Mother's Day 2011

I bought myself these flowers on this past Mother's Day.  I took this pic with my cell phone.

Accounted For

Before surgical instruments go into a room, they must each be accounted for.  This is one of the sheets that goes into the set.

Niko

My Aunt and Uncle's dog, Niko.  He's old and blind now. I love this picture of him.

Keys

I have a "RetroCam" app on my phone.  I am amazed at the clarity and quality of the pics it takes.  This is a computer keyboard at work.

Indulgence

Suffering from a closet eating disorder, this is one of my many binges at work.  I spend many hours alone, and at one point, I would buy trays and trays of food.  I would binge on them all day, causing me to gain over 30 lbs in less that 6 months.

Burst of Color

Ceiling in a Las Vegas hotel that was covered in glass flowers.  The colors were amazing.

Drunken Nights

I had many nights of partying.  I took strange pictures when I was drunk.

Bring Him to Life

There was a casino in Las Vegas that was filled with hot air balloons, flower created sculptures and other amazing displays

.  This was one of them.

Quiet Corner

Believe it or not, I found this corner in a random area in a shopping a mall in Las Vegas.  It reminded me of Italy or something.

Concentration

This is the guy that was doing my friend's tattoo in Las Vegas.  He was awesome.  He went on vacation to Las Vegas and never went back home.  He just decided to stay.  Pretty cool stuff.

Abuelita's Rose

My Abuela was always known for her roses.  She loved to grow them each year and sit in the yard during the summer to just look at them.  She loved to walk around the yard and smell them.  This was one of her many roses.

Bring Us Home

Another wax figure at the Pequot museum that was rowing the bow in the main lobby.

Determined

This is another one of the wax figures at the Pequot Museum in CT

Wayne's #2

Wayne Newton's other horse that was outside that day.

Wayne's #1

This is one of Wayne Newton's horses outside of his home in Las Vegas.

Indian Girl

I went to the Pequot Museum, and there were amazing wax figures there.  They were the most life-like ones I have ever seen in person.  This was in the main lobby.  There was a large canoe set up like a scene of a large family rowing down a river.  This one girl was captivating.

A Piece of Home

The original basement door to my mother's house.  It was old and always leaking water into the basement.  It's no longer there, and I'm glad I have a picture of it.

Balloons

Hot air balloons in a Las Vegas casino.

In the Spotlight

My daughter, Naima.  I don't know how old she was, but I know I was pregnant with her brother.

Duck in Water

I went to Mystic Aquarium in CT.  While walking in the outside area, I spotted a duck in some water.

Newborn

My son, Jordan.  His first week of life <3

Americana

A small statue outside my mom's house. She has lots of little decorations outside of her house.  I love that she always tries to be so festive.

Monkey Feet

My son, Jordan's feet when we first brought him home.

Here Comes Autumn

My dog, Solow's water bowl.

The Clown

Every hour on the hour, the casino, Circus Circus in Las Vegas, puts on a small show.  This was the clown in the show when we went our trip.

I can't STAND clowns, but I had to take a picture of him :)

Lady Gangster

This is my female cousin.  The copy is dark, but she's wearing the same suit and hat as her brother in the picture below.  She's also holding a toy rifle.  I took lots this day, but this was my favorite.

Gangster

I don't remember the exact assignment this was for class, but I remember dressing my two little cousins up in my dad's suit and his father's old Fedora hat.  These pics are not clear because I do not have a scanner.  These ended up getting framed and put in their mom's living room.

In Her Hands

This assignment was the first of our photography class.  We had to get a partner and take pics of one another.

Pacito

My mom's dog Paco. 

Solovino

His name is Solovino.  He goes by Solow.  He is my best friend and has been for about 8 years now.  I rescued him from a home when he was 2 weeks old.  The owners of the mother raised Pitbulls for fighting.  I would have taken them all if I could.  I raised and bottle-fed him.  He is my baby boy.  My Abuela named him Solvino after a dog her son once had.  It fit him perfectly.  Because of his behavioral issues, he's always stuck in a room alone.  I can't take him anywhere because he wants to attack everyone.  He's my baby boy, and I love him.  This picture captured his sadness so well.

Bringing Latin Home

Throughout the majority of Latino households, you will find rooms filled with vibrant colors.  While my mother decorates the rest of her home with country and folk art crafts and whatnot, her kitchen has always been filled with bright fruits and vegetables.  I always loved her kitchen window.  In the summer time, the breeze comes in, and she has all these colorful glass bottles that just seem to shine so bright in the sunlight.

Modern Tradition

This is another picture that did not come out clear because of my lack of a scanner.  That's unfortunate because one of the reasons this is called, "Modern Tradition", is because of the remote control in the background that is not visible in the top left-hand corner.  My mom makes home-made "tortillas de harina"- Flour Tortillas for my father all the time.  I loved how her hands looked so hard at work and strong.  It reminded me of people many years ago farming and growing food for their families. And the women hard at work in the kitchen.  I thought the remote control had ruined the picture because I wanted to emphasize the "ancestor type culture", but my professor said she thought the remote was a great addition.  She felt it showed that modern families can still be traditional.  So, it stayed.

A Russian Gift

A have a friend who's family comes from Russia always told me stories from his family's country.  He always tried his best to show me different cultures.  He told me once (I might not get this 100% correct because it has been years since he told me), that a man brought an orange to a woman because oranges were something that not all families could have due to poverty.  And a rose for it's beauty.  Something along those lines.  One day he and I got into a bad argument.  One morning I walked out to my car and in my walkway was this orange and rose.  I felt so honored because I knew the symbolism of them.

His Embrace

This is a statue at the entrance of Holy Land in Waterbury, CT.  I didn't even really notice the plate at his feet with something sharp through it.  After developing these pictures, some women at work told me that it was voodoo.  That makes the picture that more eerie.  Once again, the quality of this picture isn't that great here because I took a picture of the original using my MacBook due to no scanner.

Sgt. Pepper

When I went to Las Vegas a few summers back, we went to a casino (Cesar's maybe?)  that had a zoo outside.  We saw all kinds of animals, but the dolphins were my favorite.  This one's name was Sergeant Pepper.

His Land

This picture was one of many that I took up in Holy Land.  In photography, we had an assignment to take pictures of our neighborhood.  I wanted to show people the parts of Waterbury that not a lot of people see if they are not from here.  I went to the barrios and ghettos and took pictures of everyday life.  One of the places I stopped though was Holyland.  This cross was the original one.  I'm glad I got to capture it before they tore it down and replaced it with the one currently there.  This cross illuminated.  The new one has lights shining onto it.  Sadly, this is somewhere I don't ever want to visit again after the murder of Chloe Ottman last year at the base of the new cross, where she was raped and killed.  I wish the copies I made of these pics came out better than they did, but I don't have a scanner.  I have to take a photo of the original.

His Undying Love

I went on a summer vacation to Las Vegas with my friend and her family a few years back.  We stopped at a tattoo shop a few blocks down from our hotel, Circus Circus.  While my friend and her mother got tattoos, I decided to take a few pictures in the shop.  I loved this little guy hanging from a cabinet door.

Last Day of Bliss

I can't remember what town/city this was in CT.  A friend of mine brought me wine tasting on the last day of summer that year.  Right as we were driving away, I asked him to stop the car, and I quickly took this picture.  The leaves were just beginning to turn, and it was the last hot day we had that year.  Afterwards, we went up to Hubbard park at Castle Craig and drank home-made wine on a cliff.  It was a day I will never forget.  I'm just happy I have this pic to remember it by.

Stairway to Someone's Heaven

This picture was taken at Block Island.  I told my mom that summer we were going to do something special together every weekend.  We only went two places.  This was one of them.  We wanted to go somewhere to sit on the beach all day.  We rented a jeep and got a tourist map.  We visited all the corny little landmarks on the island.  It's one of the memories of my mother I will carry with me forever even after she is gone.

When we were little, my dad brought us to block island.  My mom got a picture of these same stairs.  When I knew for sure we were going to Block Island after all those years later, I hoped to make it to these stairs again to recapture my view of them.

Bird in Sky

 I took this picture on a road trip to Virginia with a close friend.  We stopped at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.  I liked the original picture, but there was so much blank space, I felt like something was missing.  I created the digital piece on the right with the original.