Where I speak of the pompitous of Love…

My cousin, illustrator Mike Segawa, drew “tween” versions of me, Jen and some of his BFFs into his first book, published by HarperCollins.

Rad! ^_^ Thanks Mike, I’m totally honored to make a cameo in your illustration!

Check out more of his awesome work at http://mikesegawa.com

Looks like I make another sweet cameo in my homie Jim Mahfood’s Los Angeles Ink Stains Comic issue #36 where he recaps the last year.

Check out the full comic here.

It felt like 2009 was a pretty tough year for everyone. Which is why I’m extra proud of Jim for successfully selling his new animated show, rocking his art in galleries and walls all over the globe, painting exquisite tribal-esque patterns on people, and pouring out his soul in his autobiographical comic. He’s transcending mediums left and right and that’s a truly beautiful thing.

It’s been awesome becoming such good friends with Jim over the last year, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with him. In fact, if we get our “Pervert Train” stuff published in a hardcover book this year, I will TOTALLY get a Food One tattoo in celebration of our work and our friendship. Maybe one that says “Tough Love” haha!

I have a really good feeling about 2010. It’s still early in the game and it seems like we’re all hitting the ground running. I believe we’re going to accomplish things we’ve never thought we could before.

So to all my dearest friends and family, my awesome clients, and even those of you I’ve just met or I’ve yet to meet, I wish us all creative and personal breakthroughs this year, and a million belly laughs to top it off.

Here’s one of my photographs of artist Jim Mahfood and model Kat Glancy which will be featured in the special 32-page bonus section of the upcoming hardcover French edition of Jim’s graphic novel Kick Drum Comix, published by Indeez Urban Éditions.

Mon Dieu! I’m so excited. This is the first time my photography work will be published in France. ^_^

As Jim (aka Food One) mentioned in his autobiographical comic Ink Stains, I lit the shot like a “tricked out hip hop video“. Jim lives large and in charge, and I wanted to represent the L.A. lifestyle. Beautiful women, hot cars, smokin’ cigars under the glorious California sun. They call it the Wild West for a good reason.

I don’t know what other photos made the final cut in the book, but here’s some extra sneak peeks for you to enjoy:

Thanks to Jim for kicking ass on the wicked body paint job. It looks sick! And makes me want to get a “tough love” neck tattoo haha. Thanks also for inviting me to work on the bonus features. What an honor! Merci beaucoup! Thanks to Chris Heinz for hooking us up with the sexy hot rod, and to Kat for being even sexier than a sexy hot rod. Thanks to Jen for her asstounding observations. Thanks to Akirophoto for punking me by sneaking a naughty mag in my gear trunk, haha. And thanks to Jane Dope for designing the bonus pages.

I totally can’t wait to see this book in my hands — it’s gonna be super fresh. How does one say “super fresh” in French?

According to Google Translator, the publisher describes the Kick Drum Comics compilation as: “This comic crazy leads us on a distant planet whose heroes live crazy adventures all over each other.” WORD! So for those of you on the other side of the pond, you can pre-order the graphic novel directly from the publisher, and I believe it hits the stores in April.

Three cheers for 2010! May we all live crazy adventures all over each other. À la vie!

Here’s some awesome behind the scenes pix of today’s photo shoot by Jen Z who was assisting me:

Radness! =D

More info on this shoot and the final pics of Hi Fashion $9.99 will be posted in the near future. For now, I gots to take off my boots and sleeeeeeep like a baby. Zzzzzz……

x

I’m commissioned every year to take the holiday portrait of filmmakers P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes of the Ebersole-Hughes Company, and their adorable pitbull Butchie. This year’s theme is "orange" based on their shared love for the color and their sunny dispositions. I was going for a 1960s modern lifestyle look.

Here are previous portraits I’ve taken of them — as you can see, they’re always a blast to work with and I look forward to our next adventure:

I love Google Voice! It lets me keep my original NY # while providing me an LA # that’s convenient for my clients. And I love that it texts and emails me my voicemails because I’m always on the go go go.

So I completely rely on voicemail, and it’s even better when it’s texted directly to my phone. Google Voice is so incredibly efficient, especially when I’m at shoots or meetings where I can’t just stop to take a call, but I need to react quickly to last-minute changes. Plus I love the fact that it saves your messages digitally forever, unlike my regular service which deletes ‘em in 30 days.

However…… as amazing and totally wonderiffic as Google Voice is, sometimes it struggles with translating audio to text. Earlier today, I asked Jen to call my # to see how it worked. She left me a rather facetious voicemail message which Google translated as the following, and texted to my phone:

“Hey Love, so if this is Jackie checking my home. Hey Love. It’s Stephanie waiting hi.”

Here’s what she actually said (kind of not-safe-for-work, unless you work at the Playboy Mansion):

That’s a hilarious discrepancy there. Now, I don’t know who Jackie and Stephanie are, but either they’re censoring my voicemail messages or they want in on the action. o_O

So the moral of this story is: Google Voice, just get it! It’ll totally change the way you take calls. As long as your clients don’t leave you breathy pillow talk voicemail messages. Though, I would be kind of amused if they did once in awhile.

I make another cameo in L.A. Ink Stains comics #35 by the awesome Jim Mahfood where photographer Jeff Shagawat LEAPS into my car window! Hahaha! Classic.

Click the panel for more info…

I got up at 3:30AM this morning to catch the Orionid meteor shower. I happily got to see one really bright meteor zoom by. But the sky was pretty still for the next hour. Thankfully, I had a cup of hot cocoa and Orion to keep me company. Always a good sport, he took a moment to hold still and pose in the sky long enough for me to snap a quick picture. (Click images to get to ‘All Sizes’ if ya wanna see more details.)

Pic .1 : The Orion Constellation – Oct 21, 2009 3:30AM-ish, Hollywood

Pic .2 : Orion the Hunter

Pic .3 : Close-up of the Belt of Orion, the Sword (which I think it looks more like a “shlong“) and the Orion Nebula (aka Messier 42)

Pic .4 : Downtown Los Angeles; view from my balcony, just beneath and a little bit left of the constellation

It’s not bad, considering the amount of light pollution there is in Hollywood and my very limited experience with astrophotography. Someday I’d like to really sit down and take a better long-exposure picture, preferably in some field in the middle of nowhere. Or Chile where I hear they have a cool observatory — wouldn’t that be awesome?

Though I have a street rep to uphold, I’ll secretly admit to being kinda nerdy. (Okay fine fine, maybe “super” nerdy.) I’ll watch hours of Science Channel, Discovery, TLC and Bill Nye the Science Guy and then follow Jen around the kitchen, pestering her with weird facts about astronomy, technology or physics. She has somehow acquired a Zen mastery for tuning me out at these moments: (@_@) -”Uh huh……….. yeah, I’m listening…” I find it highly amusing that she thinks I don’t notice that her glassy-eyes might be looking directly at me, but they are actually reading Twitter on her phone via her peripheral vision. It’s kind of impressive really.

Anyhow, I will try not to bore you to the same extent. =) But here’s some quick Fun Facts about Orion — you never know, it may wind up being useful in a game of Trivial Pursuit someday.

• • Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations in the sky. The easiest way to find it is to look for the 3 bright stars that form the belt.
• • The constellation refers to Orion, a hunter in Greek Mythology. Ancient Egyptians associated the constellation to Osiris, god of rebirth and afterlife.
• • Betelgeuse (the star, not the “Ghost with the Most“) is a massive M-type red supergiant that is nearing the end of its life. It’s the 12th brightest star in the sky and is someday gonna go “BOOOOOOOM!”
• • Rigel is a B-type supergiant star, about 40,000 times brighter than our Sun. It is the 6th brightest star in the sky. This star may also collapse into a supernova in the distant future or shed its layers and become a white dwarf.
• • Bellatrix is also a supergiant and you may recognize the name from the Harry Potter franchise (a character in the movie played by Helena Bonham Carter).
• • The Sword of Orion is home to nebulae M42 and M43 (not to be mistaken with M83 which is a French electronica band that I like).
• • The Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye, even here in LA — it looks like a fuzzy star in the middle of the sword. I was so happy that you could see a bit of the clouds in my picture.
• • There are new stars being born in the Orion Nebula, approximately 700 in varying stages of development.
• • Orion also features the breathtaking Horsehead Nebula, though I can’t see it with my wee telescope nor my camera. I’ve only seen it in pictures online. Someday I hope to be able to view it with my own two eyes via an observatory, or when I can afford a better larger scope (preferably with a DSLR attachment, Santa!).

Anyway, I’m soo ready for sleep after staying up too late last night. But I heard there might be some Orionid meteors still out and about. So if you decide to stargaze in the wee hours tonight or sometime this week, give Orion a high five for me. Up top, big guy!

Related Links:

Star Tales – Orion the Hunter
Wikipedia: Orion Constellation
Orion Nebula
Horsehead Nebula
Betelgeuse
Orionid Meteor Shower

Recently we had a photo shoot for Jim Mahfood’s Kick Drum Comix collection with Kat Glancy, the same rad model from our BPM Magazine shoot. We shot at my friend and awesome retoucher Chris Heins’ house in Los Feliz, as he has an amazing hot rod he let us use, a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans Sport. The lighting setup turned out sick, and was perfect for the scene. I’ll post the pics when the compilation gets closer to publication.

In the meantime, here’s sort of a behind-the-scenes, as Jim illustrated the photo shoot in issue #31 of his brilliant autiobiographical comic, L.A. Ink Stains!

#1.) Jim paints his lovely art on Kat’s lovely-self:

#2.) How effin’ sweet is it when a rad comic artist takes the time to draw and comment about my lighting setup??? This panel totally made my day! =)

#3.) Here’s my art director Jen Zern “art directing” Kat with her “eyes”:

#4.) And a few days later, here’s the gang having a drink at the Coach in Hollywood, right after Jim and (rad photographer) Jeffrey Shagawat’s sweet art show at the 72 and Sunny Gallery. Aww, we love you too, Jim!

Derek (Akirophoto), Jim Mahfood, Jon M Gibson, me and Jeffrey Shagawat having a drink at the Coach

Here’s a pic of Jim and me from the exhibition taken by the effervescent Carmen aka Jane Dope, a regular in Ink Stains comics. (Carmen is rad and is actually working on designing the page layouts of the stuff we shot with Kat and the hot rod.)

I LOVE the way Jim draws and I am always honored to show up in his work. Especially because I feel like his autobiographical comic is totally next level stuff — you can really experience his highs (literally haha) and lows, and most importantly, his truly impressive lust for life. I have much respect for artists that can evoke that kind of emotion.

Not to mention the comic is just plain funny. Every one of Bad Andy’s word bubbles leaves me in fits of laughter — I love that guy. He is good people. As are all the cast of characters in Ink Stains. Wonderful, crazy, amazing, hilarious, real people all brought together magically on a blank page by FoodOne himself. So go check out some of the issues, they’re all FREE online on Jim’s official blog. Especially check out issue #31, not just because I’m in it, but because it is a special 4-page epic tale of mayhem and adventure. I guarantee a good time.

L.A. Ink Stains #31
http://foodoneart.blogspot.com/2009/09/los-angeles-ink-stains-31.html

And keep your eyes peeled for the future, for more news of “Pervert Train“, a collaborative project with Jim, Akirophoto and me. The Pervert Train is on the tracks. Choo-Choo!

Here’s a silly photo of Jessica Kiper aka Sugar and me hanging out at the 101 Coffee Shop in Hollywood. I think she’s miming the phrase, “breakfast of champions” haha.

Some of you guys might remember her from the Thanksgiving card I shot a couple of years ago:

She was recently on Survivor: Gabon where she cleverly found the immunity idol first, survived the myriad of difficult challenges and was one of the FINAL three contestants. Don’t underestimate Sugar — she may be sweet as molasses, but she is also one smart cookie! =)

She’s still acting and modeling these days, and we’re collaborating on some cool stuff right now. So keep your eyes peeled for more fun photographs in the near future…

Official Site: http://kiperakasugar.com
Wiki wiki wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Kiper