Marshon Brooks' last home game with Providence College

     "Marshon Brooks scored 28 points and broke the Big East single-season scoring record with 468 points in hin final Providence home game, leading the Friars to a come-from-behind 75--74 victory over Rutgers..." -ESPN

"Vincent Council and Gerard Coleman added 15 points each for the Friars." -ESPN

      "On the game's crucial possesion Brooks lifed a finger-roll over Rutgers defender to brake a 73-73 tie with 30 seconds remaining.  Rutgers guard Mike Coburn missed a foal shot at the other end to seal the voictory." -ESPN

    Marshon Brooks says good-bye to the Friars fans.

Assimilation of Christianity and Mayan religion

     While in Guatemala I was extremely impressed how the Mayan culture is so alive threw out the whole country.  I've lived in New England most of my life and have been out west to Yellowstone, places that  share and teach the Native American culture but it's always has a feeling of being in the past like when you learning about the Romans or Egyptians.

     One of the place where the Mayan culture is very strong was in Chichicastenango.  Chichicastenango has a huge market and the amazing thing about this market is that threw out it there are three Christian churches that have been build on top of ancient Mayan temples.  In these temples the only people that are spouse to go inside of them are people of Mayan decent.  Here they practice a mix of both religions, also outside the temple/church they have Mayan ceremonies.

    Another place where the Mayan culture was really strong was in the towns around the lake of Atitlán. We stayed there in a gymnasia in Panajachel.  On a side note if you very go to Guatemala you should visit Panajachel, it's a big backpackers stop and very chill.  The 2010 NFL preseason had started, I was dieing to watch a game and I was able to go into a bar there and watch one, totally made my day.
    So around Atitlán there are towns that are fully populated by the Mayans and even have their own law separate the the government.  One of the days we were there we took a boat and visited a few of these towns.

     While getting on the boat a 7 year old little boy that made bracelets got on with us.  I asked him how many bracelets does he he make on a normal day and he told me about 7,  with us on the boat he ended up making 35.  He also knew how to make wallets, purses, and scarfs all by hand.

    While in one of the Mayan towns we had a chance to visit a shaman that was the host to the statue of a new age Mayan God.  People of the town visit the God, pray, and leave offerings of money, cigars, liquor, and many other things so the God will help them and grant wishes.

 
   They also have a shrine for the God right next to the towns Christian church.  This church was extremely interesting,  it displayed the assimilation of Christianity and Mayan the clearest I've seen any where.  The front steps look like an Mayan temple like the way the church/temples at Chichicastenango are.

  The quetzal bird is a huge spiritual symbol to the Mayans and the he altar has a quetzal engraved in it.

    The statues of the saints are made in the image of the Mayan people and are dressed in their typical clothing.

   They also have the God we vistit engraved on the altar.

     When we were on our way back from visiting all the towns we had a chance to jump off the boat and swim in the lake of Atitlán.

    Below are the great guilds we had from INGUAT that showed us just about every corner of Guatemala.

New York State of mind with Wendy Hope and Toccara Jones

(Images by Wendy Hope)

    
   A few months ago I had the chance to assist Wendy Hope on a two day fashion shoot for Essence Magazine.  Like I have said before it's always a fun time when your working with Wendy, and this time it was a double-whammy.  The model was Toccara Jones from America's Next Top Model and she was just a blast to work with. Toccara was dancing and jamming to the music from the start of the day to the end of the day, so by the second day I all ready knew what kinda of music she liked so I started "DJ-ing" and she was just loving everything I was playing for her.  Click on the image above to make it larger and you can just tell the awesome energy that was going on on this shoot.
    On a side note; I have learned form assisting and working retail that music is very important and I try to have music on every shoot I can.  Heres a link to the Strobist blog where David Hobby gets in depth on the importance of music on a photo shoot.

"Hennessy the civilized way to call it a day"

Awesome line, wish I had thought of it.  Would of went great with my image below. 

The Maya juego de la pelota or ballgame

      The Mayas had a ball game consisting of two teams where the team members had to get a very hard ball that was about 8 pounds threw a ring to score.  The trick was that the only way the players could touch the ball was with their forearm, chest, thigh, and they could not let the ball hit the ground.  But that wasn't the crazy part about the game, at the end of the game one of the teams was sacrificed.  Archaeologist don't know if it was the winning team or the loosing team that had to die. 

      Below is a field located in the ruins of Copan in El Salvador where the game was played .  If you look on the left just where the slanted wall meets the straight wall, there's a circle, that was the goal and if you look right across to the other side you can see the other goal. 

     When I was in Guatemala with La Ruta Inka we had the chance to watch a reenactment of the ceremony before the game and watch the game being played.  I found this cool site where you too can watch the game being played and find out more information about the game(click here).  In the video they show the ball rolling on the ground but every where I was told about the game I was told the ball couldn't hit the ground.  

     The image below is a painting by T. Rutledge the defeat of the Lords of the Underworld by the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.  The scene is one of Creation: The head of the Hero Twins' father, the Sun God, must pass through the Goal Ring, which represents the Dart Rift in the Milk Way.  Once this occurs, the world comes into being.  The Maya saw Creation as an ongoing event that depends upon the interaction between men and Gods.  For the Maya, Creation was not a singular "event" that occurred in the past, and they held the belief that if men and Gods fail to keep the game going, the ball will stop rolling and this ongoing Creation will halt.

Inked Magazine shoot with Kareem Black

(Image by Kareem Black)

     Back in December I assisted Kareem Black on a shoot for Inked Magazine.  The shoot was to photographer two beautiful ladies in lingerie, show of their tattoos, and they wanted it in this room that was painted all red with a red carpet..  Finding the room wasn't the hard part, the magazine had already found one.  The tricky part was that the room was only seven feet by ten feet so the only things that fit in it was a red couch, a profoto light with a beauty dish on a c stand, the model, and Kareem.  But out side the door was the laptop were the images were coming into and about five other people checking on how the shoot was going.  To check out the article in the magazine and the other photos from the shoot click here.

(Image by Kareem Black)

Getting back in touch

      I did a family portrait session with my friend from high school John Calzada and like when I did the matranty shoot for my other friend Johan it was a blast.  It was a great being able to met his awesome family and getting back in touch with him after not seeing each other in about five years.  Hopefully it wont take another fives years to get together again and I hope him the best.

John is a great pianist check out one of his videos it will blow your mind.

YO SOY DEL BUS DOS, DEL BUS DOS, DEL BUS DOS!!!

     Threw out the whole trip with La Ruta Inka we spent about 80% of the time one a bus.  There was always 3 buses and the same people would always go on their same bus; bus uno, bus dos, bus tres.  So after some time a rivalry came about which bus was the best and that was bus dos(obviously the bus I was on).

Wide lens VS long lens

    In both thies images images I shot of Christian Herrera, a friend that's a singer, were shot one right after the other, with the same light, same camera, same ISO, same f-stop, and same shutter speed.  The only thing I did different was on the top one I had my 24-105mm lens zoomed in all the way to 105mm and on the bottom image I had it zoomed out at 24mm as well as I got in closer to make his head the same size in the frame. As you can see the top image is more of a straight up portrait; he stands out, the background is nice and soft like a painting.  In the bottom image its more of a charter study or environmental portrait;  the distortion of the wide angle lens makes him look like his coming at you, even tough he's only in a small area of the frame he has a feeling of owning the frame, the background has a feeling of been up in your face and it has some sharpness but that it doesn't distract from him, the main subject.  Another thing that you notice is on the bottem image you see the V shape tree by his right earn, our left, it's reall small but then when you look at the top image that same tree is hug, it's larger then his head.  So there's no right or wrong way to make a portrait you just have to have in mind what it is that you want at the end, and know what are your tools to get that done.

Extra:

The video below is a scene from Good Fellas where the used the zooming in on the lens and moving the camera back to keep the subjects the same size as an effect.  Here you can clearly see what effect a lens has on the background, not just the subject.  

(Starts at 0:26 mark and ends at 0:54mark)