. I hate the traffic, I hate the snobbery, I hate everyones attitude.. LA just isn't for me. God forbid later down the road for some reason I have to move there.. I know I will be highly medicated 80% of the time.

So many mishaps... we called about 45 different motels.. and tried finding about 4 or 5 driving in circles in hollywood and somehow ending up in the TL of Los Angeles...

We slept in the car at an AM/PM which must have been one of my worst nights sleep ever... everyone was tired and irritated and the vibes were not good. I don't like sleeping with such negative energy inside me but it was just a bad night.

After that we just headed down to San Diego... after this point I refused to use my digital camera and I told myself I want to see my images once I'm in the dark room... And I got all the free film I didn't want it to go to waste.

San Diego was great... a new change of pace and such good vibes! We went to Ocean Beach and felt like home with all the hippies. After we went to Pacific Beach and it felt soo nice to just be able to relax and not as stressed.

Once I scan all my film in I'll post it immediately.

Day two, Part two

So after Santa Barbara we drove a ways and came to Santa Monica. I really wanted to take everyone to Venice Beach and show them the city. It took us a while to find parking and venice. We drove to the boardwalk first then drove around downtown for a good hour. We finally found a spot and got out and enjoyed the sun.



Drum circle


Brittany freakin' Boyer and I sat on the beach for a while and right when the sun was setting, we heard a ton of drums so we walked over and found a drum circle. Everyone was dancing and we saw tons of little cuties. Every one and their mom had dogs on venice and they were all pitbull's and some other mean looking dog. I was so surprised how fit everyone was too- so many bikes and joggers. Afterwards we ran into muscle man again...



And I found a cute little model



We all found eachother and drove to this nice little mexican place. We left to find a starbucks and get something warm to drink. While on the way there Anastasiia couldn't find her camera! We went back to the mexican place and luckily they had it. She came back into the car and said "I love mexicans" it was sweet.
Then we went to Riverside to find a place to sleep. Victor and Luis' mom was so nice and took us in at midnight. She was the cutest thing ever and I fell in love with his family. I wish I spoke better spanish- his mom kept speaking to me and I understood what she said but I couldn't say anything back I felt so bad.

We made a fire and tried drinking but we found out instead of getting vodka we got smirnoff Ice.... which was just like soda. Note to self- dont get vodka when you're stoned.

We left that next afternoon and said goodbye to the boys and then it was just the 5 of us.


In the boys backyard.