Posts Tagged ‘Long Beach’

A Cambodian New Year

April 21, 2010

Sou sdey, chnam tmey! Which for those of you who don’t speak Khmer, translates into Happy New Year! Yes I know, it’s April not January or even February like Chinese New Year but there’s a reason for that. Cambodians celebrate their New Year from April 13-15th (or whatever weekend falls close for those not in Cambodia) as those dates typically land at the end of the harvesting season.

Traditionally the New Year is celebrated with blessings that involve wiping powder on peoples faces and water fights while the hard working farmers take a moment to enjoy the fruits of their harvest and relax before the rainy season begins. Now as you can imagine, the celebrations are quite a bit different here in the States and abroad than they are in Cambodia but the partying is still there nonetheless. Here in Long Beach, the celebrations started with the 6th Annual Cambodian New Year Parade which took place on April 4th followed by the annual New Year Celebration at El Dorado Park on the 10th. Now normally I would have been out there documenting the celebrations with my camera, but this year I told myself to just simply enjoy the party instead of taking photos of everyone else enjoying it. But with that said, I couldn’t stop myself from snapping a few photos so here are some shots from the New Years Parade and a few more from KAA’s performance at El Dorado Park. Enjoy!

Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year
Cambodian New Year

And as always, you can find the rest of the photos from KAA’s performance at SOJOURN FOTO’s Online Gallery.

A family torn apart by war only to be reunited in a far away land. A brother’s jealously leads to the death of another. A dirt lot in the City of Long Beach plus the creative minds of the Collage Dance Theatre and Khmer Arts Academy equals modern day story of those two tales: Expulsion.


















And if you’d like to see the rest of the photos from Expulsion, you can find them here!

Ever had one of those days that you had been looking forward to for quite awhile and as that day came closer it actually became further and further away? Well I’m not sure if Monique and Leo felt that way about yesterday but I sure did! After a little bit of bad luck with the normally sunny Southern California weather, a change in location due to some unforeseen problems and a little bit of conflict in our schedules we were finally able to sneak in Monique and Leo’s engagement session yesterday. I had also thought that we had struck gold with the weather since the day started out great with some beautiful 80 degree temps and cloud free skies! That, however, quickly took a turn in the opposite once the sun started setting and the chilled air started to rear it’s head. Fortunately though, Monique and Leo (and my lovely assistant Julie of course) were troopers about it and stuck it out till the end even though it was becoming bitterly cold. Okay, maybe not quite bitterly cold but it was cold enough since there wasn’t a jacket or sweater to be seen on any of us. But anyways, that’s enough from me. On to the photos, Enjoy!










Fifteen minutes of fame

January 5, 2010

So for those of you who don’t know, I have a pug named Sojo. Actually he’s more Julie’s dog than mine these days since I’m always on the road but you get the point. Anyways he’s a very special dog and while we were at the beach earlier today he gave me a nice smile with this pose and out came this shot. And since the shot of Sojo (and Julie just in case you thought I forgot) was so lovely, I figured I would post it to give him some love too since he has yet to receive any on my blog. So here you go Sojo, enjoy your 15 minutes of internet fame!