Archive for September, 2009

Zaw Zi and Chit-Chit

Here they are again taken a few days ago on the 25th Sept.

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Mr. Rick Day’s “The Real Players” Reinterpreted

NYC’s Mr. Rick Day’s visual aesthetics is highly recognizable. Rick and I are good friends and we have often exchanged messages. Here is a little fun tribute to him. Rick loves dogs and he has canines of his own.

“The Real Players” is an uplifting and fun humor tribute to one of the photographers I admire and respect. Mr. Rick Day. He released a photo book titled, “Players”. Check it out.

Here are my “Real Players” Zaw Zi and Chit-Chit.

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One of my favorite models. John Kenney @ LA Models

Prior to my move, John was the last male model in LA I shot. He’s great man engaged to his high school sweet heart, Ms. Sharon Klarman. To the future Mr. and Mrs. Kenney, my heartfelt thanks to you both and I wish you both the best and brightest future as you traverse further in life.

John Kenney @ LA Models

John was the last Los Angeles male model I photographed prior to my relocation. I am so glad to be around family and friends. I figure while my agents in LA and in Paris, France are representing me and my works, this gave me the opportunity to move back up north trying the San Francisco market.

Of course, I’ll fly into LA if I have important shoots or special meetings with clients.

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THANK YOU LA! 2007-2009 (Not in Any Order)

Ladies:

Ninelle Beine

Cornelia Brown

Jade Kira

Obiageli Anusionwu

Jennifer Pae

Heather Burton

Danielle Yu

Creative Colleagues: Make-up Artists, Hair Stylists, Wardrobe Stylists, Assistants, anyone that has helped me in one form or another:

Francisco Pinto: Wow! Kitty. Two years and I can’t believe how many covers and gigs we did together! There will always be a vacant spot for you as my right hand man. Cheers and keep in touch!

Bebe Booth

Shabi Shahryar

Mika Clark

Mika Clark: If I have a guardian angel, I hope she looks like you. THANK YOU for your help and understanding. You’re the best.

Bebe Booth: Your laugh will be the “Sound of LA” I will remember. HEHE. Thank you for the great time.

Arthuro D. Chavez

Greg Sovik (All That Remains)

Eric Schwers | Baskit

David Booth – CA Film Commission

Sergio Garcia (LA Models)

JT Russo (Next)

Paul Nelson (Wilhelmina)

Jami Wrenn (Click)

Allen Osborne (Vision)

Joe Barley (Vision)

Tony Hoffman – Angeles District Film Permit Coordinator

Jaime Gatlin

Andrew Harmon – Editor, DNR West Coast

Daniel Raducanu – Beach Ranger that stopped me, but NOT fined me for shooting on the beach w/o a permit. He left me me his card and instructions on shooting on beaches the RIGHT WAY! :-)

Jacqueline @ Flashlights Lighting, Grip Sales, and Repair – My Speedotron got problems and went to them for help. Fixed like new!

Antoaneta Ivanova (Etoile)

Eric Dean

Timoteo

East Canyon

El Cid LA

Adam J. Breuchaud

Andy Salmen

Douglas Coats

Hubert Pierre Pouches

Jason Hoeung

Richard Weiss

Alona Delafin

Michal Nicholas

Austin Stefan Hess

Ian Chambers

Mochachino

Dan Taylor

Rosie Niku

Keith Carhill

Amanda Martinez

Luke Lim

Ian R. Knight

Jeanne San Diego

Jessica Woods

Patricia Le

Manny Paez

Avo Yermagyan

Garrett Bithell

Reg Domingo

Jacques Alos

Olaf Alp

Photographs I Met or Met at Brooks Ayola’s Studio Parties:

Jonathan Waiter. Look what you have turned me into! :-) The photographer who gave me the “Just Do It!” attitude. It was you that encouraged me to take the first step into the arts. Had I not, my soul would have been tormented in pharmacy school and the rest of my wrong career path. I was more than elated and not to mention jovial when I got to finally meet you in 2007 and what fun I had of you using MY lights to take that portrait of me. :-) I was skinny as a stick then. These days, I’ve developed slight tone and definition, but I am still far away from my physique goals. THANK YOU!!!

Ms. Sita Mae: OMG, thank you for finally getting to meet you over at Brook’s studio party! I enjoyed receiving those big warm hugs from you! :-)

Wolf. Guten tag Herr Wolf! Thank you for the opportunity to meet you too! I hope I have left warm and positive impressions. :-) Vielen Dank!

Mr. Curt Burgess. You’ll have to extend my farewells to Mrs. Kathy Burgess. I know she LOVES my photographs! :-) Thank you sir for being able to meet you at Brook’s studio party.

Bruce Talbot. Funny man Mr. Bruce Talbot sir!!! Thank you for the opportunity to meet you as well over at Brook’s studio party. I will remember your thoughts you gave me during that time. :-)

Jason Todd Ipson. It was great meeting you. Next time I am in LA we have to eat another Indian food! :-)

Mr. Keith Phillips @ Lucky! Old sir! It was great meeting you and Eloise at Brooks’ studio gathering.

Karla Ticas. Greetings Ma’am. :-) It was my pleasure meeting you when you tagged along with Sean to Brook’s studio gather. I hope you remember me!

Mr. August Bradley! Wow! I remember being briefly introduced to you at Brook’s studio gathering. I truly do admire your great visual style and I hope I have left a good impression with you.

Mr. Angelo Lorenzo! Hey buddy! It was great to meet you. I hope you’re taking great care of my Spyder2 PRO. When you want to upgrade, just pass it on to someone else. :-)

Ms. Krista Benson! Ola Lady. Hehe. It was great to meet you. Your VFX stuff rocks and I hope you’ll share your surreal and conceptual visual arts with a wider audience. :-)

Mr. Kesler Tran. Man, it was great to meet you too. So gald. I’ve already left a great tag that I thought about carefully so there! :-)

Tom Cullis

James Loy

Suzette Troche-Stapp (Glitter GURU)

To Lucinda Wedge: I have to address you respectfully and with great admiration by referring you as “Ma’am” one last time! :-) Thank you for treating me at Maxwell’s Cafe. I enjoyed a hearty Breakfast Burrito and meeting with Mr. Richard Wedge. I’ll be wishing you my last Happy Sunday! from LA.

To Marco Carocari: You are still one of the photographers I admire, greatly respect and look up to. I was honored when I got to meet you at Joey’s Cafe in West Hollywood with my Canadian photographer friend Mr. Ryan E. Wibawa.

To Ryan Wibawa. Got rice bitch?! It is okay, I am not being rude. Him and I have reached that level of rapport and camaraderie. He calls me a bitch and I bite him back. HAHA! I was glad to be your host when you visit LA. I’ll miss you.

To Mr. Gregory Prescott, Mr. Kurt R. Brown, and Mr. Steven Blank: Hello sirs! :-) Indeed, it was my pleasure appearing before all of you at Mr. Ayola’s studio party! Thank you for bringing along Calle Eriksson. I did a great vintage photo-painting of him.

To: Nadirah. O’reilly? S’rously? HAHA. You were a treat and funny lady. I enjoyed our conversations together at Brooks’ studio gathering. I wasn’t shy around you. In fact, I was a loud mouth around you. HEHE.

Male Models:

Charlie David

Derek P. Marrocco

Farhad Sami

Gabriel Romero

Gregory Michaels

Shane Alverado

Stephen Moyer

Style D. Bell

Paul Molay

Zach Nelson

Chad Raile

Sean Harley

Jerrod Hoffman

Marco Dapper

Terry Beeman

Tym Roders

Allen C. Clippinger

James Clippinger

Pierre O. Beaudoin

Danny Thorn

Jordan Carlyle

Mike Dayem

Mike Slattery

Adam B. Gurr

Brandon Stoughton

Anderson Davis

Derek P. Marrocco

Chad Raile

Sean Harley

Ryan Diesel

Gianni Falcone

Alexander Morone

Arthur Napiontek

Asha Deva

Ashkan Esmaili

Calle Eriksson

Cody Chaet

Crosby T. Wehr

Daniel A. Schuman

Daniel Ferreira

Freddy Daruwala

Gabriel P. Ackley

Peter Strykowski

James D. Martin

John Kenney

Kurt Lima

Nathan J. Owens

Paulo Pascoal

Peyman Mahdavian

Remington Hoffman

Royal Binion

Victor Ross II

William Mullenneaux

Bobby Boyd

Justin W. Adamson

Adam C. Phebus

Jeremy Williamson

Armando Zavala

Adieu LA…Hello! San Francisco

My Updated Website and Photographer Resume summarizes my experiences in Los Angeles.

Now that I have representation in Los Angeles and Paris under Roxanne Dauer @ .Artists Representatives., I am moving back up north to try the SF area while remaining closer to family, friends, and my two dogs Zaw Zi and Chit-Chit.

Los Angeles: You have made me more confident and belief in my potentials. I will visit you frequently. HEY!!! I have few forthcoming COVERS and you have not seen the last of RONALD N. TAN!

For now…adieu.

On 5/19/07, I arrived in LA and dreamt of being a photographer. I came here with dreams encapsulated in fabric weaved in ambition and passionate desires for success. I came here wanting to be like Mr. Reinsdorf and Mr. Avenaim, et. al. I said, “I want to be like them one day!” On newsstands, “DNA” caught my eye because Mr. Payton was its veteran cover photographer.I said, “I want to shoot a cover just like that!”

Little did I know that I would be shooting for my first advertising tear sheet for Vizeau in Sept. 07 and my first cover for France’s MMENSUEL to be out Nov 2007 with my editor-in-chief, Frederic LeFeuille, affixing his personal note to my parents, “You should be proud of this cover photographer” when he mailed a copy of the magazine to my parents in Sacramento. I did not anticipate breaking the publication threshold for neophytes to accumulate fourteen publications with six covers with multi-page main editorials in under two-years that are nationally distributed in Spain, France, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Germany, Canada, and USA including three multi-page biographies authored by my editors-in-chiefs!

Under two years, I did not anticipate that my photographs would grace the covers of model comp cards or inside their books:

BLEU MODEL MANAGEMENT LA, CITY MODELS SF, LOOK MODELS SF, CLICK MODELS LA, FORD MODELS SF, LA MODELS, MODELS INTERNATIONAL LA, NEXT MODELS LA, NEXT MODELS MIAMI, NTA LIFE MODELS, RED MODELS NYC, RENEGADE MODELS NYC, SILVER MODEL MANAGEMENT NYC, VISION LA, VUE MODEL MANAGEMENT LA, WILHELMINA MODELS LA.

As I prepare the forthcoming second chapter, I have in front of me all these covers and magazines as proof that I wasn’t dreaming. They were real because when I picked up my March 2009 DNA cover (whom I dedicated to Mr. Lewis Payton), I bumped my head on my way and I felt the pain! On July 31, 2009, I wrote in my “The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mr. Mitch Albom”

I read a “condensed” version of “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” The lesson of the book is that the people you meet in life has a reason. As I approach my 2nd year in LA and my 2nd year on this new found art journey, I am reminded of all the models and my creative colleagues I’ve ever interacted since 2007. I have been thinking about each one of you lately the photographs we produced and how proud I was.

I am thinking about all of you whom has helped me succeed thus far! I want to express my utmost and sincerest gratitude to Mr. Brooks Ayola whom I affectionately refer to as “Sifu Brooks.” I am going to carry on with the wisdom and knowledge you have shared with me during these past two years and THANK YOU for all the serious business questions you’ve helped answer.

WHAT STRIKES ME ABOUT YOU, IS ABOVE AND BEYOND YOUR OBVIOUS TALENT AND GOOD TASTE, YOU HAVE DETERMINATION AND DRIVE WHICH IS WHAT SEPARATES THOSE WHO MAKE BEAUTIFUL IMAGES AND THOSE WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL WHILE DOING IT. DON’T GIVE UP ON GETTING YOUR NAME AND ART IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE WHO WILL HELP MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL. WITH SUCCESS COMES THE LUXURY AND FREEDOM TO PUSH YOUR ART TO NEW LEVELS.

To Mr. Sean Armenta, I will never forget our long emails from 2006! Thank you for your encouraging words and I have internalized what you wrote me:

YOUR PASSION FOR SOMETHING WILL NATURALLY DRIVE YOU TO LEARN ALL THAT YOU CAN ABOUT THAT SOMETHING, WHETHER IT BE PHOTOGRAPHY, SNOWBOARDING, KNITTING, WHATEVER. YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY SEEK OUT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WHAT IT IS YOU ARE MOST PASSIONATE ABOUT.

To Mr. Jerry Avenaim, I still look forward to the day I can appear before you humbled and show you my printed photographs. Hopefully when I return to LA to shoot another cover, I’ll get to meet my Sensei. Thank you for all the mobile conversations and for sharing with me, your “Grasshopper”:

STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF, AND YOU WILL NEVER FAIL. WITH THAT, I WILL SAY THIS… IF YOUR SHIP DOESNT COME IN, START ROWING! THATS WHAT SEPARATES THE MEN FROM THE BOYS.

To Mr. Robert Randall, I hope I remain very shiny on your list ofassistants. ;) Thank you for the serious business questions you’ve shared with me over the past year. I will take with me what you wrote:

SUCCESS IN THIS BUSINESS TAKES A LOT OF HARD WORK AND IT CERTAINLY ISNT A BUSINESS FOR THE TIMID OR PART TIME SOUL. SO GRAB SOME COFFEE AND GO SPANK THE CRAP OUT OF SOMETHING TO WAKE YOURSELF UP. AS BOB FOSSE USED TO SAY, ‘ITS SHOWTIME!’.

To Amy Dresser: I have the utmost respect towards your artistry and technical knowledge on retouching. I hope I have made you proud of my rapid accomplishments in within a year to be able to retouch that way I do! Thank you!

IT SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE A FAST LEARNER, BOTH IN PHOTOGRAPHY AND RETOUCHING…. YOUR PORTFOLIO IS VERY CONSISTENT. GOOD LUCK WITH EVERYTHING.

To Professor Katrin Eismann: Thanks to your books, Restoration and Retouching & Masking and Composition, I was able to expediently master retouching techniques that functioned as a basis for advanced techniques later employed in Mr. Dan Margulis’ books. I learnt Photoshop within a year! I hope I make you super proud! I saved your text as souvenirs:

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To Mr. Dan Margulis: I’ve grown immensely from reading your books, Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction. 5th ed. and Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace.

THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM WOULD BE THAT YOU MADE A MISTAKE BY CHOOSING THE CAREER THAT YOU DID. PERSONALLY, I THINK THAT TIMES ARE ACTUALLY RATHER GOOD FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO HAS BROADENED HIS HORIZONS AND CAN OFFER A COMPLETE SUITE OF IMAGING SERVICES IN A FORM THAT GAINS HIS CLIENTS’ CONFIDENCE. IT SOUNDS LIKE THAT IS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. CONGRATULATIONS.

To Rudy Lawidjaja, my other SIFU! Thank you for ALL your help during these recent times. Your wisdom and insights were appreciated. Just you watch. I’ll make you proud of me!

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