Featured! Angelique Kidjo's Official Website!

So somebody on Angelique Kidjo's team noticed my twitter post about my blog post about my attendance (... ha ha) at the Berkeley Zellerbach performance of Angelique Kidjo a month or so ago and posted a link back to my blog on her OFFICIAL WEBSITE! So cool!

You can find my post of her concert here.  

Anyways, my link is on the news feed on the front page: 

And when you click on it, there's a page saying my images are awesome (yipee!) and a link back. Super super cool! :D

Thanks so much for noticing and letting the world know! :D

Just remember... the images themselves are copyrighted to The Daily Californian. Of course. (:  

Inspiration: Amazing Photographs from Haiti

This is what happens when you take an amazing photographer and put them somewhere just bursting to tell a story: Amazing amazing photographs from Haiti's front lines.  Justin Lyon's photos from this trip astound me, as does his story. The images are equal parts storytelling and art. Even if you just flip through the images he captured you'll be experiencing something that touches your soul.

All out of words, check out the slideshow here.

He has a lot of images of people that just completely drew me in. So personal. So intimate. So difficult to draw your eyes away.

Something about this photo just touches me. And plus I'm always a sucker for black and white images.

I very highly recommend this photographer and this blog post. Go Go Go. Words do not suffice.

Angelique Kidjo: World Music at Zellerbach Auditorium, Berkeley

Last week (maybe longer ago...) I had the wonderful pleasure of heading to Zellerbach to shoot Angelique Kidjo, world music extraordinaire. And, let me tell you, I had the best experience ever!

 Cool things that happened: 

1.  She is AMAZING. She can command the room like no other. She can dance like nothing you've ever seen. Her voice leaves you speechless. You know, just another day at the theater. 
2. The photog usher appreciated my appreciation of World Music and gave me her  unreleased CD. As a gift. Yipee!
3. I had to leave early (one of the sad things about a press pass is having to leave fifteen minutes into the show. Buuut somebody outside saw me leave and offered me a free $46 Orchestra ticket. I promptly went back inside and enjoyed the rest of the show. 

 FABULOUS. I love my job. (:

Very cool lighting at the Zellerbach. (:

The star performer herself. My new heroine. Amazing. Seriously.

The way this woman moves is mesmerizing. As is the way she commands an audience. Daaang. 

And then she invited everybody to come on stage and dance with her. Talk about breaking boundaries. 

And they went crazy.

And then she got individual people to dance. In the spotlight. On their own. In front of all of the hundreds of people who filled Zellerbach. And, let me tell you, these crazy people went ALL OUT. It was fabulous. 

Click on this image too see her facial expression up close. Well, bigger anyways. Ha ha. She's so outrageous with her expressions. Awesome. 

And this dynamic woman can really really rock out. Fantastic. I wish I had her moves.

This is how she picked people to dance in the spotlight. :D

She had a way of picking the people who could really move. Either that or her presence brought it out of them. Either way, it rocked.

And, of course, she was all about the future. Power to the young people and so on. (;

Accompanying article expertly written by fellow journalist Justin Bolois, Contributing Writer to The Daily Californian. 

For my images online at The Daily Cal's website, please see here. Please see the slideshow highlighting the best images from the event here. You can find the full news article online here. 

All images in this post ©The Daily Californian. Please contact them for information regarding reproduction, printing, purchasing or reposting images. For reprint information you should visit the reprints site here. Thank you!

Inner City Services, Berkeley, California

Welcome to my very first shoot as a photographer for The Daily Californian! This is Inner City Services, a local non-profit (?) agency that helps the unemployed build skills and find a job. Such laudable work. (:

All of the people who worked there were very nice. I couldn't think of better people to work with it you are down and out. Or, honestly, even if you aren't. (:

I may love this photo more for the little kid's face than nothing else. The irony is that it says, "NO CHILDREN ALLOWED." Go figure.

The awesome reporter, hard at work. Go Katie! (:

They collect gently used suits and other work clothes and pass them along, for keeps, to those they help out. Awesome!

 

This is my favorite photo. Not really appropriate for the newspaper, but I like how it feels. (: 

The classroom:

The photo from the paper: 

This is the anti-smoking wall. The director has literally covered it with dozens of posters detailing all of the harmful effects of smoking. It's his personal project. (:

This one is my personal favorite. I hope I can use that line one day. (:

Some nice portraits. (:

An awesome looking building just down the street. Not related in any way whatsoever to Inner City Services. Clearly. I even should have probably put them in separate posts. But I didn't, so please enjoy these mindfully. 

Here's an image of the web version of the article. I'd like to say, we were featured on the front page of the print edition of the paper. Score! What a success. Welcome to the world of photojournalism! :D

Accompanying article expertly written by my friend and fellow journalist Katie Nelson, Contributing Writer to The Daily Californian. 

For my images online at The Daily Cal's website, please see here. You can find the full news article online here. 

All images in this post ©The Daily Californian. Please contact them for information regarding reproduction, printing, purchasing or reposting images. For reprint information you should visit the reprints site here. Thank you!