being humble is a hard quality.

This video was just released for 'Hoochie Coo' with The Black Keys, Mos Def, and Jim Jones. I cannot wait for this album, only a few weeks left (Nov. 27th).

Valet Mag "Stars and Stripes" exhibit love

(2nd post in less than in an hour. I think that's a record for me.)
More love being given to the exhibit up in San Fran. Here is another link to a piece on Jay Carroll who is behind the Americana infused exhibit and how it came to be. Check it out at:
http://www.valetmag.com/the-mix/103009.php/

The GQ Eye: GQ.com

Finally getting a chance to get back on here. So I don't have too much to say right now except for an article being brought to my attention. I came to find out that there is an article in GQ about the "Stars and Stripes" exhibit in the Levi's Store in SF. It's a pretty cool article about the ad campaign and the guys who put the exhibit together. There aren't any shots of photo's from mine or the other photographers, but it is awesome anyway to say that I am a part of this exhibit. Feel free to check it out at: The GQ Eye The GQ Eye: GQ.com


(Photo is from the article.)

SF.CA

I'm baaaaaacccck. For those of you who don't know, I was in San Francisco this weekend for the Levi's "Stars and Stripes" exhibit at their Union Square store. My photograph, "No Worries" was selected to be 1 of 5 on display. They told us Monday that our photographs were selected out of over 3,000 submissions. I am actually still in shock my photograph was one of the five. As a part of the "New American" ad campaign, Levi's held a contest through their website, which asked for photographs and writings to help tell the story of "today's America."



The weekend was soooooo much fun. We got there on Saturday afternoon and returned late Monday night. I cannot begin to say enough good things about Levi's and how good they treated us. First off, they paid for the airfare and hotel for the weekend, at a very very nice hotel I might add. That right there would have been enough for me, but as I checked in at the hotel the concierge gave me an envelope with a letter from Levi's congratulating me on winning and $500 in spending money. I could not believe it. I am not a professional photographer and don't have much experience with these sorts of things so for them just to send me and a guest up there was an amazing thing to me. So the spending money was such an awesome surprise.







The next day I had a chance to walk around half of San Fran with my friend Sheena who lives up in Fairfield. She was such a great little tour guide with baby feet (she literally has like 4 inch feet). We ended up going to Fisherman's Wharf, rode a cable car, hit up Chinatown, Little Italy, and North Beach. As I came to find San Francisco isn't as big as I first thought. We came to find that out when we took the trolley back to the hotel and accidentally got off a couple of stops before we should have. As we walked up the street we thought would get us back to the hotel, we ended up at the beginning of Chinatown for the second time in a matter of 2 hours. When we figured it out, we realized that our hotel (The Clift) was actually only 4 blocks away.


Who are you, Seal?


Kind Eyes.


Chinatown.


Corner.

Monday came around and it was time to go to the private unveiling of the exhibit at the store. It was such an honor to have my photograph displayed at the Levi's store. I got a chance to meet some of the higher-ups from Levi's and the 4 other photographers who won. They were a pleasure to meet, they came from Los Angeles, Dallas, New Jersey, and New York. They were all so nice and also great photographers. As if it were to end there, Levi's then gave us each a $500 gift certificate for the store and an hour to shop before the store opened. I really could not believe this was happening to me. I felt like a little kid at a candy store. I stocked up on a bunch of jeans and a jacket. Also, the entire staff at the Union Square were extremely helpful to all of us.


At the opening.


Window display.


Listing.


Photographs.

After we left the store we had to check out of the hotel and have them store our baggage so we could continue our trek around the city. We ended up walking around, down Market St, up Haight St, and somehow found ourselves right in front of the "Full House" house. Sitting in front of the "Full House" house was a dream come true. I was waiting for Kimmy Gibler to walk by so I could hit on her, but unfortunately she did not appear. Haight St. was amazing. So many cool spots up and down that street. I had a chance to stop by the "Upper Playground" store and was amazed at their selection. So many sick t-shirts and artwork going across the top of the store. They had a copy of Retna and El Mac's book "Alianza", which I still have on back-order from Borders. I also got to see a painting by El Mac right outside the store. Check out his work online by clicking the link on the right side of my blog ----> He is an amazing artist.


El Mac.


Full House. House.

Unfortunately, the rain caught up to us on Monday as we were walking around and we got soaked. We had to go back to the hotel and change, but it was not a big deal at all because NOTHING could ruin this weekend. I can honestly say that I will always remember this weekend for the rest of my life.


Blame it on the rain.


Because.

Thank you Levi's!

Give 'em the biz.

Front side for 1st business card.

Front side for 2nd business card.

Back side for both business cards.

Petey Pablo

So it has been a little while since my last post. Well this blog is about a joyous occasion that happened a couple of weeks ago. My younger brother and his girlfriend were expecting a baby girl and on September 21st at 12:30 am they had a 7 lb. baby girl. She was dubbed, Carolina. Not sure yet whether she is claiming North or South. In a weird twist, I'm pretty sure I saw her "throwing up Westside" later that day when I visited her. Here are a few pics I snapped of the little booger.

La Blogoteque

So I just came across this website that is awesome. It's http://www.blogotheque.net

I had seen this 'Bloc Party' vid before and absolutely loved it.





I was looking up a Brooklyn band by the name of 'Dirty Projectors' today when I came across a Wikipedia link about 'Take Away Shows". These shows are videos shot by different people recording different artists in all types of environments. This is from their website:

"Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings."

I ended up looking through the rest of the musical acts they had recorded and I was amazed at all of the variety. If you get a chance, definitely check it out. They include; Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros, Jason Mraz, Yo La Tengo, Jose Gonzalez, Au Revoir Simone, Grizzly Bear, The Shins, Cold War Kids, and many many more. Here are some of the ones I like:


Pigeon John flowing at the bus stop.




Grizzly Bear

Sigur Ros

Patrick Watson, you might have heard of him sing with The Cinematic Orchestra

Vlade Divac style.

As I had said before, I am posting more phot's ma'goats (photos) on here as a way to express myself artistically. Not gonna lie, the last 7 words or so of the previous sentence sounded rather douchey. Anyway, here are some more pictures from around town. Enjoy.


Tunnel vision.






Waiting for any of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to pop out.






Go.





Who's got next?

This last photo is one I have wanted to capture for some time now. I saw this hoop up a while ago while I was driving down this road in the Downtown/Mission Hills area. It caught my attention because it's in this vacant lot, dirt at that, next to the road, and the backboard is attached to a retaining wall of the side of a hill.


It seems like the oddest place to put a basketball hoop. I'm not really sure what was there, but I guess they liked to play some ball. It's almost like this was the last thing to have survived on this lot. No building or pavement could withstand the toll of time, weather, economic downturn, or business deal gone awry, and yet this lone backboard and hoop still stand.

The reason I really wanted to capture it was because a basketball court was the first thing I ever photographed with my current camera, 6 years ago. First thing I did when I got my camera in the mail was to go to one of the parks near my house. I snapped some pictures of the hoops, backboards, nets, and fence around the basketball court.

There is still this one basketball court that I wish to take pictures of. There is this basketball court I remember from when I was a child that I saw in Mexico. You might wonder, why or what makes it so special? Well, whenever we go to Mexico, we have to take a 2-hour drive from Guadalajara to my grandmothers house in a rural town. On this drive, I remember this one basketball court, which for some reason was in the middle of nowhere. Like, seriously, it was on the side of the road in between towns, on what seemed like the middle of nowhere. The way I remember it, it was perched on the higher ground overlooking over hills of undeveloped land, just plain ol' forest. Seeing it from the car as a child, it almost seemed like this basketball court was sitting on the edge of the world. "The last basketball court."

Since I started taking pictures I have had this idea for a project. This "mythical" or maybe even "mystical" basketball court has something to do with it. Not really sure if I want to elaborate on it, but hopefully one day I can put it together.

BLAKROC

I cannot wait for this album. I heard about a Black Keys, Mos Def, and Jim Jones collabo a couple of months back but I did not know it was going to be a whole album. Now I read about all the other artists on this project and I am extremely excited for it. It comes out 11.27.09 ("Black Friday").

If you haven't heard it's a Black Keys project involving: Raekwon, Mos Def, Jim Jones, Ludacris, Billy Danze (M.O.P.), NOE, Nikki Wray, ODB, RZA, Pharoah Monche, and Q-Tip. Check out this trailer I just found.

Blakroc Project from Myrhax on Vimeo.

Up in the sky?............Up in the sky.

First off, here's something for your listening pleasures while you scroll down. Classic.



So I went out recently to snap some pics around town. What I really wanted to do was go out east and try and capture some thunderstorm clouds up close. Seeing as these t-storms were out in the mountains/desert and I did not want to drive into hell I decided to drive around and see what I could find closer to home.


I like the way clouds look. I think they would be fun to chill on while sippin' on some ginger ale.


This pic would have come out way better if I could have had the angle I wanted to. So I had to settle for this shot from a further distance. If I only had access to a "cherry picker", I think I could have had an amazing photo.






This is another one I really like.


I hope you enjoyed those. I am going to start posting more photos on here of random shots I take around town and what not.