Rommel Salminao, Photographer

Rommel Salminao, captured by Sergio Salinas-- LeftEyeShut Photography

Rommel Salminao likes to tell stories.  Only he doesn’t use words, he uses his camera.

Salminao is one third of the appropriately named photography team LeftEyeShut, based in San Diego, California.  Together with partners Sergio Salinas and Paul Balancio, this innovative team combines artistic flair, masterful editing, and good old-fashioned photography skills to shoot weddings, portraiture, and special events in and around the San Diego area.  They also have a fourth member who does videography.

In contrast to those who’d had visions of their "dream" jobs since the time they were kids, Salminao’s revelation came to him as an adult:  Says Salminao, “I'd always had a little point and shoot camera and fiddled with those, but when I went to Maui for vacation, my kid brother let me borrow his 35mm film camera.  That’s where it all started… My brother bought a digital SLR [camera] later that year and after seeing what you could do with digital, I started to head in that direction myself.  From there, I started reading books, checking out websites, etc.  And of course just learning from actually going out and shooting.”  Salminao also credits LeftEyeShut partner and long-time friend Sergio Salinas as a huge influence with his photography.  “I have always gone to Sergio for advice and techniques.”

LeftEyeShut was formed in 2008 after a friend of Salminao’s, whose work she had admired on his Flickr Site, asked him to shoot her wedding.  Salminao asked Salinas and brother-in-law Paul Balancio, a talented photographer in his own right, to join him.  The trio’s first shoot was a success, and  LeftEyeShut was officially in business.  Since then they have shot several weddings, all from referrals and word of mouth.  

Wedding Cake, LeftEyeShutPhotography

It used to be that professional-grade photography and prints were only regularly available to the wealthy and privileged.  The advent of digital photography has made high-quality photos accessible to people of all budgets.   The equipment and the processing costs of digital photography is about half of traditional photography.  Additionally there's minimal waste-- no film required, no developing chemicals involved, and as you only print the pictures you need, digital photography is both cost effective and environmentally friendly.  As appealing is the fact that results can be instant and very easily shared.  

These cost-cutting advancements have opened the market wide-open for talented hobbyists to go into business for themselves, competing with established photographers and studios while charging far less.  In fact, an informal Google search of “San Diego wedding photography” generates 2,307 business hits.  And that number is expected to increase as  high-quality digital camera prices continue to drop. That’s a lot of competition for any start-up photography team.

So how does Salminao and LeftEyeShut separate themselves from the pack?

“I think having three main photographers in our main key,” Salminao says. “Usually a couple only hires a main photographer and an assistant [to shoot their wedding]. With having the three of us capturing the wedding, there's hardly a shot that we will miss.” 

And it’s not just their numbers that give LeftEyeShut an edge over the competition-- it’s also their varying styles as individual photographers:

Wedding, Sergio Salinas, LeftEyeShut Photography

Salminao, on partner Sergio Salinas:  “Sergio’s an old school film photographer.  Sergio has been into photography long before the digital age.  He loves to use the natural ambient light.” 

Bride, Paul Balancio, LeftEyeShut Photography

On partner Paul Balancio, “Paul’s really good at capturing a moment and has an eye for the small details…”

Engagement photo, Rommel Salminao,
LeftEyeShut Photography

On his own style, Salminao says he prefers to play with the flash and control the light. “I also like to hit the weird angles. I try to shoot the couples in a cinematic way. I think of the whole day as a Michael Bay movie,” he quips.

The work doesn’t end once the pictures are taken.  The LeftEyeShut team spends hours and hours in post-production, selecting the right pictures to edit so just the right mood is achieved.  It’s a painstaking process that shows the artistry in their work.  The effects they choose to add to their photos are impactful and evocative without ever being heavy-handed.  Despite the three varying styles, the end result is one beautiful, cohesive story, told in pictures.  It’s a formula that works for Left Eye Shut and its many happy customers.

Do the LeftEyeShut photographers also have day jobs?  Yes, they do.  Fortunately, the events they are hired for happen on the evenings and weekends, so scheduling has never been an issue.  Although it’s a lot of extra work they do on top of a regular 40 hour work week, it doesn’t feel like work to them. 

Simply put, they love what they do. 

See more of LeftEyeShut at www.lefteyeshut.com.  

If you are interested in hiring the LeftEyeShut team to shoot your wedding, portrait, or special event please get in touch with them at lefteyeshut@gmail.com.

*All images appear here with the consent of LeftEyeShut Photography. 

C+Locious, Music Producer

San Diego Hip Hop Producer, C+Locious

C+Locious is inspired. By his records, by the radio, by the sounds he hears every day. These inspirations can be anything—a drum break, a piano riff, the sound of his alarm clock. C+Locious takes these sound bites and crafts them into entire songs, fully orchestrated and ready for vocals to be laid on top.

C+Locious is a hip hop music producer. In his own words . “I create, arrange, format the music, engineer the recording sessions, and mix down the sessions so we have a product to present.” Music producers can also be responsible for managing talent, editing and laying effects on vocals, and rehearsing in the studio with the artist. In the hip hop world specifically, the music producer equals the beatmaker.

Interestingly enough, in hip hop, the producer can become more famous and better paid than the artist for which they work. Well-known and established hip hop producers, including Dre, The Neptunes, and Ryan Leslie have annual salaries into the millions. Top paid producers like Timbaland have been rumored to sell their beats for $500,000 a pop. The draw of fame and money is enough to lure millions of wannabe producers to start busting out their own beats and make a name for themselves in the industry.

More realistically, an independent hip hop producer will sell their beats for as little or as much as people are willing to pay for them. Websites like Beatswagger.com and 20dollarbeats.com are sites where you can buy and sell beats at a relatively low cost, and it can even be done through PayPal. Though at $20 a beat or less, it’s difficult to imagine anyone truly being able to sustain a living solely by these means.

With proper training and a musical background one stands a better chance at making music production an actual career. C+Locious has both. As a child he endured years of piano lessons and has played drums since high school. He also has intensive training in sound engineering and has interned with premier recording studios in San Diego. A trained music producer can fetch an average of $45,000 a year if employed by a studio.

C+Locious in his home studio, "The Beatcave"

Today C+Locious works independently out of his home studio, known to him and his associates as “The Beatcave” where he’s got his Mac with ProTools set-up, sound module racks, keyboard, five-piece drum kit, MPC 4000, turntables, and stacks of records. His biggest musical endeavor to date is the work he’s done with Broken Dreams, a lyric-driven hip hop act for whom he produces and occasionally emcees. Together, they’ve put out two albums and two mixtapes, and have developed a substantial following in Southern California. [Click here for more on Broken Dreams.]

Where most artists are fighting their way into the spotlight, C+Locious is content being in the background. “I like that, though” says C+Locious. “I like guys like Chad Hugo [one half of The Neptunes] who never gets the shine that Pharrell does. But people who know or care to know recognize that he’s as much a part of the duo’s success...” C+Locious also cites Black Thought of The Roots, JDilla, Pete Rock, and Premier as inspirations. “They never reached mainstream notoriety as far as pop culture like Dre, the Neptunes, or Timbaland,” he explains, “but are known as the best ever in the hip hop culture as role models.”

I should add that C+Locious was fifteen minutes late for this interview. When I called him, he was still tied up at the office gathering paperwork for a client. His client, in this case, was not a singer or emcee or musician trying to record at his home studio. In this case, his client was trying to buy a house.

As it turns out, C+Locious has a more conventional alter ego: Carlo Layug, Loan Officer. He has been working in the financial industry since graduating from USC in 2003—and it’s something that actually complements his musical pursuits: “The great thing about the day job I have is that it’s the kind of hustle where you create your own schedule, so I’m not locked down to a 9-5. There will be times where I can work on a music project for a day or two straight and not have to worry about going into the office.”

For as much as he loves what he does in the recording studio, C+Locious is not ready to rely on music alone to be his bread and butter. “Right now [the music] is obviously not paying the bills,” he says, “but it’s something that keeps me motivated and sane. The music is something I do on the side, and I will be content with it staying on the side if nothing comes from it, but I will continue to do it, hopefully with the quality output…I’ll be more recognized, be sought out more as a producer, and God-willing maybe one day I can make it something that pays the bills.”

Be inspired by C+Locious and watch him perform with Broken Dreams at Beauty Bar in San Diego, Saturday, July 31, 9 pm. [Click for more information.]

Broken Dreams, L-R: MoodSwingKing, C+Locious, BrekOne

Find out more about C+Locious and Broken Dreams:
http://www.facebook.com/clocious
http://www.twitter.com/clocious
http://www.myspace.com/clocious
http://www.myspace.com/brokendreamssd
http://www.famroyal.com

If you are looking for a place to record or would like to collaborate with C+Locious on your own projects, please contact him via any of the sites above.

And if you’re looking to buy a house, get in contact with Carlo at clayug@fullrealtyservices.com

Gerald de Jesus, (Not Starving) Artist

"Fuck all this starving artist shit."

That just about sums it up for artist Gerald de Jesus when asked whether or not he feels he traded his creative freedom in favor of a steady pay check. “Health benefits—they’re nice,” he says.

Job security, especially in today’s precarious economic climate, is something that prevails upon the minds of every American of working age today. Following one’s bliss is a luxury that most of us are not afforded, so it’s very rare to meet someone who is actually able to support themselves doing something that a) they are exceptional at and b) they actually love to do.

De Jesus is one of the lucky few. He’s been able to list “artist” as his profession since he graduated from Pasadena’s Art Center of College and Design in 1998, and he’s managed to maintain a relatively steady stream of work as a freelance artist since. His work has graced the pages of magazines, hung in galleries, and in 2009 he won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation: Production Design” for his work on Nickelodeon's cartoon series "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera."

That’s an impressive resume for someone who works in the arts, a field virtually characterized by financial instability. But if you’ve got the talent, as does de Jesus, maybe a career in the arts isn’t such a foolish pursuit after all. According to the department of labor the median annual salary for multi-media artists and animators in California was $76,000 in 2009. Not too shabby, really, when you think of that proverbial “starving artist,” eking out a meager existence and suffering for the sake of his art.

Although De Jesus works primarily for animation studios today, he spent many years cultivating a collection of personal paintings with a style uniquely his own. Described by some as “Beatrix Potter on acid”, his paintings incorporate storybook imagery, religious references, and an off-kilter perspective on death and tragedy that leaves the audience either chuckling, crying, or scratching their heads.  Despite the gallery invitations and critical acclaim he received, De Jesus recognized early that he would not be able to sustain a decent living on his personal works alone.

Through contacts he made in art school, De Jesus found supplemental income by doing freelance work in the realm of animation. Apparently in the art world, just as in the corporate world, networking can play a significant role in one’s success. “With how shy I am,” says de Jesus, “I’m not shy around the right people! It really is the trick sometimes… I haven’t had to do an animation test in a long time. I just get calls asking, Hey, are you free? Want some work?”

Although De Jesus makes it sound just that easy, it truly isn’t. There are spurts of time when De Jesus is inundated with freelance work. The nature of his employment is fickle—the longevity of his jobs are tied to the longevity of the project. A project must always wrap, and shows go off the air. It’s the fear of not having a new project in line that has de Jesus rarely ever saying no when work is offered.

"I work really hard at keeping a good reputation in this industry. I think sometimes it will kill me, but I know in the future it will pay off with gigs. Even though it may mess with my personal life, I feel it may pay off later down the road if I don’t have work. Also I try not to burn any bridges because you never know when you’ll be working with those people again.”

Winning the 2009 Emmy in Production Design only validated all the efforts de Jesus has made in his chosen career. Currently, de Jesus has a regular gig doing background painting for another major animation studio. Recently married, he seems the picture of contentment—again, a far cry from the archetypical tortured artist with which we are all familiar. De Jesus, it can be argued,used to be one.

I have to ask the question: Gerald de Jesus, do you think you sold out?

“I don’t think I sold out. My passion is to work in some kind of creative capacity and make a decent living to raise a family. I would gladly sacrifice not doing as many personal paintings to have a steady job. I still do what I do. And without my painting skills, there’s no way I would’ve gotten any work in the animation industry.”

De Jesus pauses for a moment, then adds, “I’m really lucky.”


See more of Gerald's artwork at http://www.artofgerald.com/.

"What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?"

After burning out from a 10-year stint as an elementary teacher, I was confronted with the very same question I had been asking my students for the last decade. The sad truth was that at 32 years old, I had not a clue. All I knew was that I didn't want to teach anymore.

Three years later, I had a vague idea-- I wanted to write. Write what, though, was the big question. I love to do it, it's what I'm best at, but I just didn't see how I could make money. So instead I languished in the accounting job I'd taken for "job security."

While I'm grateful to be employed in today's market, accounting is not really something that blows my hair back.  I love all the people I work with, I respect and admire my boss-- but still... There had to be something else out there career-wise. Accounting is a great fit for lots of people, just not for me.  Wanting out of my entry level accounting job and in hopes of getting a better paying position, I turned to the company's corporate recruiter to help "focus my career goals."

So we discussed all the jobs within the company that I thought I could do adequately. Each job position I brought up was met by the same sort of question:

"But do you think you could be passionate about doing ______________?"
"Do you have a passion for ______________?"
"Could you be passionate being ______________ for the long term?"

The questions dumbfounded me, frankly, and I wondered how anyone could honestly say they have a passion for any of these positions. I left my meeting with the corporate recruiter, feeling discouraged and irritated. Passion? I just need to not hate my job. I don't need to love it so much I'd want to marry it. First of all, you're lucky if you even have a job right now. If you have an actual "career", and not just a job, you are doubly blessed. Now, if you actually have a PASSION-- one off of which you can make a decent living... Well, that seems damn near impossible.

But then I really got to thinking about it. What really was my passion?

Easy: Writing.

Okay, well, why couldn't I make my passion my career? Is a career as a writer really that elusive? If other people can make a career out of their passion, why couldn't I?

The very least anyone can do is try. Even those who wait to win the Lottery have to get up and buy a ticket.

So as I actively and finally pursue my dream to become a professional writer, I want to talk to others who have succeeded or are trying to succeed in doing what they actually love to do.

The premise is this: Your Name, ____________________ (what you love to do)

How would you fill in your blank?