My trip to Mexico or / I feel like living in a country named "Titanic"/

After loosing my job as a vineyard manager and feel the whole pain of economic down turn last two years, I left my apartment in Woodland, California and moved to my friend’s condo in Santa Rosa, Ca. Now I try to do opposite, what our government want me to do, I try not to spent money and do what I always love to do-Photography. For years I wasn’t happy with my job, I feel giving my energy and skills for a company not  appreciating its own workers. I wasn’t happy with the whole idea of pure wild American capitalism, where people are treated as a slaves, working more and more and got paid less and less, if you considering unofficial inflation. Last year I converted my recent 18$ per hour to present gold price and realized that for the last 12 years I gained nothing in term of money. I was making even less per hour comparing it to my $10 per hour 12 yars ago. I realized that back then I was 12 years younger, I had way more freedom, I had much more friends. I worked 6 to 9 months of the year and I enjoyed travel to different countries, sometimes working part time jobs there too. I was happier person, enjoying every moment of life and even speaking very broken English I had more open hearted friends from all over the globe. My full time job made me feel old, and isolated person, feel the economical trap which most of the people of this country feel, but just accepting it quietly.  Yes, you have a so-so secure job, you have mortgage to pay, if you are between some of the luckiest one your company will pay your partial health insurance and may be your kids and spouse will get some deduction too. Your credit card bill is getting bigger and bigger, but no worries you can get another one while keep paying the interest of your old one. If you are a good worker you may get two weeks  pay vacation for your first 5 years. Well you see your house is getting more and more expensive, and you starting using it as a ATM ,buying your new pick up truck and do some home modification in your lovely house. Well you probably somehow fill that it is not very sustainable but “Big Brother” keep telling you, that you live in America where everything is possible. Big Brother keep repeating this that suddenly become a true, until balloon became so huge and one sunny day burst.

I wasn’t surprised and I never believed our government. 12 years ago I came from a small East European country, where government used to tell us the same, they kept printing money and inflation keep eating them, until one cold winter morning people went on the street, lighted the government house and we were in the doorway to a civil war. Well this was in postcomunist era, in Eastern Europe, now I am living in the USA, big deal, the greed is the same every where in the world and money are smell the same. So to make my story shorter: After loosing my job, I moved to my great Mexican friend’s house in Santa Rosa and now I am enjoying my favorite job-Photography.Few weeks ago he invited me to visit him in Mexico, and without doubt I accepted. Many Americans friends of mine told me that I am crazy, I will be kidnapped, they will steal my camera down there, drug cartel will chop my head off, or at least I need to get a health insurance because it is very dirty down there and I will became sick. I ignored every suggestion, bought my thicket and left. What a huge difference, my friend met me at the airport in Mexico city and after few hours bus ride we where in a small Mexican town. It was almost midnight but streets were full with people, we eat few tacos made outside in the street, where homeless dogs were around, we sit down the curve and had a great Tequila mix in a glass made of adobe. Children were running around, playing with the street dogs, street vendors were selling their cheap goods, not accepting credit cards of course. Cash is the king down there. Everybody get paid cash and when buy pays cash. Everything you own, you really own it, you paid cash for it. People were extremely friendly, maybe because I said I am from Bulgaria. But that is the truth, I never felt American, even got my citizenship few years ago. I dearly love my American friends, and I feel we are in the same boat at least for now, but I never liked American government and American foreign policy. I never got in credit card dept, I never did car, flat screen Tv or any kind of payment, I tried to live on what my boss used to pay me. So, it didn’t take me a long time to realized, watching all those people there that I did good. I met my friend’s parents and I fell in love with them, they were the kindest and sweetest earthy people I have ever seen. Later on that week my friend got married and we had a wonderful traditional Mexican wedding. Every day we were visiting Queretaro, the closest big city and every day street were full with people, laughing and cheering their simple life. Architecture was incredible, old Spanish stile buildings and churches, huge plazas, surrounded with palm trees. Traffic was kind of crazy, but I didn’t see any accident or police pulling over someone for reckless driving. Air was a bit polluted, but I didn’t had my usual non stop morning allergy sneezing. Every afternoon people filled out plazas and street band and musician became their usual presentation. Young and old people dancing, children running free, obviously not sex offenders are present there. Police function was basically to stop the traffic when people crossing, because red signal or sidewalk means not much there. Restaurants were full and mariachi bands were touring around.  If I have to say with two words, what I saw there? I would say: I saw the life!

Coming back here I started feel depressed seeing our regulated landscape, gray bank's owned houses, depressed unsmiling people, non stopped advertising, non human presense on streets, politics keep telling us we are on good track and now is the best time to buy a house. I feel old and tired again, I feel like living in a country named Titanic.

Here they are  some of light captured down there in our poor neighbor Mexico.

Cinematic Photography Workshop

June12 2010

I Joined Cinematic Photography Workshop, organized by Mark Behrens on June 12, 2010.We wanted to create a movie theme and lighting which can let you think about James Bond or Batman movies.We met around lunchtime in Elks Tower in Sacramento.Our special guest was Scott Fishbein from Click Monkeys photography groop.He talked about off camera lighting, gave us some ideas how to lit a subject in tough conditions and showed us some of his new toys.This time we had more male models and some of them brought a real guns. Surrounding environment was perfect for the shots we wanted to create.We were at 13th and 14th floors of Elks Tower.The walls were trashed and cables were hanging out, we had broken dusty windows and even we were able to open an emergency door,so we could go outside and see the entire city from bird view. I decided to do something different this time and most of the time I shoot with two off camera flashes with blue and red gels,to create a mood I was dreaming about. think my idea was accepted from most of photographers and many of tem asked me on which channel I set up my PC Buff trigger, and they started o use it.My favorite shots were crated by this simple set up. At some par of the workshop, we used a very simple spot lights and I spent qt least an hour taking portrait photographs of our favorite modes:Krista and Kayla using one or two flashlight made by Brinkmann, ad cost only $30 each .I wanted to create a Hollywood Style Portrait, getting ideas from my favorite portrait photographer George Hurrell.lI love the spirit and expression coming from his portraits of famous Hollywood stars .I used a widest open aperture,in this case F2.8, Nikon Zoom Lens 24-70.I tried to shoot at 70mm in order to create even shallower dept of field .Those light are not very brite and I had to use ISO setting around 800-to 1100. love incredible low noise I am getting from my D700. The whole workshop I shoot Raw and later on converted some of the photographs using Nik Software.Take a look some of my photographs from this workshop and I will appreciate any ideas or suggestion.

Napa Valley Landscape and Winery Portrait Workshop

April 17 2010

For those of You who missed our annual Napa Valley Landscape and Portrait workshop, You missed a lot. I and Mark Behrens leaded a two days workshop in beautiful Napa Valley.

On Day one we started early in the morning with shooting sunrise from a winery near Oakville Rd. After the sunrise we went op the ridge to a private hose and we enjoyed the bird's views of entire Napa Valley .It was our first time there and we weren't sure that the view is going to be very good, that is why we started from the valley. All of us were shocked from the beauty this vista point can give us, and every one agree that, next year we have to start from there. Beside the awesome view, the owners of the house are suck incredibly nice people and they invited us for next year.We maybe considering doing another fall workshop there, bringing with us our precious models.

From there we went back down the valley and had aromatic coffee at famous Oakville Grocery Store. After this short breakfast we spent some time at Opus One winery, following by Robert Mondavi Winery. At Mondavi Winery we were able to sneak into their beautiful barrel room and take some great photos. Our plan after Mondavi was Peju Winery, but we were running out of time and we had to hit to V.Sattui Winery, where our models waited for us. After quick lunch we went to Clos Pegase Winery and enjoyed their incredible art exhibition. We went for a short guided tour and our models were able to pose into winery's barrel room where we got amazing sots. Our next stop was Castelolo Di Amorosa, a gorgeous real castle in Napa Valley. This was my first time there and I was shocked from the view .I believe the owner paid more than 60 million to have this little toy standing in Napa Valley. Everybody love it,especially our models. They had a chance to be princesses from the past in front of their castle. We spent the rest of the day there, and kind of forgot about our next stops. Pretty tired after this intensive day, some of us hit to Behrens Winery where our next day workshop should be. We set up studio lights and waited patiently for the sunset sharing a bottle of my my homemade wine. Pictures we created during the sunset were amazing. Always it payed to wait to the end when most of the people are gone and you have a chance to work closer with models and give them a freedom for inspiration.