Alessandra Ambrosio in Vogue Nippon (October 2010), love the styling done by Anna Dello Russo.








Images courtesy of Anna Dello Russo
Alessandra Ambrosio in Vogue Nippon (October 2010), love the styling done by Anna Dello Russo.








Images courtesy of Anna Dello Russo
I’m very excited for the new Kate Moss by Mario Testino book coming out in a few weeks.





Pictures courtesy of Design Scene
Check out my friends over at Android Homme new Spring 2010 collection + look book. Congrats to Javier, Matty & Steve!









Check out images taken by (Andrea De Silva, K.K. Arora, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Daniel Berehulak), as featured in the Boston Globe. The Holi Festival takes place every year in India, and is also known as the Festival of Colors. Holi is celebrated at the end of the winter season where the people believe that the bright colors represent energy, life, and joy.





I love the colors and life it brings out in people and places, always a joy to see. India’s culture and vibrancy is shown in full effect on this holiday.
Just received this book today of the Creative Recreation campaign for Fall 2010 shot in Kenya. The shoot is amazing, and so is the book. Thank you to Sara Wasserman for sending me this, great work as always!






About six weeks ago, photographer Marco Bollinger and I were given the chance to shoot one day in the lives of the people that make up A Better LA, a Los Angeles based charity out of Los Angeles founded by Coach Pete Carroll.
A Better LA aims to stop senseless violence and build underserved communities into healthy places where kids and families can safely play, succeed at school or work, and follow their dreams. Marco and I started our journey at 5am, arrived at the location in South Los Angeles around 6am, and started shooting upon arrival. The day was filled with many ups, downs, and never before seen experiences. We encountered hundreds of people throughout the day, all that have been touched in a positive way by A Better LA, or one of their other non-profit organizations that they help fund, such as CURE. The impact that CURE & A Better LA has had on the community thus far is quite substantial, and has helped not only give hope to members of the community, but a better place to live. With education being the equalizer to many people, whether rich or poor, they aim for all students to have an equal opportunity to be able to learn the tools that they need, in order to go on to college and beyond. The simple action of arriving to school in a safe manner, which is strange to most people, at least around me, is a big obstacle in this community. CURE & A Better LA have aimed to not make this a problem, in their local junior high, Henry Clay Middle School. Along with after school programs that provide tutoring, recreational activities that involve sports, job training and resume building, and much much more, A Better LA is helping many hard shipped communities make LA a better place.
Below is the exhibit that was debut at our Century City store two weeks back, and is currently at exhibit at both Century City & Culver City locations.
7AM - Reynaldo prepares for Safe Passage, the before and after-school program aims to provide security for Henry Clay Junior High students as they go to and from school every day.

Henry Clay Middle School, 12226 South Western Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90047



Jazmine and Carissa, twin sisters, take the bus to school every day. Their bus stop is 50 feet from Vermont Ave that divides 6 major gang territories. Getting to school on a daily basis is a dangerous prospect for many students.



7:45 AM - Students arrive to school, the Safe Passage allows students to enter Henry Clay Safely.

"Five people have been killed in the last six days [in the Jordan Downs Projects], there's a war going on in there with bounty hunters." - Shonda Robinson, Gary's Robinson wife, was raised in the Watts Jordan Downs Projects.



A local church and its parishioners, hand out a free shopping bag of essential food such as milk, bread, fruits and vegetables.



A city of Watts community space


A local house that recently burned down in the community, has people scavenging through its remains.

3PM - Afternoon Safe Passage, Renee Reaser (Reynaldo's wife), consoles a troubled student. Many of the students at Henry Clay don't feel comfortable talking to their teachers or counselors looking instead to the CURE (a non-profit mostly funded by A Better L.A.) staff because they feel more connected to them.


Reynaldo Reaser and Gary Robinson (Wiz), helped rebuild Helen Keller Park, in the last few years. Both former gang members work now on CURE, and are helping to rebuild the community. "I wanted to help rebuild the neighborhood I helped destroy." - Reynaldo Reaser

As tension builds in a gang conflict between rivals adjacent Hellen Keller Park, Wiz and Reynaldo make their rounds trying to understand the facts of the conflict in attempt to stay ahead of it and hopefully diffuse the situation through mediation before a war breaks out in their community.



Gary Robinson, aka Wiz, mediates a situation that broke out the day before, between a member of the after school program and a local gang.

The after school program also provides free tutoring at Helen Keller Park, and the CURE / A Better LA offices, for local students in the community. They recently opened the computer lab at the park, thanks to a charitable donation.


7:00 PM - The CURE / A Better LA job and resume workshop, offers guidance and resources to community adults looking for work. Gary and Shonda Robinson, discuss the football program that has had a positive effect on the community.


7:30 PM - Gary runs basketball practice at Helen Keller Park. "When the king Football League lost its funding in the 70's, the number of kids joining gangs sky-rocketed. That's why we wanted to clean up Helen Keller Park and start a sports program, so the kids had something else to do other than just joining a gang."

Helen Keller Park used to be a place that you couldn't go to at night, it was only for drug deals and gangs. Now we have after-school football and basketball programs almost every day. "We're trying to get funding to start using the pool too." - Gary, who founded the Cowboys football program, which now has 6 teams in various age groups from 4-14 years old.



Here's the photo album from the Jay Sean Album Release Party from last month at h.Wood in Hollywood, hosted by Five Four.
There will be a VERY limited assortment of these made into physical books, can't wait!




























































































































Check out the Five Four Winter 2009 look book.
Once again, another great shoot by Marco Bollinger. We shot this a few months back, here it is.
Photography by Marco Bollinger
Creative & Art Direction by Andres Izquieta
Model: Kyle Ledeboer (WT Management / Major Models)








I really like this campaign from Hudson Jeans, featuring Georgia May Jagger.
Congrats to my friends Peter Kim and Tony Chu from Hudson for pulling another great campaign.



June Photo Journal by Angelo Sotira, for Five Four.
You may remember Angelo from a few months back as being look of the week, and also as the CEO of DeviantArt, the largest art community in the world, and one of the top 100 sites in the world. Anyways, Angelo went on a long journey the months of May-July visiting the top Deviant cities around the world.
Following is a document of Angelo's travels, also check out his write up below on the journal.
Thanks again for doing this bud!
......................................
What's up FiveFour!
In early May I set out on a World Tour for deviantART, and I got back home for a stint in early July. I was on tour the entirety of June and what you'll see here are photos of my VP of Marketing Heidi Chambers and I rippin' up the globe, meeting artists, and holding deviantMEETS where we clue people in to upcoming deviantART features, and let artists of all kinds (photographers, painters, digital painters, writers, etc.) connect with each other in person and locally for (often) the first time.
We visited (in this order), Sydney - Australia, Singapore, Warsaw - Poland, Istanbul - Turkey, Ankara - Turkey, Berlin - Germany, Paris - France, London - UK, New York - New York, Toronto - Canada, New York (again), Los Angeles. We're still headed to Brazil and Mexico as of this writing.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Because deviantART has 11 million+ members worldwide and 26 million visitors, we provided very little advance notice as to where we would be. FOUR DAYS TOPS in any city... so that we could throttle the turn out!
And the turn out was absolutely amazing. It is the single most inspiring trip of my life. And it is continuing to teach me more about my community than I ever thought I knew.
I pretty much only wore Five Four or deviantWEAR on the tour and it treated me well and made me feel good. When a lot of people are paying close attention to you, it's important to feel that way about your clothing. It's weird, but clothing is one of those things that can give you confidence or add that extra kick in your step that makes a difference.
Thanks Five Four! Enjoy the shots, and keep deviating. You guys are making us all look good!
-- Angelo
......................................

Skipping ahead for a glimpse of the London meet, this is one of my favorite shots of the tour. That's me in the middle. And 350+ members in front of me!! [shot by greenie.deviantart.com]

In the very beginning of June I was in Berlin, and this is the meet we held there.

We'd post animations like this one to "call" people to the meeting location. We'd only give 4 days notice and often less to throttle turn out.

That's trenchmaker.deviantart.com - the queen of cute (and I).

See?

Some bad ass golden girls. Shot taken without their knowledge.

deviantART HQ had sent reinforcements. And it's a good thing... we were running out of emoticon stress balls to hand out. ;)

1 million gallon aquarium in our hotel? Check.

Berlin is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever visited. This kind of architecture spread around contributed to that conclusion. (Berlin Cathedral)

My friend Travis met us for one stop on the tour. I don't know what the hell he was doing in this photo, but he was bringin' the laughter with it for suuuree..

Post-meetup, artists gathered around my Mac to use Photoshop and my Wacom Intuos 4 drawing tablet. That thing is SO nice.

Two days later we were in Paris holding another meet.

We used this to gather the troops to the Louvre.

France brings the eats like nobody's business.

Another day, I had dinner after walking the streets for photographs with gonzale.deviantart.com - at the end of the meal the waiter brought us fake tattoos with the bill. Check her gallery on dA she's amazing.

The center pyramid at the Louvre from the ground up.

The Raft of Medusa (1819) - I've never spent as much time looking at a single painting in my entire life. It's got everything for me.

About the second most cliche picture I could have taken at the Louve. (venus de milo)

Because THIS would be the first. Plus fave!

One of the many sessions I held on tour with smaller groups (from the larger pack) to explain what deviantART was up to next!

Next up; London! And what a sight... 350+ deviants with just a few days notice. Such a great time. [shot by cei.deviantart.com]

London shout out. These little art projects become a fun past time and steadily improved in quality I think.. hehe

Simon, Heidi and I from right to left. And the London Eye in the background. That thing is HUGE!

deviantWEAR needed me to do an impromptu photoshoot for our new fox t-shirt. Found this Ferrari near the hotel just for fun.

Heidi has a thing with unicorns; it's a long story. But here she is on the fivefour blog pointing at one. haha!!

I don't know what kinda cracked out drugs they put in this whipped ice cream you can buy in hyde park but i'm still jonesing.

Andrew McCann (deviantART's Chief Technology Officer) met us in London for a technology swarm with ....

Simon Murray (pachunka.deviantart.com) and....

Sasha Lerner (randomduck.deviantart.com) ... good times, highly productive for our new Groups system that's launching on deviantART.

Big Ben.

Wish I would have read that sign BEFORE I smacked my head HARD against that thing.

London Underground culture shot.

Time is Passing.

What's up TORONTO!! Epic turn out, fantastic meet. [shot by neom.deviantart.com]

Fireworks for canada day. Open shutter for the roman candles.

This deviant works at Dairy Queen and made us a fella/deviantART ice cream cake as a gift!!!

Chillin with the geniuses behind Udon Entertainment (udoncrew.deviantart.com) brainstorming about how to change the world.

Stanley Sy (winner of the 2009 bolt award; http://news.deviantart.com/article/88980/) opens up a gift we brought for him from Singapore; a sketch and autograph from perhaps his favorite artist Stanley Lau (artgerm.deviantart.com) - the sketch is of Pepper, no less!

Shutter stayed open and captured this.

The Big Apple is beautiful. Notice everyone holding big.... apples... [shot by goodfoot42.deviantart.com]

Hailed a human cab to scout locations a few days prior.

While explaining basic principles of photography to a deviant who was snapping shots with my camera....... I must have decided to explain even more things....

Addressing the crowd in Central Park's Bethesda Fountain.

Leading a crowd to one of my demo gatherings this time under a huge tree that's known to locals as one of the best climbing trees in the park.

This is danimation.deviantart.com - he draws for Marvel Comics among others.

I particularly enjoyed watching him sketch with a blue pencil.

Heidi Chambers. deviantART's VP of Marketing...

That's my deviantART GFX Artist Bag; And a bird had just shit on it.

Vroom.

Met Andy Starbuck who is one of deviantART's Advertising Sales Reps handling NYC as a territory. He took us to a kick ass pizza shop that's really famous and I forgot the name of it. But it was gooooood!!

That's Andy.

Back in LA in late June, my girlfriend ( Janina ) needed a couple of shots for some audition (she's an actor). So we did a quick photo shoot on my first day back.

It's good to be back after two months on tour. ;)

LA is #1 worldwide in traffic stupidity. I had completed a loop going West all the way around the world in 53 days within 10 hours of this moment; so you can call that a reputable first hand account of this fact! ;)
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