Week 28/52 - Heart On The Sleeve
I cannot believe I made it to week 28! I have been pushing myself to release previous blogs before hitting week 32! Exactly 20 people left to photograph for 2017!
The 28th portrait of the week for July 9th to July 15th is my long time friend Ryan Visitacion! We known each other for six years since 2011. In between those six years, we audulted and lived our own lives having not heard from him. To see him after years, it was time for a reunion session. He saw Nick's session, who was the 20th week, and thought it was dope. I asked him to be in my project and he was excited to experience a photo shoot. We picked a Saturday evening in July with the theme of urban street portrait. In this session, you will read about a short bio about Ryan, our time together, and what is coming up in the future. Also, friends and family of Ryan, read all the way to the very end. You'll be in for a surprise. Sit back and enjoy the light show!
Ryan is an Alaskan that is rambunctious who sees life vibrant, ambitious, and spiritually warm. He is up to being in the present with his family and showing off his bad ass break dancing moves. We met way back in 2011 through a childhood friend from elementary school. I can't remember exactly how we met. What I remember from our history together is going to Garage with a large group of people playing pool and having our first photo shoot session playing the ukulele. It was the first moment I saw how passionate he felt toward anything. He is talented. After our last hang out, he went out to see what else is out there for him. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee for many reasons. Pursued education, family, and created a life there for three years. He recently came back to Seattle within one year and working toward a greater purpose. I saw his online presence and messaged him to reconnect. He had shared with me shows he has went and upcoming shows he would attend next. Excited to hear about his love for the music, I couldn't wait to meet up with him. We were able to meet up at USC Events Bliss, dance to beautiful trance music, and exchanged LED glove lightshow. The second time I saw him was at Kaskade Spring Fling. I can say he has transformed into a high spiritual man who is all about creating from nothing. Now make your way toward what we actually during our session.
For our session, our location was around Pike Place. Ryan works in downtown at a supplement store. He takes public transportation so he is always walking around with his backpack. At first we met up in Capitol Hill, however, it was too crowded with part of Pine street blocked off for a summer festivity every Saturday. Instead, we divert our attention to Pike Place/Belltown area. Ryan admitted he has never done a photo shoot, yet, I had him remembered the first photo shoot. With this particular, he was nervous. I gave him direction on where to start walking from, asked him to play music in his headphone, and get into the music just as he was strolling around the city. We started from the bottom entrance of Pike Place Marketfront with the large blue. lit pathway and worked our way down to a parking lot above the Seattle Antique Market store. Throughout the shoot, he was super open to suggestion and offered his idea of what to portray in my composition. Dark, grungy concrete that is chipped and dirty suits the outfit he was wearing. Heck, between posing and catching the moment he meshed perfectly with the environment. As we approached the final portion of the shoot, it was time to pull out the LED glove and perform a lightshow. This was the third time I photographed a lightshow. This lightshow performance was tough due to not having much lighting surrounding us and music only in the headphone. Despite the difficulty, I am happy with the result. As I mentioned in a few previous sentences, the dark, moody environment went perfectly with the lightshow. The last shot is a self portrait between the both of us. Don't I look good in a fedora hat?
As we get to the end of the blog, I wanted to share two images of Ryan playing the ukulele. Being a beginner and learning about post production, I produced this work of art at the time. Time have certainly passed. As we were out shooting, we shared many conversation about living life in the present, how the rave culture became a part of our life, what has happened between the six year hiatus, and what is coming up. I can say the next event we will attend is at Above & Beyond Group Therapy 250 concert this September. Being it is a little over a month from now, time is flying fast!
Finally, Ryan, thank you for being in my project. It was a joy to hang out, catch up, and kick it at the end of the night with some break dancing. Wear that heart that is underneath your arm and show it off! Your energy will magnetize people to learn about you and be in your life. Continue to create a life you want. Thank you for letting me wear the hat!
Week 29 is riding close. That week is perhaps a great week because it is a location and type of photography that stepped me out of my comfort zone. Going into that week, I'll get to share how that week went not just the shoot, but in general. Thank you for reading to the end! See you soon!
- Sally