Mostly I have been busy lately.
I have been helping to run a top restaurant (again), I have been producing jingles (as usual), and I had a photoshoot last weekend:
Courtney is my favorite person to shoot because I could tell him to stand on his head at the edge of a cliff, naked with a swarm of bees, and he would do it ... and more importantly, he would make it look phenomenally interesting and all I would have to do is click. L.A. beckons and we will have known him when.
Faced with pangs of hunger for something more than a baloney sandwich, yet not possessing the strength to prepare anything more complicated, I decided to go simple and messy.
The most difficult part was mixing the dipping sauces ... I chose to make classic seafood cocktail with LOTS of horseradish, creamy tartar with plenty of relish, capers, lime juice and cilantro, and for a Mexican touch, guacamole.
Chef at the restaurant thinks I put too much garlic in my guacamole ... for that matter so does my family in Mexico ... of course this is nonsense; you can never have too much garlic in anything ;-)
The boiling water was salty-salty with a helping of San Francisco Bay seasoning, and I picked up a sourdough boule, just in case any sauces were leftover and wanting of attention.
All in all, it was a most satisfying dinner, whipped together pretty quickly and effortlessly. The most time was spent waiting for the photographer and food stylist.
This is Kenneth Special K.
He is a dancer who specializes in "popping", the sort of jerky robotic-like movements in some flavors of hip-hop dancing. Lucky for me, he also likes to model.
In person he really seems to be like any goth guy with tats and piercings. On the street he wouldn't get a second look, but in front of the camera he blossoms and becomes something else much more compelling.
We had a lot of fun during the photoshoot and hope to do more soon.
These are a few shots I did Monday for Cody Whitley, a model from Dallas.
If you ever want to have a little fun and see something breathtaking, the next time you have friends in from Japan, take them to an all-you-can-eat buffet for dinner.
While you and the family are slopping the grub on your plate, at the end of the line you will see that your guests have arranged their plates like an illustration for the latest must-go restaurant in the food section. Its not because they have a food stylist packed away in their vest pocket, but because traditionally in Japanese culture, presentation is as important to food as its preparation and flavor.
I was reminded of this experience yesterday morning as I was honored to be asked to photograph a catering job for the restaurant to help them promote their catering and special events. Everything was lovely and performed with perfect timing and organization. Amidst all of this I was bouncing around like a crazed mayfly trying to photograph everything I could think of that might be useful. Nobody was injured.
Looking at all of the splendid arrangements and arrays of meals, I was also reminded of a recent humorous article I read by Matt Armendariz, my photographer friend in L.A. who is always so supportive. In his blog "Mattbites", Matt wrote an article called "In Defense of Food Stylists" , which goes a little into some of the background effort it takes for styling professionals to make everything look extra yummy in order to help along an accomplished professional food shoot.
As an merely emerging professional I was lucky. Just like an ideal situation Matt mentions near the end of his article, for me everything was near perfect when it came out, so I think the project turned out so well because all I had to do was point and shoot.
I was downtown Monday doing downtown things, when I happened upon this amazing twenty-story billboard on the face of the Bank of America Plaza celebrating the coming All Star Game coming to Dallas soon
However, I was wrong ... its really THIRTY EIGHT stories tall. That's pretty amazing.
Today was a day of chores mixed with some light exploring.
I thought I would begin by taking some Fall photos, but there is not much color happening around here (yet) as there was last year ... but last year's color was more to the end of November, so we'll see what develops.
I went to Old East Dallas, to the Wilson Block of Swiss Avenue near downtown, but all the trees there are 120 year old live oaks; not much color there.
So I then went to unload some storage, and on the return leg I picked up some tamales and then went to La Huasteca, a store I saw days earlier in passing which I thought might have some Mexican honey from the Huasteca area. But no, it turned out to be a very lovely restaurant with plenty of ice cremes, pero no miel.
Across the street was Fruiteria Cano, my favorite place to get good fresh fruits. They sell fresh aguas drinks in many tropical flavors, fresh chunk fruits already cut-up for you, many paletas, which are Mexican fresh fruit popsicles, and ice cremes again. However, again no honey.
Finally, I was starving, so I went by La Princesa, my favorite Mexican restaurant that I have not been able to go to for a year or so because of the economy. I have joked in the past that the restaurant is actually a front operation for a vast ice creme empire, which in fact is true. Despite the glories of the restaurant, their primary business in the adjoining building is an ice creme plant of that makes frozen sweets that are shipped all over the Southwest.
I was expecting a Sunday afternoon throng, but as it turns out, I was the only one there.
During a lengthy discussion in Spanish with my server, she said that the crowds have not been by for some time now because of the economy and the shifting Hispanic work population in Dallas, so they usually close by six. This is truly terrible, because their food is EXCEPTIONAL. I have taken clients there from all over the world and they all have raved.
Chiefly, their Guiso de Res, an unctuous beef stew of tomatoes and chilis that ... ohhhhhh ... its just marvelous. I could have had TWO plates. I thought about asking for one to go.
So if you get a chance, drop by the intersection of Philip and Graham Street and give them a try and help keep a good thing going!
Daydreaming on a pretty day ...
Like most people I have always been fascinated with the concept of time travel. In essence, we are all time travelers, going relentlessly forward. String theorists tell us that we ever-so-slightly, by the virtue and assistance of standing on a traveling spatial body, also go in different directions and even pass through different dimensions.
The Earth, and by extension the solar system, galaxy and universe, are all cogs in a gigantic clock. Our days are marked by our planet's single rotation. Our years counted by our journeys about the sun. For a thousand years we have known that the movements of the heavens were as predictable as, well, the sun rising and setting.
If I chat with my friend Darcy in China, even though we chat in real time, I am in fact chatting with someone who exists 13 hours into the future, and he is communicating with someone who existed 13 hours into the past. And vice-versa.
I'm sure some day we'll discover that some extra-sensory experiences are caused by occasionally grazing these blurred boundaries.
When I was twenty-one, my best friend and I went to the Bahamas for Spring Break.
Nowadays cheap airfares have made it common for college students to meet up in Prague and bicycle to Florence, or travel the old Spice Route ... but at that time, no students really went to the Bahamas ... they went to Fort Lauderdale or beaches on the Gulf ... we were being very exotic and different. The only other people we met there were Europeans or much wealthier East Coast Americans. We were the only students there all week.
Now, by flying in a fast jet from one destination to another, literally from a past time zone to a future one, by the Law of Relativity our time-line physically slowed ever-so-infinitesimally, so already there was weirdness afoot.
One day we took a boat to an out-island for a day of rest and relaxation. We hadn't taken the iconic pic together on a pale pink beach against a turquoise ocean to show to friends, and i-phone cams still thirty years away, I handed the camera to an old man and asked him to snap a shot.
He gingerly held the camera up to his face to focus, and then said in a hoarse and trembling voice, "Ohhhhhhh boys! Look at you! You're so young!" And he snapped the picture.
It was so unsettling I never forgot it, like a voice from the future calling across the years.
I see the picture through his eyes today and now I get it:
I am the old man!
