Monthly Archives: December 2012

As the final day of 2012 is upon us and I sit back and look at my life this past year I can’t help but have a variety of emotions running through my mind and heart. It definitely has been a amazing year,so much that I don’t think I can put it into words but I am going to try. Usually my blogs are more photo based but this one I am going to attempt to speak (or type rather) purely from my heart so bare with me.

I guess it is only makes sense that I start from the beginning. In Jan. 2012 I was getting ready to report back to a studio job I had been working in Culver City for about 2 years, being that I live in Chatsworth makes it roughly a 30 minute drive (with no traffic) each way. But I do live in Los Angeles so my commutes really were roughly 45mins to a hour. At first this didn’t bother me one bit since the production studio had a awesome creative type atmosphere that had a motto of “as long as your work gets done” Meaning that you didn’t have to be in at a exact time or stay till exact time as long as you were productive with your duties. Well that all changed after the studio was being absorbed by a larger company. My boss decided he wanted to turn the workplace into a more corporate atmosphere in hope of relating with the new owners. This new workplace made me feel like I was just clocking in at a company, it killed my work spirit and ambition. But I did have a outlet that took my mind off of all of that, which was photography. It was what skating to me at 13 years old and dealing with jr. high school was like. It was work,it sucked but I knew I would always have my skateboard waiting for me. Same with this job, the work and atmosphere started to suck but I always had my camera there as a outlet.I felt like I was hitting a brick wall though, in the sense I knew this was my true love,my true passion that I should pursue but didn’t have the time due to my commute and the demanding work hours. I would do photo shoots every weekend and after work if I could but not like I was forcing myself. It was all in the name of doing something I loved, and since I strongly believe if you work within what you love not only will your end result be pure but it will come off as genuine as well. Thus it seemed to make more sense and follow your heart vs. a paycheck.

I also believe that all things do happen for a reason,sometimes it just takes longer to find out what that reason is. For me it took about 9 month. Back in March 2012 I had a falling out with the owner of said studio which resulted in me no longer have a secure job with benefits. Now I think most people would probably panic.They start to think of their next move,think of their bills they have to pay,etc and just get stressed out. For me, that first morning of not having to wake up and commute to a job I no longer enjoyed was one the happiest moments I had felt in recent years. At the same time I knew not to waste a moment in pursuing what I loved. I threw caution into the wind and much like Peter Gibbons (Office Space reference) I just stopped caring. I had no plan, I had no agenda other then I am going to do what I love and fuck everything else. Figured since I am not married and don’t have a kid what do I have to lose? During this time I get a phone call from my buddy Tyrone at LRG who puts me in touch with his co-workers Albie and Millhouse. This phone call turned into me shooting LRG’s summer look book and 2 ads with the Workaholics and The Cool Kids. My excitement was through the roof, but don’t worry I kept it cool. Shortly after I get a call from Keith Hufnagel asking me about shooting their 420 campaign for a t-shirt and packaging for their weed socks. Of course I was down, an opportunity to work with someone I had looked up to since I was 14 was a instant yes. I got my friend Kristina Rose to be the model for this project which turned out quite cool. The next month after I went to Miami for a work trip and got to photograph a model out there named Jamzz Baby and turns out Sk8Mafia wanted to do another board with me and since I had these great photos of her and they liked her look a Jamzz Baby board was in the works. I also got to shoot with a model by the name of Evelyn Cates which caught the eye of Nick Schonberger who happens to be a writer for complex and he posted our pictures on their site. I reached out to him to say thank you and then he offered me a portfolio review for Complex. Also my last night on this Miami trip I shot with Abella Anderson for a Foot Soldiers campaign involving the Jordan 7′s in the olympic color way that dropped this summer. And now I realize how productive that trip was and I wasn’t even out there to do photography…. damn.

Shortly after this I was asked to be apart of the Fersher Zine and was happy to contribute to such a fun project with some other talented photographers. Around this same time I had been contacted by 13th Witness to contribute photos to a issue of Frank 151 he was curating. I get another call from Huf asking to do a collaborative calendar project, then a month or so later Ray from Mighty Healthy mentions he liked one of my photos I had done with Asa and wants to turn it into a t-shirt. Then Murs contacts me about shooting album photos for his project with FaShawn titled “This Generation“. Oh yea I also got asked to shoot a project for Hall of Fame as well for their fall look book. October came and boom I had a exhibit out in Philly courtesy of Exit skate shop.

Trust me my mind had been running laps at this point but I just keep looking ahead and kept everything going. But then another opportunity came out of left field that I wasn’t expecting which was Bobby Hundreds asking me to be apart of his blog which went live at the beginning of November. After this is when I started to reflect on the year and all that had happen. Just a bit of a shock that all of this occurred in the time that it did, not this isn’t including the projects I did this year that will be released in 2013. I tried to figure out what I did right to make all of this happen and I can’t really say any one particular thing other then I just forgot about all the bull shit and focused on what made me happy.

Now I share all of this with you not to show off but to show you my own shock at how crazy this year had been for me.I also wanted to share a message…… never stop doing what you love.I felt stuck in a job I hated but was sticking it out due to the steady pay check and “thats what you do” mentality. Now I find myself beyond happy doing what I love,working with fun people creating photos and what I feel it truly living life. But remember never get distracted by money or material possessions. At the end of the day they don’t mean shit. I feel so blessed and fortunate to have had the experiences I had this year with the people I got to meet and work with. And I know none of this would have happened if I would have never had the falling out at my “content and safe” job. Due to the hours I would have been working I wouldn’t have gotten to take the pictures I did or meet the people I did. I also know if it wasn’t for Instagram and my blog giving me a platform to share my photos no one would have even noticed what I was doing. I did all of this not because I had a mapped out plan from a to b. or that I figured something was going to happen, I did it simply because I love photography and wanted to share it with all of you. I disregarded my typical grown up fear when not having a job and struggled and strived to get through it. I realized what I wanted to do and set my mind to do so. It has been a amazing 9 months that all of this has happened in and knowing that final day of 2012 is here I wanted to say thank you.

Thank you to any model I had ever shot with,to all of my friends who believed in me,to any company that gave me a chance,to anyone who has ever e-mailed me positive words in regards to my pictures,to anyone who has ever “liked” one of my photos,and to you…… the friendly faces who I never see,who are checking my blog and sharing my photos with your friends. I may not know what you all look like and I may never get the formal chance to meet you but again… thank you. I know if it wasn’t for you guys showing my work to your friends,family etc. then most likely I would not be able to do what I love. You all are helping me follow my heart and that means the world to me. Some people ask me “if I felt I made it” and when I think that it wasn’t even a year and I got to where I am at my reply is in no way do I feel I made it, I am just getting started.

I look forward to 2013 with excitement curiosity as to where I will be a year from now and I hope all of you are still here with me to reflect back and see what adventures I get to experience.

So I have been sitting on these photos for a minute now. I had the pleasure of meeting and shooting with Paloma back in September of this year. I guess that is the downside to constantly taking photos is that I have so much content to go through it can slow me down at time. I knew her pictures were good and felt it would be good to post them at the years end so here we are. She and I first started communicating via instagram after I noticed she liked some of my photos, when checking out her profile since she looked like a model I figured what the heck and reached out to her with a interest in snapping some pics of her. She was into the idea but had explained she modeled prior but had taken a break from it. After keeping in touch with one another she finally felt ready for use to have a session but she gave me a date 3 months in advance of us having a conversation about it. I was willing to wait and good thing I did because aside from getting some awesome photos I met a genuinely nice person. So here is my test shot with Paloma, hope you guys enjoy!

Van Styles: So lets start this off, how old are you?

Paloma: 23

VS: What is your ethnicity?

P: 1/2 Mexican,a quarter Portuguese and a quarter Chinese

VS: Where were you born?

P: Pasadena,CA

VS: Where are you currently residing?

P: Duarte,CA

VS: Likes?

P: Fashion,beauty,tall shoes and champagne!

VS: Dislikes?

P: Negativity,difficult people. I like to go with the flow.

VS: Favorite music?

P: I love all music by right now I am listening to Kendrick Lamar,SBTRKT,Frank Ocean and Kaskade.

VS: Influences in life?

P: My mom,dad and sister.

VS: Favorite place traveled to?

P: I haven’t had the chance to really travel yet so I will say Las Vegas.

VS: Name a place you want to visit before you die.

P: Bali,Spain and Italy!

VS: Current employment?

P: Hair stylist at Salon VIP

VS: What do you want to be when you grow up?

P: I thought I was a grown up! Hahaha! I want to be mulitfaceted. I love doing hair but I would love to be a buyer for a online boutique and of course I would have to have a modeling career as well.

I hope you all had a good christmas these past couple of days. I think that as you get older your view and appreciation for certain holidays evolve into something else that you would probably never imagine yourself thinking or feeling as a child consumed with what toys you are going to get. I think for me now it is definitely about spending time with my friends,family and all around loved ones. And what better way to start off this feeling off with then going to the Primitive holiday party at the new Berrics in downtown L.A. I heard about this new facility for sometime now and also was catching rumors of how massive it is. Well upon walking up all I can say to myself was wow. Not only in the size of this park but also the detail in the set up. I love how they went for a more raw street vibe then ramp wood. But big wow for Primitive for thinking to have a event like this in a place like the Berrics. The night was filled with a lot of smiles,skating,and a little bit of drinking and equipped with my camera I hope you guys can tell how fun this night was for anyone that was there. And thank you to Jubal,Andy,Jay and Paul for the invite it was a great time.

Primitive in The Berrics

This was a portion of the party my camera can squeeze in since this place was so big.

Andy Netkin playing a good host as always

Destiny was out there with her friend.

Double D’s Abadi and Castillo

Steve Berra and P-Rod

The ladies of Primitive had fun right Ashley,Irene and Nicky?

Harry and Sie enjoyed the photo booth.

Lamont and Justin Schulte played a game of s.k.a.t.e. dressed as Santa

James Espinoza was pulling big-spins over this bump to gap.

Felix was feeling festive with his 360 flips

They also had some pretty ladies serving drinks up for everyone.

Steezus Christ was the emcee

Baby Scumbag using his elf magic to board slide over Lamont.

Saint Nick aka T-Puds with the backside lipslide

Santa and his helper

Andy,Paul and Jay giving people a photo opp. in front of their new display.

I recently was invited by the good people of SK8MAFIA to come down and check out their newly built skate park down in Huntington Beach,CA at Blitz Dist. Seemed like a fitting day due to the bad weather L.A. was having at the time so I headed down excited for a fun day of skating with some good people. One thing I will say about SK8MAFIA is that the team truly has that classic vibe of good friends just skating and having fun. This day wasn’t like a demo per say but rather just hanging out with friends and just happening to see some good skating. A couple of the guys I had met before and a couple I had the pleasure of making their acquaintance that day but all more friendlier then the next. And I have to add their park is great, it is one of those things that any teenager that skated wished they could have. A private indoor facility at your disposal for various amounts of skateboarding pleasure and these guys definitely appreciate it. It was a fun day for me even though I didn’t get much skating in since I couldn’t put down my camera,but I realized it is a amazing thing this skateboarding. For me it just has this affect that whenever I am around it to makes me forget all the troubles in life and makes me feel like I did when I first picked up a board when I was 12. It is a love I will never forget and will always appreciate even if I am not the one skating. So thank you Priebes and DC for the invite, it is always cool to hang with you guys and to watch your team do their thing which you can see in the bottom of this post.

Ruby was there to greet me.

Priebes pulling out a b/s smith grind

The homie Squirrel rolled through.

D.C. flipping out.

Kellen James was nice of this red block.

Larelle with the f/s blunt slide

The break room has a nice ping pong table

Jimmy was a ball of energy this day

Kick Flip f/s nose slide.

Brandon Turner was on it.

Spectating

Josh Priebes

D.C.

Jimmy Cao

Larelle Grey

Peter Smolik

Kellen James

Jamie Palmore

Tyler Surrey

Brandon Turner

I feel like I had been slacking on updates…. or maybe it is just me. If so please forgive me, after my trip to Miami I had worked a week straight on various projects and shoots to finally sit down and get to business. Don’t worry I got something good for all of you, this past weekend I had linked up with Michele Maturo for a fun photo shoot. It seemed we had a friend in common via my pal Jessie Andrews. Michele had seen some of the photos I did with Jessie and was interested in linking up for a shoot. This had been in the works for sometime and finally became a reality. Feeling inspired by my shoots in Miami perhaps I got a pretty cool location in the hills that worked out as the perfect canvas for our photo session. This is just one of the sets we got and I love it for many reasons. One of which is that I think it has a different feeling then some of my other shoots in the past, but then again maybe it is just me. Well either way I hope you enjoy these flicks!

Van Styles: How old are you Ms. Maturo?

Michele Maturo: 24

VS: Where were you born?

MM: Colorado

VS: Where are you currently residing?

MM:Silverlake,CA

VS:What is your ethnicity?

MM: 3/4 Italian and 1/4 Spanish

VS: What is your favorite food?

MM: Chocolate,burritos and pizza

VS: Likes?

MM: Cemeteries,aliens,mother nature,baking,fennec foxes

VS: Dislikes?

MM: Dub step,cottage cheese and those sad dog commercials!

VS: Influences?

MM: Tommy Wiseau,Godfrey Ho,Paul Thomas Anderson and Johnathan Ke Quan

VS: What is your current form of employment?

MM: A marketing company called DFM

VS: What do you want to be when you grow up?

MM: Independent film producer

VS: What is one place you want to visit before you die?

MM: Egypt

Follow Michele here

So some of you who know me or follow me are aware that earlier this year I worked with Huf on their 4.20 project along with Kristina Rose. We had done some photos of Kristina smoking a blunt that were turned into photo t-shirts and packaging for their plant life socks. Shortly after that Keith and Scott Tepper had asked me what I thought about doing a calendar and without hesitation I said yes lets do it. After a short discussion it only made sense to involve some of my friends in it so I made a couple of calls,set up some shooting dates and wound up getting Asa Akira,Skin Diamond,Jayden Cole,Kristina Rose,Jynx Maze,Lily LeBeau,Alexis Texas,Jayden Jaymes,Maddy O’Reilly,Asphyxia Noir,Monique Alexander and Jessie Rogers to all be apart of this fun project. Each months photo is themed out accordingly which was fun for me to shoot since I never get to do many photo shoots that involve set decorating,props,wardrobe,etc. I was extremely happy when the choice was made to make it a photo based calendar (since we figured with the pictures I got of these beautiful ladies no one would really be looking at the dates anyhow) and went with a 16 x 25 format. As it is with anything these days the run is pretty limited so get one while you can here. I want to say a big thank you to Keith and Scott for having me be apart of such a fun project involving a craft of mine that I truly love doing.

Well my trip to Miami came to end on sunday. It was a fun time as usual out there, I got to see some friends,shoot some pretty girls and check out some amazing art. And it was awesome to go on such a trip with my old friend Jubal. So here are some photos from saturday night from when I had gone out to Wynwood again to shoot some more art and whatever else came across my lens. I also sprinkled in a couple pics of the flight home that were pretty amusing. I feel like I need to start planning another trip back there already.

Mellow piece by Retna

Miami girls are beautiful.

Jeron Wilson and Nicky Diamonds were on our flight back.

Jubal was hyped on his seat.

Knocked the fuck out.

I recently attended the Common Threads event in downtown L.A. held by PacSun. This was their way to give back to the action sports community by showcasing the best products from the brands, while also thanking them for all the partnership and contribution throughout the year. As well as recognizing some of the key influencers within our community and donates money to a charity of their choice and that is just simply rad. There needs to be more events that bring a community together like this in one form or another that aren’t centered around a trade show or some business expo. And I would say PacSun did a good job with this one by having some cool art to look at, a performance from Snoop Dogg (I know he changed his name to Snoop Lion but I grew up with him in the 90′s and he is still Snoop Dogg to me)  and an open bar.

There were a variety of people there to enjoy a fun night despite the rain. Now I am sure some of you might have your own view on PacSun, especially if you grew up in the 90′s and lived anywhere near a mall. But as most things happen in life and in business there is a evolution of change and if this is a sign of the direction they are heading in then I am curious to see what happens over the next year or two.

Priebes of Sk8Mafia/JSLV with Mike of PacSun

What up Jayson

Lia Lior was having a good time

Pretty Sweet crew consisting of Justin Eldridge,Mike Carroll,Scott Johnston and Rick Howard

Guy and SJ

Full house for Snoop

Sean-John caught mid selfie

Apparently a couple other people thought it was the perfect night to wear their Quadici rain shoe by Gourmet

Skate legends Jeremy Wray and Kareem Campbell

My friend Paloma was out there

Thanks for the good time

Trying to think of a witty intro for this post but can’t really come up with one. My fourth day in Miami was such a full one that I don’t know where to begin, but I have a pretty good idea where I should start. At first we had a full open day but with Jubal having the connections he does we set up a shoot with the infamous Ashley Sky. If you are an avid instagram user then you are most likely one of her 297,000 followers. Wanting to get outside we headed down to South Beach to shoot. I mean to come all the way to Miami to shoot only in doors would have been lame. We got some fun stuff that I can’t wait for people to see, but for now you can check some of the images below, but it really was refreshing to shoot on the beach vs. in a chic indoor modern location etc. I think I might have to start doing more of these.

After wrapping our shoot with Ashley I headed a few blocks down Ocean to link up with Tim (13th Witness) and his clique which consisted of his pops,sister Tabi,Jason Goldwatch amongst others. We hung out in their hotel and caught up on everyones eventful times. The one downside to Art Basel is there is so much going on it’s a challenge to link up with your friends as chances are everyone is on their own schedule with a million things to do. Speaking of which in during my shoot with Ashley Jubal had set up another shoot with another popular model by the name of Iesah Marie. So before heading back to downtown to a high rise condo for that shoot I had to stop by MIA skate shop just to drop in and see what stuff they are doing. Anytime I am on south beach I make it a point to check out their store. I feel they carry some great products and definitely support a proper skate scene in Miami.

Back to my schedule, we linked up with Iesha and took a car ride to the Brickell area. The sun had just set which meant street lights and car lights were on and I figured I would do some shots of her on the way over to the location in the back of the car which turned out pretty cool. We shot till about 9:00 p.m. and I must say by the end of it I was burnt. I had a good dinner with the crew and went back up to my room. Once I hit my bed I was done, passed out before I knew it. I hate when that happens but after looking at these photos I had a pretty awesome/full day.

Ashley Sky back lit.

So much art during this time it is amazing.

Beach Bound.

Getting a early start with photos while driving.

Shadow boxing.

13th and his pops..

Futura

Jason Goldwatch

I liked Tabatha’s nails

You know the name.

T-time

Good selection of hats including Mighty Healthy

Hard goods.

Iesha and her v-neck

Figured this was a o.k. photo to end this post with.