Sunday, October 12, 2008

salsa, tacos, and a plastic donkey


Bravo Tumbao Dance Company provided the free salsa lessons, and the exciting dance exposition (see slideshow for more pix of their dancing!)



This is Fred!!! 

Tierra y Libertad provided the ballet folklorico performances. Colorful, energetic...beautiful. See more in the slideshow!


j. and i got married last year, in south pasadena's Holy Family Catholic Church. that church holds significance, because it was the church that inspired j. to renew his faith, get baptized and confirmed, and he says, it also inspired him to "upgrade" (i hate the word "settle down") and propose to me. (j. and i had known each other for 11 years before we got married. we were 'babies' when we met). we absolutely love this church. the community is welcoming and warm. you really feel like small-towny there. the church, of course, is beautiful and reminiscent of the churches i attended while i was young, with the smell of old missalettes, incense, and old wood, not like the new, spacious, marble-esque, cold modern churches popping up around los angeles.

we recently moved 22 miles away, to covina, and miss our parish. we don't get to go as often as we should. so we were jazzed that we were able to volunteer our photography services and donate a bingo prize (a $250 valued session) this weekend at the parish festival. we were especially excited when we were told they needed someone to man the photo booth, and take pictures of kids and families on top of a burro (donkey). so i brought my digital SLR and powered up my batteries because i was excited to shoot a real live burro. i've seen them rented for birthday parties, before, but never was upfront, close and personal to one.

when we got to the photo booth, we saw a donkey all right. a plastic rental donkey. our lil' booth looked lonely, with our white tent, polaroid camera, and "Fred" (we named him!). we thought, ok, we really need to pump it up and encourage some kids and parents to take pictures at our booth. it was only 5 tickets. so everyone that passed by, we sold Fred like he was the next best thing since...the cow. it didn't take but 5 min., that we had our first customers. much to our surprise, we had steady business for at least 3 hours! Fred was a hit! who knew? 

we had so much fun, meeting new and old friends. it made us miss our church more. we really need to go at least 1x a month and attend mass here. 

the entertainment was great! folklorico (Tierra y Libertad), salsa lessons (Bravo Tumbao), and a salsa band (Latin Sol). who could ask for anything more! i love the dancing pictures, especially, because you can see the joy and fun in a dancer's face. it's so exhilarating to watch and even more fun to photograph! i'll post more pix about the excellent salsa band, Latin Sol, on my next blog entry. they were sooooo good! their music made you want to shake that thang! there's nothing like LIVE music!!! see pix of them in the slideshow!

thank you to Juan Jimenez, the entertainment coordinator, for being such a cool guy, even though Fred was worked like a horse (we didn't know we couldn't put kids on Fred! yikes! busted!).  we would also like to thank Barbara Wagner, the event coordinator, for giving us such a cool, fun job! we hope to have the opportunity again!

above are some pictures of the event! click here to view the slideshow!

(if you would like to have additional info on any of the groups above, please let me know! info@gjspillerphotography.com)

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