There are small joys in your every morning — a cloudy day after years of desert living, good coffee and music. We do everything else because of the promise of more small joys to come.
All posts in Photography
Santa Barbara and Friends
Out of my own volition, it would have never occurred to me visiting Santa Barbara. I had heard of it, but I had no idea what people do there, or why one would go there. Thankfully, I have friends who not only know of great places, but invite me along on their adventures. My friends drove from Phoenix, spent a day in LA, picked me up Friday night, and we drove north. Although the posts on this Web site don’t show it, there have been tiring and stressful moments trying to start a new life out here in Los Angeles, but seeing familiar, welcoming faces made me feel so at ease and happy.
The next day, we found a Farmer’s Market. It was full of life and color, and the feeling of community. I’ll have to find one near me, so I can get fresh produce and flowers.
A new home by the beach
I’m living in Long Beach at the moment, and I’ll write more about that in a future post, but for now, I believe there’s been too much talking and not enough photos around here.
I met Manuel and Maria fishing by the Long Beach Marina. Manuel kept asking if I was from Univision, I’m guessing because of the big camera.
Manuel and Maria own a ranch out in Lancaster. A long time ago, two sales people came by his ranch and sold him a laptop, which he thinks he overpaid for, and I’m sure he did. They also sold him a hard water filter. The fact still bugs him, yet he gripped about it without the least trace of ill-will or bitterness. Since this anecdote was relevant enough for him to share with me, it’s relevant enough to write about on this post. Manuel and Maria come fishing quite often to catch dinner, and “because I like spending time with her,” Manuel said pointing his shin in Maria’s direction.
“You have to tell women things like that,” he said, in a lower voice, as if giving me advice. “So they feel flattered.”
A Present Worth Remembering
I wrote this maybe a year ago, to post on my work’s blog. But I suppose I didn’t think there was much of an audience for it on that blog, so I decided not to post it. Now, as I’m cleaning up my work laptop, I came across it and decided to go ahead and add it here.
My grandfather, Andrea Lapadula, with his children, Maria and Domingo, circa 1959 in Panama City, Panama.
My father, Domingo Lapadula, receiving a diploma from The Flying Nun.
Recently, I watched ‘Dark Side of the Lens,’ a video about bodyboarder and photographer Mickey Smith. Beside the stunning photography work and the beautifully written story, I was moved by one quote in particular.
If I only scrape a living, at least it’s a living worth scrapping. If there’s no future in it, at least it’s a present worth remembering.”
Is your present worth remembering? For every photograph we take, or story we write, we assess our present as worth immortalizing in some way.
When my father asked me to design a Web site for him to post old family photographs, I agreed hesitantly because, for one, he’s not very computer literate (he’s much better now than when I first wrote this, by the way). Also, I thought it would enable some sort of midlife crisis in which he was looking back at old memories of better, dreamier days — days when it did not feel as if time was running out.
But these days, he has his own domain and blog, which he has populated with an incredible collection of historical photographs from people, life and culture in Italy and Panama.
We’ve had our ups and downs getting to this point, including countless minutes spent going over the differences between a Web site with more or less static information, and a blog. Some days there were streams of phone calls (and texts, God forbid) because the site wasn’t matching his vision. The moral for me was to treat all projects, whether it’s for family or friends, as if they were money-paying clients who deserve a full, in-depth, patient explanation of every aspect of their site.
And for my efforts I received some of the best forms of payment, such as Panamanian coffee, Italian hair products (not to be found in the U.S.), and a lifetime of privileged, wisdom-laden statements such as “hmm” and “grrrr.” The best, though, is to have given him an outlet for something he, for whatever reasons he chooses, feels passionate about at this very moment in time.
Maybe 10 years from now, he will fondly remember those cold, lazy Sunday mornings trying to figure out the WordPress editor, and how to insert an image, or crop his photos in Photoshop, all the while cursing like a sailor and taking mini breaks to make more coffee that he drinks out of teeny tiny China cups. And while at times I wish he would try harder to make his present worth remembering and documenting, instead of dwelling in a past long buried by time, he would say he lives by his own inspirational quote:
El recuerdo es el único paraíso del cual no podemos ser expulsados”
“Memories are the only paradise from where we can never be expelled.” Go check out some of his memories, which he is documenting and sharing on this world wide web, for all to see.
http://www.domingolapadula.com/
And leave him a comment, it will make his day and will perhaps convince him to keep me as his Web designer. Because I don’t know what I would do without that Panamanian coffee and those cheap Aldi chocolate bars he sends me in the mail.
A Casual Stroll to the East
Old Town Alexandria, Virginia
Washington, D.C.
The problem with waiting long to post photos and write about a trip is that you always forget. There was little to forget or remember on my trip to D.C. The trip was not bad at all, in fact my job put me up at extremely nice hotels in Old Town Alexandria — The Monaco and The Morrison House — but it was almost entirely a work trip and therefore I spent most, if not all my time in the office. My coworkers were kind enough to show me around a bit, but after a full day’s work, it was hard to motivate myself to go exploring. So on that note, here are a few photos and anecdotes from when I did get out of my fabulous hotels.
Recent Comments