old friends in different places

aiden trying out eating with a spoon. orange, california.

staying warm after a bath. orange, california.

he likes to put his whole fist into his mouth. orange, california

hanging out with mommy. orange, california.

i don’t know how long i’ve been back home for now. the concept of time is sucked away from thought when i am in suburbia land. luckily, i’ve been able to work on some jobs assisting with embry rucker since i’ve been back. that has helped me to pay the bills for this month.

but i have also had a lot of free time as well. and i have used that time to hang out w/ my nephew aiden. he is a cute little booger and he drools a tremendous amount.

i’ve also been able to catch up on some work that i haven’t done since i’ve been jumping around. my reality seems to catch up w/ me whenever i’m home. ie. bills and what not.

luckily, i’ve come home at the right time. i have been able to meet up with some great old friends from london who i haven’t seen for a year and a half. i caught up w/ my friends Hubert Kang and Claudia Leisinger a couple of weeks ago. They are both amazing people w/ great talent.

Today, I was able to pick my friend Paige Green. She also has a wonderful blog that inspires me to keep shooting. Once I picked her up from good o’ John Wayne airport, we caught up at my local Irish dive bar and drank guinness that was poured the correct way! It was like being back at a pub in London all over again! I have such fond memories of great conversations about life and photography while I was there. the best part of it were the friends/peers that i shared those with.

and now, one of them, paige is back in my life, only for a week, but i’ll take what i can get. i’ll be assisting her for a couple of days. she’s shooting some university students at Chapman college, which happens to be only 10 min. from me. it’ll be great fun!! She is a wonderful photographer and I’m sure I’ll have a lot to learn from her process. I can’t wait to play!

aiden

aiden hanging out ready for some food. orange, california.
© kevin t vu

me hanging out. don’t judge. orange, california.
© kevin t vu

i’m ready for my impromptu photoshoot! orange, california.
© kevin t vu

hanging out w/ mommy. orange, california.
© kevin t vu

so, since i’ve been home, the family has been telling me that aiden, my month-old nephew, looks like me. i figured its because of the balding head. i decided to do a study of our physiognomies. i added the bib to try to keep all the variables constant. so what do u think?

the other images were just me playing in some natural light w/ aiden.

frank ockenfels

sol hanging out by the flowers. san miguel de allende, mexico.
© kevin t vu

just finished the 1st week of san miguel w/ frank ockenfels. he was an amazing instructor/photographer. we worked w/ home depot lights and produced some amazing imagery. For me, the photographers i respect are the ones that i’ve met and can see why their imagery is so stunning. and i found frank to be one of those photographers that i truly admire.

this week, i will be assisting marcela taboada. she’s a mexican documentary photographer. so i’m excited to see how this week goes.

passing time

self-portrait, no photoshop. santa fe, new mexico.
© kevin t vu

donnor, good friend, great shooter. el dorado, new mexico.
© kevin t vu

ella, the cutest little girl that i have ever known. fort collins, colorado.
© kevin t vu

mignon ohmura, one of my favorite people in the world! el dorado, new mexico.
© kevin t vu

so its been an absolute while since i have written on the blog. i’ve wanted to for so long, but its just been quite hectic. closing week for the workshops was unbelievably busy. we had to ship hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment back to vendors and/or participants who purchased gear. and we had to repackage everything. so it was quite a tedious and daunting task for me and the gang. but it was accomplished and i’m a more relaxed man for it.

right when the workshop ended, my friend lauren and i headed straight up to fort collins, about an hour north of denver and about an 8 hour drive from santa fe, to meet with my amazing irish friend anne, with whom i went to school with in london. her family had taken a vacation and i wanted to catch them before they left the states. so we had about an hour and a half to catch up before their ride picked them up for the airport. it was so good to see her and the family again. i love them dearly, as i consider them family. all in all, lauren and i drove about 16 hours to have an hour and a half lunch. but it was all worth it! lauren and i then decided to hang out in denver before we headed back. denver seemed like a lovely city with a lot of things going on. would have loved to stay a little longer to explore the place, but i needed to get back.

once i got back to santa fe, i had one sunday to pack up all my gear because i needed to be out of my flat. so i packed everything and left my car at my buddy’s mike sakas’ place. his roommate, donnor, and i drove across country to buffalo, new york. we had a great time! we slept in a skeazy motel and i had the best fried chicken of my life in memphis. and the back roads from memphis to tennessee were absolutely amazing! it made me want to move to tennessee. i stayed in buffalo for about two weeks. donnor’s family has a cabin up there so i was able to unwind, which meant we were tubing, floating on the pond, jet skiing, eating, photographing and drinking very heavily. his family was downright awesome! i felt like a son, even though there was a confederate flag flying about. and i was able to pull a photo essay out of his family which i will incorporate into my ‘home’ project. i will post it up w/in the next week or so to get some feedback.

i have written quite a novel today so i will end it here and continue tomorrow. hope that will suffice for u paige green. miss ya!

Sunday

Ellis waits as everybody dresses.

Cuisle waiting for the other ballerinas to get dressed. Swiss Cottage, London.
© Kevin T. Vu

I did a job at the Swiss Cottage school on Saturday. It is a dance school for kids that are handicapped. The kids were adorable and they had such great energy. Working with them made me really miss my kids i taught back at home. i had a great time and the school had a very warm environment of staff and parents. Now, i’ve been busy all day doing the post-production on the images. i might do a quick multimedia piece for them as well. depends on how much time i have.