I have work piled up.
I have so much writing to do.
And I just don’t feel like doing it.
I need to do it all soon, or else I’ll starve to death, yet inspiration doesn’t even come to me to write a shitty blog post. I have a lot of mixed thoughts and feelings about every thing that I am doing. I get depressed if I don’t get published, I get depressed if I get published, I don’t really get myself. Got published twice in a row on the Reader, one story about the Ladies and Gentlemen of Ensenada humiliating a homeless man and the other about awesome hot dogs in downtown Tijuana, Humo!
I am still not used to being a published writer, though I am going on two years with the Reader and more as a general writer. I still feel weird about it, that I decided to spend the whole weekend in my apartment drinking craft beer since wake up time and avoid all responsibilities and thoughts in the matter. Again I didn’t post on my blog on a Monday like I said I would.
At the time I started writing this, I still haven’t decided what celebrity to post about. I want to keep going with all my crushes and obviously the girls from Victoria Secret are an easy choice. I already posted about Miranda Kerr, who besides being a stunning beauty, is also a very awesome person to photograph. I want to post about Alessandra Ambrosio, who is probably one of the prettiest people I have ever seen in person, but I have so many pictures of her, and I already said it plenty on this post, I have no desire to work!
Instead, I’ll talk about Ri-Ri. I have never heard a song by Rihanna, at least not consciously. I know that at malls, or the radio, or at shit clubs I have heard her songs at some point in my life, but I couldn’t name you a song by her. Before she became the most sought after person to take a picture off because of Chris Brown’s beating, I saw her once and she pulled some silly stunt move. After the beat up, she disappeared from all public view, until one of my partners at the agency got a picture of her vacationing in Mexico. He worked insanely hard for that picture, ultra spy-like sneakiness hiding in bushes for hours with a huge lens for the tiny window of 10 seconds to get a pic. The money was probably worth it.
After that, Ri-Ri was still really hard to photograph, but I got a picture of her smiling at the camera sipping coconut juice that made it to a lot of places. Anyway, time to dig up my hard drive and look at the pics of Ri-Ri who I never really found attractive…
Great… I chose Ri-Ri because I have memories of two really interesting sets. But now that I went through my hard drive and chose the best pictures of her, I realized I saw her way more than I thought.
The first time I ever saw her was early on my pap life, like after 5 months of doing the job on October 5, 2009. I thought it was hilarious, because she paid $100 to each of the bag handlers from the outside to carry these huge white cardboard things to block the “paparazzo” that was waiting for her. The paparazzo was my partner and the guys that got paid $100 each were our friends… As you can see from the pictures, it was fruitless. The guy I was working with distracted the guys that were supposed to be blocking (and still got pictures) while I basically just sat at departures and waited for her come to me (where the bag handlers couldn’t really be up anymore and where you simply can’t just block the view because you feel like it). 
The TSA dude gave me a perfect behind the shoulder. 
After that, my hard drive indicated me that I saw her again on April 12, 2009. It was a horrible shoot. I was the full time LAX photographer for my agency at the time, but the pics were after the beating (and after the ones that the other guy got in Mexico). They sent more than 8 photographers for the job + me as the LAX expert. I remember I was working on another set in a different terminal (I believe terminal 4) and had to run all the way to terminal 1 to help out with the shoot. They didn’t even use my pictures and Ri-Ri just seemed pissed that there were so many photographers waiting for her. The agency tried to sell the pics extremely expensive that they ended up not selling well at all.
I saw her on December 21, 2009 after I switched agencies, but I also have little memory of this shoot. I was probably surrounded by other photographers.
The next shoot that happen on January 3rd, 2010, I remember perfectly. My new agency wanted me to be at LAX at 9:00 am everyday regardless if I had a list or not. I lived all the way in West Hollywood and to be honest, I got lazy and wouldn’t show up until I had my list. This particular morning, my boss called me and yelled at me hastily asking me where I was at. He yelled at me for not being at LAX when I was supposed to and told me to get there as fast as I can because there was a very important departure and stuttered with the name. I WAS BARELY waking up. I barely washed my face, grabbed my cameras, jumped in my car and drove to LAX as fast as possible and probably broke a record, making it in less than 20 minutes through Los Angeles traffic.
I parked at terminal 7, jumped out of my car and started running towards first class. Before getting to first class, a friend of mine who worked at the airport told me to not go to first class, that Rihanna was supposed to come through any minute. I turned around and a limousine was pulling up to the curb. MONEY SHOT! Rihanna comes out and she is acting awesome towards me (the only photographer in the scene). I got great pictures that she even gave me a flirtatious smile. After I was done with the shoot my boss called me to yell at me for not being at LAX when I told him I just got Rihanna (realizing that’s what the original tip he was trying to tell me).
He was dumbfounded that I made it on time and that I got great pictures. Later on he yelled at me for not realizing that Matt Kemp was in the pictures with her (like I fucking know who that dude is!) Turns out it was her new boyfriend and a baseball player for the Dodgers. The coconut water brand that she was drinking also made it big after that picture, celebrities and people started drinking that shit like if it was water from the fountain of youth. This was my best moment with Ri-Ri.
Check out at that cute smile looking directly at me. This was angle was also a trick on terminal 7 that only myself and my best friend knew about, we were the fucking LAX kings.
These other shoot was on March 6th, 2010. She was coming from London and when that happens everyone fucking knows what flight a celebrity is going to be on (someone sees her at London and tweets about it, after that the information is not that hard to find). They did this trick where instead going the usual way, they took an immediate right, fucking over tons of the paparazzi that were present. Knowing the airport so well, I knew what to do and instead of going on with the gangbang of photographers flashing the shit out of her, I took my distance and got the long lens. Openings were very few, but they happened and I got great pics.
Every person in that frame is a photographer gangbanging on Ri-Ri except that douchebag bodyguard that kept ruining pictures instead of just doing his job. I saw her again on June 20th, 2010 but do not have any memories of this shoot. I believe I was alone and nothing exciting happened. 
The last time I saw her that I have registered was at night on November 17th, 2010. Also no memory of shooting this set, I believe there were a few other photographers there. I know my settings were messed up since most of the pics turned out blurry.
And now that I am done writing about my fun past, I have to look at the future! This blog really is an exercise just to get me writing for the week, now I am not feeling that lazy like I did when I started writing this, but I’m getting ideas of what to do next (a lot of fucking work). But I can’t complain about my job, it’s something that I am enjoying, just like I was enjoying being a creepy photographer back in the day. Here are some blog pictures that I screen-capped, because back in the day, I did not only buy the magazines, but also collected some of my own pics I saw online (and read the comments).
As a paparazzo, I could have deleted all my past like many of my friends have and never mention any of this again. As a writer, my shit is so easily found in google and some of my past work is so embarrassing that it scares the shit out of me. But on forward! To continue with this fucking weird journey of life.
Until next Monday/Tuesday to whoever reads me besides my mom (Love you mom!)
Matingas 