Good Morning, Paris

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Cinka

Somewhere in between the last post and now, AJB and I got married. The wedding reached far beyond my expectations and it was, as it was supposed to be, the happiest day of my life. I mean, I’ve had some beautiful days in my life, but this is among the top 3; the other two being arbitrary numbers I came up with for the purposes of this blog.

All the details of my wedding day are still being formulated in my mind and there is, at the moment, no way to put them down. I’ve tried. I think I’ll wait until I have photos.

I am, currently, sitting at the window overlooking houses and apartments, the backdrop of which is a grey Paris sky. A cool breeze floats in from time to time, the weather indicates rain on the horizon. Until then, it is stunning and actually rather comfortable.

We arrived in Paris sometime yesterday morning. We got to our hotel, the room wasn’t ready, so we strolled down the Champs-Élysées with the intent of seeing the Arc de Triomphe – which is very close. So very tired from the long flight, we stopped for coffee at a cafe on the way. AJB was chided by the waiter for ordering onion soup and coffee; against the recommendation of wine. I couldn’t help but laugh. Not because my darling had proven to this waiter that Americans are uncultured cretins, but the face the guy made was priceless. He was so offended, as if in one fell swoop, AJB has managed to insult all of France; at least as far as our angry waiter was considered. I suppose we should have known that when ordering onion soup, coffee is the worst thing you can drink with it. I’d imagine, working in a cafe on the Champs-Élysées, he doesn’t often run into tourists.

I thought it was hilarious because as an American, I’ve always heard about how rude the French are and here we were, only a few hours into the country and we’d already run into one. Other than that, everyone else has been delightful, helpful, and very sweet. I should also mention, that despite staying quiet and trying not to embarrass myself, I was also chided for using a fork instead of a spoon to eat my custard with. Go figure.

And then we slept. Jet lag took over completely and day turned to night. During that time, we watched a bit of French television – a whole lot of American TV dubbed into French, which is strange and fascinating.

Today we’re catching the train to London. AJB’s cousin Judy is putting on a play; we’ll be staying with the London cousins. Cousins all around. We’ll have dinner and stuff. I love London.

So far, this is the best honeymoon I’ve ever been on. It being the only honeymoon I’ve ever been on. I love my husband and I love Paris and I love London. Love, love, love.

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Station Fire, The Eyes of Mt. Wilson

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Cinka

Without a doubt, The La Canada Station Fire has been a spectacle to behold. As I’ve been watching the Station Fire swallow the Angeles Crest Forest, one of the more interesting vantage points has been the Mount Wilson Web Cam. Overlooking the Mt. Wilson Observatory (which was spared an untimely death), some of the most glorious images have come up. The web-cam went down for a few days, however, I’m happy to report it came back alive.

Over the last week, I managed to gather several AMAZING screen caps of the web cam. My favorites are the last two; the blue image taken just at sunrise (I happened to be up at the time) and only a few minutes after the 3rd image and then the most recent one where you can actually see the observatory with the fire in the background below a star filled sky. Just breathtaking. The first two look like Mordor.

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The Station Fire at Sunset

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Cinka

The last few days have been exciting. They’ve also been scary, nerve racking, and smokey. Oh, have they been smokey! The updraft from the Station Fire finally went away and allowed for all that smoke the fire was creating to settle down into the cities below; I think most of it’s settled around my house. In the morning, the Arroyo looks something like Mars – I’m thinking Mars from Total Recall. In the morning, the sun glimmers a red light onto the world. At night, the moon shines an eerie Halloween orange. If it weren’t for the fact that I can’t hardly breathe, I’d be totally stoked about all the reds and oranges and how spooky everything looks. Of course, it all reminds me that the Angeles Forest is burning, people are losing their homes, 2 firemen have been killed, countless wildlife has died, precious hiking trails have been ruined, and when the rain comes we’ll have to worry about mudslides. I don’t know who or what started it, but if it was arson, I hope whoever it was gets the slammer – forever.

I’m sending good thoughts to all the people who have lost their homes, to the families and friends of the firefighters lost in battle, and to everyone who has been effected by this terrible event.

While tragic, this has also, without a doubt, been a super opportunity for photographs – it’s what I do, you know. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of amazing photographs of the Station Fire on the net. Here are some more of mine.

These were taken on Tuesday September 29th, 2009 in the Rose Bowl parking lot and above JPL in Pasadena. Those clouds you see are actually smoke from the fire. These were the actual colors of the day as caught by my 40D. Pretty neat, huh?

Photos: Kristen Simental www.kristensimental.com

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Station Fire – Images from the Bridge

Posted on August 29, 2009 by Cinka

The La Canada Station Fire continues to gnaw it’s way through the Angeles Crest forest, high atop the ridge, along La Canada Flintridge, and into Altadena. We can see it quite clearly from our patio, which is just a short distance from the Rose Bowl. As of 1am this morning, the fire is only 5% contained. It’s been burning for more than 24 hours. Needless to say, the air quality in Pasadena is pretty horrendous. I’ve been doing my best to stay indoors, we cleaned and replaced all the air conditioning filters in the house and are keeping the windows closed. I mostly worry about the cats and their precious little lungs. I’m also dosing up on Vitamin C, Olive Leaf, Silver, and drinking tons of water. This is the kind of air quality that gives a person heavy bronchitis – no jinx.

After spending a good 20 minutes looking through wedding invitation designs, AJB, Mom, JCS, and I had dinner. Afterward, as we drove North on Fair Oaks Ave. in Old Town, you could see these massive flames leaping above the mountaintop. We decided to detour our route home and head up a little further on Fair Oaks. We couldn’t see much, so we came back home. There was, in fact, a better view from our patio and I took a few unremarkable photos.

A few moments after Mom left, she called and informed us that the view from the Holly St. Bridge (just around the corner from us) was spectacular. I grabbed my camera and tripod and out we went. Immediately upon arrival, you could see an impressive panoramic view of the mountains all ablaze. It was indeed, as Mom said, spectacular. Almost too spectacular. Mesmerizing, even.

Elliot, a man who’d found his way to the bridge from a road trip to North Carolina was also taking pictures. Passersby stopped and looked out their car windows, several students took pictures down a ways from us. We chatted with Elliot about everything from tofu recipes, government conspiracies, and 2012 to the fire in general. He was a nice guy and we enjoyed talking to him. It’s interesting the people you meet on a bridge at midnight while photographing one of the most breathtaking fires this area has seen in 50 years. During our conversation with Elliot, we also witnessed 4 quick bursts of bright orange/white light from behind a ridge. We couldn’t tell what they were, but guessed they were either trees exploding (as they do) or a transformer blowing. Pretty amazing.

In other news, my wedding dress arrived today. It, like the fires, is spectacular.

Here are some of the photos I took. AJB took image #7.

Photos: Kristen Simental www.kristensimental.com

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La Canada Station Fire from our Patio

Posted on August 27, 2009 by Cinka

A fire broke out north of Pasadena today; about 5 miles or so from our house. There is a good distance between us and the fire – as well as an entire 4 lane freeway – so we’re not really worried. The creepy thing is that you can see the flames from our house. More specifically, from our patio.

Earlier this evening, AJB and I drove up to La Canada to get a spectator’s view of the fire. It’s literally chewing up the Angeles Crest landscape. We even spotted a big explosion. I’m assuming it was a tree exploding – as they do. As of midnight this evening, The La Canada Station Fire is spreading and has gone from 5 acres to 500. I suppose it’ll get even bigger by morning.

View from our patio. Photo: Kristen Simental

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Town Hall Meeting

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Cinka

After a long flight home from Illinois, AJB and I arrived at the house and made an immediate about-face to attend today’s Town Hall meeting with Representative Adam Schiff in Alhambra. Despite how utterly exhausted we both were, we felt it was our civic duty to attend. As someone who cannot afford health insurance and hasn’t had job provided health insurance in a while, I’m all for reform. AJB has his reasons, but I don’t know if I should get into it or not. Let’s just say we both want reform, we both want more affordable health care, and we both see this new bill as a good start. Furthermore, we are both astounded at how blown out of proportion this issue has become and how easy it is to sway the ignorant masses. Euthanasia? Really?

I expected there would be a huge crowd and after watching these events all over the country on the news, I knew we’d be in for some good old fashioned protesting. All I can really say was that it was indeed a spectacle to behold. The passion and volume on both sides was intense. While walking through the shouting crowds, I felt a sense of democracy at work. I felt as though I was a part of something important and that years from now, people will talk about these town hall meetings and I can say I was there. The energy level was palpable.

I took my camera and captured some of the moments from the day. Both sides are represented.

Without further comment…

>>>Read more about Health Care Reform in America. We need it. We really need it.

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The Benefits of Planning

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Cinka

This is an entry I started writing on June 7th, 2009, but didn’t published until now

As an Aries, I’m supposed to be impulsive and spontaneous. I am. Usually. When it comes to my art, I have always followed what I lovingly called “The Chaos Theory” – chaos being about random occurrences. This meant that I would, for example, do a shoot with someone and let what ever happens happen. Ideas come, they always do. I am, after all, an idea person. I’ve never been want for ideas. In my art, I can usually do pretty well without any (or very little) planning. However, if I’ve learned anything from interning for David LaChapelle, it’s that to pull that shit off, you need a mess of planning.

I therefore decided to try it out for size. Real, honest to goodness planning. I thought of a concept and gave myself two weeks to pull it off. I wrote down ideas, held a casting for a female model, booked the male model straight away, shopped for props, and wrote down a list of potential shots. I even created a project folder in which I kept all my inspiration images, data, and notes. I thought about the shoot for two weeks straight. I corresponded with models, found a make-up artist, and imagined how I’d dress the set. It was all starting to come together.

Naturally, Murphy’s Law is always a major player in any event. At the last minute, my make-up artist canceled. As someone who is adept at getting out of things and coming up with a million reasons why I couldn’t go into work or school, I realized at once that she was probably lying. I think this for several reasons: She didn’t call to cancel, she emailed. Her excuse was that she’s gotten an horrible eye infection and was headed to the emergency room. It just seemed so grandiose. People tend to think that the bigger their lies are, the more likely people are to believe them: A UFO crashed into my house and I can’t come into work today because the aliens took my keys. One thing I’ve learned about lying is that if used correctly, it’s a very powerful tool. A better way? I once lied about going into work by saying that “the recent rains had warped my front door so I couldn’t lock it. I had to wait for the landlord to come fix it”. Not bad, right? Later, my boss at the time said that it was such a random excuse, it had to be true. Obviously.

After the make-up artist canceled, I was faced with potentially rescheduling the shoot. How could I find a talented make-up artist in less than 24 hours? No one would do it. Especially since it wasn’t a paying gig. I posted an ad, asked the Universe for a make-up artist and lo, I found one. I accepted that I might not find the best make-up artist in the world, but that anyone with a make-up kit could do the job. It so happened, I found a lovely girl who was not only cool, but talented to boot! I got real lucky. In fact, I made some calls and got about 6 responses. Because of the fairness, I chose the first girl who responded first and crossed my fingers. I hired her sight unseen. And you know what? It worked out.

The result of all my hard work was that this shoot was the one of the best I’ve ever done. Everything fell into the place. The models were phenomenal, the make-up artist was professional and skilled, the set looked great, the costumes were amazing, the lighting was spot on, and the final images are just to good to be true.

What I learned from all this is that planning goes a long way. Even with as much planning as you can muster, something always goes wrong. The important thing to remember is not to panic.

The second lesson I learned was that you can’t do it alone. Even with all my planning, none of this would have happened without the help of my beloved AJB. His help and support through all of this made everything run smooth. He’s my go-to guy and I can’t tell you how important that is to me. I know that I can count on him and it’s invaluable to have trustworthy help on a big shoot. As they say, no man is an Island and no one does anything all by themself.

People keep asking me what I’m going to do with these images. That, I don’t know. I need to figure that out. I assumed I’d only use them for my portfolio, but if there is a way to use them in some other beneficial marketing way, I should go ahead and do that.

I also have yet to figure out how I want to Photoshop them. I’ve played around with different styles, but nothing is slapping me in the face with it’s awesomeness. Naturally, the longer I take to figure it out, the likelihood of moving onto something else comes into play. I’ll post pics when they’re done.

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Catching up is Caught

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Cinka

As usual, I don’t manage to write for a while and so much happens in between posts that I can’t figure out how to fit it all into one bite sized chunk. I then worry that I have so much to say, I’ll just end up writing a 2000 word post and annoy my two readers.

*sigh*

What I end up doing is summing up and I think I really miss the point of this blog. That is, to capture the events of my life as they unfold. The events have already unfolded and are now a bit wrinkled.

Over the last two weeks, my Mom, JCS and I have been busting ass to assemble my Save the Dates. I lie, mostly, it was Mom and JCS. They really came through. Mom spent a week at my house, staying up late, cutting out little skeletons, punching decorative bats into envelopes, addressing, and doing other miscellaneous tasks. JCS came over everyday and helped a whole lot too. I helped as much as I could, but guess what? I took a bad fall down the stairs and was out of commission right in the middle of the project. Luckily, I didn’t break anything, but I was beaten up and bruised. My legs and knees still hurt, even though I’m mobile. I spent several days in bed.

Over Mother’s Day weekend, my sister and sister-in-law came into town and got wrangled into a couple of all nighters. They’d originally came down to see Star Trek with me and celebrate Mother’s Day, but as it turned out, Mom had a wedding to attend and was gone for 3 days. Even though I was aching, I forced myself to the theater to see Star Trek. I could write an entire post on that movie. For now, I’ll just say it was good and I liked it. A lot.

We managed to get 95% of the Save the Dates out on time. You see, we’d bought these amazing Edgar Allan Poe stamps, but as fate would have it, the price of postage went up today. Rather than attach a stupid 2 cent stamp, we set a deadline which only gave us 10 days to finish. All I can say is, my family really came through for me. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have a family that will stay up all hours of the night getting hand cramps cutting out skeletons, attaching brads, punching lace, and stamping. This was the Project Royale – the project of all projects and my family brung it! We still have a few more to send out as addresses trickle in, but those will wait a few days and get 2 cent stamps.

And while all this is going on, I’ve started an internship with a super famous, amazing photographer named David LaChapelle. I don’t think the gravity of this position has sunk in just yet. Firstly, this is an outstanding opportunity for me. As a photographer, to watch a master at work…well, that’s priceless. And when I say priceless, I mean, I’m not getting paid. But I look at it this way: Interning is like going to school. They don’t pay you, you pay them. I’m getting a one of a kind education here and all that is required is my time. Besides, I happen to know that plenty of photographers would give their right arm to intern for this guy. Furthermore, aside from cleaning and answering phones, I’m also being given the chance to see how a lucrative photography business is run from behind the scenes. No college in the world teaches you that. When it comes to advanced lighting technique and organizing a grand scale photoshoot for Rolling Stone…well, they don’t teach that at Brooks. I mean, what does it take to get where he’s at? How did he get there? Granted, he is an amazing talent and while I’m good at what I do, I’m not that good. Truth be told, photographers on his level have a lot of help. Me? I’m on my own.

Today was my first day. So much happened. I will write about it, just not tonight.

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April 2009 Free Photo Session Contest

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Cinka

Hey everyone, I have an exciting announcement. As most of you know, I’m currently converting the garage into a fully functional studio. At the moment, it’s about 1/2 done and should be completed before Summer. I have, however, been using it successfully for the last month shooting product and portraits.

I’m posting because I’ve got a new lighting set-up that I’d like to test out on willing subjects at no charge to you except your time.

In exchange for your time, I’m offering:
1. A one hour photo session (up to 2 people per session)
2. Unlimited shots
3. Up to two outfit changes (or as many as time permits).
3. One free 8×10 print of your choice.
4. Images uploaded to an online proofing gallery to download and share for 90 days.

Participants will be picked at random and announced on April 31st, 2009 by email.

DEADLINE: APRIL 30TH, 2009

To enter:

1. Submit your full name
2. Contact phone number
3. The date you’d like to schedule your session (May 1st-May 7th, 2009)
4. Must be willing to travel to Pasadena studio.

I look forward to receiving your entries and wish you the best of luck!

Portraits : Headshots : Band Photos : Baby : Maternity : Couples : Musicians : Artists : Child and Parent : Anyone

Sincerely, Kristen Simental
www.kristensimental.com
(626) 394-2724

P.S. Look for a new promotion every month at www.kristensimental.com

Follow my professional Tweets: http://www.twitter.com/ksphotos for announcements, updates and new promotions!

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In My Garden

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Cinka

Spring is definitely here! Winter seemed a bit longer than usual this year…or perhaps this drafty old house makes it seem that way. Either way, the air is warming up to what one might consider: Absolutely perfect Southern California weather. I’m fond of saying that this is the time when tourists come to visit and decide to move here. They’re in for a surprise when Summer hits and temperatures reach the triple digits.

Until then, the sky is blue, the birds are singing, and the sun is shining. A feeling of renewed sense of everything is happening. It’s this time of the year that I can’t wait to get outside and fiddle around with my plants. I’ve been anxious to start growing productive greenery – things we can actually use and eat. I’m starting small with herbs and tomatoes, but eventually I’d like to have a small (manageable) vegetable garden. It will involve lots of work – specifically, removing a large bamboo thatch, clearing the land, and prepping it. I figure, it won’t be fully functional for at least a year. These things take time. Which reminds me, I need to start composting again.

In my garden, I currently have: Parsley, Oregano, Spearmint, Peppermint, Catnip, Aloe Vera, Oranges, Lemons, Kumquats, Apricots, Plums, Early Girl Tomatoes, and various other lovable plants and trees. Since I missed last year’s apricot and plum harvest, I’m going to get to them before the squirrels do and make preserves.

Here are some of the items I’m currently working on: