I slept early yesterday and I woke up late today. It’s cloudy as fuck, which I like for pictures.
I dreamt of my mother. It was simple and basic. She was doing the dishes. In this same kitchen of my apartment where I live right now. I only saw her back. I asked if she needed help. She said no. I said, “the last time you said no, you died.” And then she disappeared.
I woke up on the couch around 2:24 a.m. when that happened. And I simply moved to my bed. And overslept.
The morning provided emails and lost calls from my student loans that I continue to ignore. I don’t have money to pay them. I want money.
For the first time in my life in a long time, I want money.
Not a lot of money. I just want more jobs and money. As much as I was making when I was working as a paparazzo. Just enough to live comfortably in California. Which is a ridiculous amount of money at the moment, but it’s doable. My friends are doing it. A lot of people are doing it.
This border life is tiresome. And I keep saying that I am close to the end of it… and yet, here I am.
Food photography is going. I still need way more. But it is going. Is still my favorite. I had a photoshoot on Thursday with Ali’s Chicken in City Heights… like always, I think I could do better, but when I see the shots, they are still great. Always can be better. I did some drone footage for fun and they loved it and it was the first thing they used in their Instagram.
I suck at editing video. I’m sorry about that Ali family. I don’t really mess with video. I don’t like it. I just do short little videos on drone. I should learn, but I’m stubborn about just being a photographer.
I am already an everything photographer and that’s tough to do.
I have done a bunch of landing pages for different types of photography and I plan to do more.
Here’s the solid pricing and easy for everyone to understand.
It starts at $150.
That’s the most basic thing.
You want to book me for whatever. $150.
That’s the start.
If it’s an event, $50 per hour after the initial $150. If it’s anything, $50 after per hour.
Weddings get more expensive. Studio lights get more expensive. And with different backgrounds, or an assistant, even more expensive. How expensive? I’m not sure.
I just know that $150 is the start.
Here are the other landing pages:
Still my favorite and I want to do more. Because I love food.
This is the cheapest option and I don’t think it will be a thing. I need a real studio and not be cheap. But hey. If you make it easy on me and just show up at my place with $50… I take great pictures. Bring beer if you can as well.
Cover shots with the SD Reader.
A bunch are missing. The most recent ones. Over 100 covers with them. It’s time to get WAY more gigs instead of just a single magazine.
I’m still doing that… Not sure what the landing page is for. I guess for SEO reasons and to mention I do drone photography in the San Diego and Tijuana region. Or in California. Or in Baja California. Or all over the United States. I still think of moving to Texas just to start anew. You see, for SEO reasons, you better name drop a bunch of places you plan to work. San Diego Photography. Maybe the algorithm will put me to the top.
My oldest collection of photos when I started as a fucking paparazzo in 2007. That still blows my mind. More than 14+ years of professional photography, it started chasing celebrities, and I can only get better. I miss a lot of my gear from back then. I need to get it back. I need more money to buy nice equipment to get more gigs, so I can get more money, to buy nicer equipments, and nicer gigs. That page is such a mess. It starts with fucking Munky from Korn. As if that was the most famous celebrity I saw. The Britney Spears blog that I wrote in 2012 is still the most visited entry in my website. People should buy the book instead.
Guh. This whole fucking website is a mess. It’s just been too many years with the same. Matingas.com. It’s complicated. My other website… that could easily be wiped and start anew. I should do that.
This is another oldie that just exists to exist. A bunch of long exposures I’ve taken in San Diego and in Tijuana. These type of pictures is what got me into taking pictures again. After so much of just paparazzi, long exposures were fun.
Destination Wedding Photography.
I’ve refused to do weddings for a while now… not sure why. I feel like I’m not talented enough or it’s not my thing. There is a lot of money in weddings. And by a lot… I mean… a shit ton. I’m being cheap right now at $500 though I’ve done a handful of weddings and A TON of events… It’s not my specialty. It can easily be though… BECAUSE I DO EVERYTHING. The perils of being an everything photographer. Most photographers can be everything photographers, but some are better in some things than others.
My best is probably event photography. I have a keen eye to catch them special moments and not be interrupted. I’m just really good at what I do (sometimes). And I don’t have an event photography page. Or a pet photography page which I also love. I have to create those landing pages again.
There’s one more page for Prints.
In case you like my pictures enough to have a print of it. That’s also somewhat going nice. So much stuff in photography…
It’s a very weird Monday and I feel sad. I don’t have much to do this week. I didn’t have much to do last week. Monday through Wednesday were waiting for the gig I had on Thursday. While I waited for that Thursday, I got another gig for the Reader. They both coincided for Thursday. It was a long day of work shooting almost 1,000 frames and many hours editing after. I need way more gigs.
This is some of the shots I did for Ali’s Chicken in City Heights. All through the weekend I ate it all as leftovers and oh fuck did I enjoy the fuck out of it.
This was towards the end of the shoot. My flash was out of energy and so was I. 200+ pictures I sent are better (I hope).
I brought a big white cardboard background and I also got some little paper color backgrounds. I used the yellow for this dripping shot. I did a bunch of those shots and though I only intended to use one, the idea of combining all to a small video occurred. I posted that on Instagram and I got so many comments on the sauce…
It’s coconut syrup people.
But yeah. I does look like something else.
Which means, I could also do porn photography.
I photographed every item on their menu.
And did macro close ups of every item as well.
The Ali family are really nice people and they inspired me to do more work. I hope I work with them again and work with more great people like that. So I can soon move out of this place and keep on growing as a photographer. Food photographer especially. There are so many in San Diego that I’m sure are making great bank and I want to be one of them!
After doing all the food photography, I did that job for the Reader at a bar in El Cajon. That should be in the magazine two weeks from now. Because I’m still one of those rare photographers that get printed in magazines. Weird fun bar east of San Diego. Karaoke. I hate karaoke. But they were singing Pantera and other cool stuff karaoke. Not your typical white girl karaoke. I still hate karaoke. But the pictures turned out fantastic. I did a bit too much of the long exposure flash movement thing. But it encompasses what bar life feels like. I do that a bit too much. I still love it.
And…
Unrelated to food photography, I also covered my friend’s daughter’s 3rd birthday / costume party. The friend that pays me to be a cashier in his food truck. He also inspires me to move north and forget my border life. I also got paid nicely while I enjoyed some beers and empanadas and shot everything. This is one of my favorite shots:
And after that I also did some jobs for the Reader…
I need way more gigs.
And since I have none… I should write a cover story I said I was going to write forever ago.
I feel like I’m done with writing as I focus most of my energy in photography. Some people don’t even know I’m a writer. They think both my books are photography books…
Neither books have photos.
Here are my books if you haven’t bought them yet…
No one really buys them anymore. I only have 3 copies of the Tijuana Adventure book and I’m not sure if I want to order more. I have more than twenty of the paparazzi book. On Amazon, I rarely get a sell. Someone read 65 pages of the paparazzi book yesterday. But besides that, it’s rare to get a sell. And if I do… I make like $4. That’s fucking nothing.
There is more money in pictures than writing. And there’s more money on coding, so I should learn how to code.
But my path has been defined.
I’ll try to live my life with art. And beer. And tacos.
Speaking of beer… I finally recorded a new Drinking Beer with Matingas. Here it is!
I haven’t recorded them mainly because I don’t have any new beers or money for beers. This time I spent $25 on beers that I didn’t like much. I could have paid a bit of my student loans with that… instead I got beers. Sorry student loans, but I don’t want to give you the little money I have.
It’s almost Halloween. That should be a blast. I have no other costume except the one I wore as Frank West a couple of years ago. No one understands the reference, but I don’t think I have a choice.
My Patreon is still a thing… and I owe me patrons some goodies. I will start sending them… life has just been fucking weird.
If you like me or my blog or my videos or pictures or whatever and want to support me… Please do so on Patreon. My drunk ass heavily appreciates it as I still don’t have real income. Making it as an “artist” is not easy. Every $ is appreciated.
Matingas 