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I was born and raised in Mexico City when T.V. remotes, mobile devices, and social media were non-existent. I grew up watching Thundercats, Transformers, and Mazinger Z, playing Mario Bros. 3 on the original NES, playing soccer on the street with my friends, and snapping pictures in 110 film format (using a Kodak Star 110 my mom gave me as a xMas present). As for programming, I've been at it since high school, starting with Visual Basic 5.0 and moving on to other languages like Java, Assembly Language, PHP, Perl, C++, Scheme, Lisp, and Prolog.
After taking a break from work in 2007, I returned to school to learn and compare different programming languages; then, I wrote a lessons-learned short paper for XP2009. After that, I hopped from one job to the next until 2013, when I got a partial job teaching Programming Fundamentals to Computer Science students using Python - it was awesome!
We moved to California in 2015, and by 2018, I had gotten into shooting and developing 35mm B&W film and printing in the darkroom. Then 2020 rolled around, and the pandemic and remote work allowed me to rebuild my photo portfolio.
The following year, I decided to try new things like drawing, skateboarding, and flying drones (and inevitably crashing and losing them). As part of my exploration, I got into a mentorship program with David Alan Harvey & Alejandra Martinez, and you can see what came out of it in Burn Magazine.
2022 was great with new photo essay projects, travel, and learning new skills, culminating in hosting the Los Angeles River X.
And now we're in 2023! "Finding James" (inspired by The Doors and my brother's bipolar disorder) was finally released on March 30th (World Bipolar Day); from May 3-27, I'll be part of the River: The Ribbon of Life Exhibition at The Artists Gallery in L.A., and later this year, I'll release "We were looking in the wrong place," which deals with my mom's breast cancer and the brain/spine metastasis that caught us off guard.
Notes to myself: It's a beautiful life, oh oh oh oh. Ride it out—time flies. Our jellybeans are limited.
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