SOJOURN FOTO » Long Beach

A Cambodian New Year

Kimsua — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:02:39 +0000

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!

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

A Dirt Lot + A Cambodian Exile + Cain and Abel = “Expulsion”

Kimsua — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:53:15 +0000

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!

A Pre-Valentines Day Engagement with Monique and Leo

Kimsua — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:44:56 +0000

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

Kimsua — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:51:41 +0000

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!

A Pre-Halloween Concert That I missed…But The Bright Side is…

Kimsua — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:42:21 +0000

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Wow time flies and I mean that literally. Halloween felt like it was just yesterday and I can’t believe that tomorrow is actually Thanksgiving! I’ve been having dreams of fried turkey, oven roasted turkey, turkey breast, turkey wings, turkey legs, turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato pie, candied yams, cranberry this, cranberry that, pretty much everything that you can imagine at a Thanksgiving dinner for the last few days. Oh and best of all, I get to chow down on at least two separate turkeys, one fried and one roasted, plus all the fixings you can think of since we’ve been invited to two separate dinners tomorrow!

Anyways, that’s enough talk about food for now. I promised some photos from Khmer Arts Academy’s opening performance for Dengue Fever’s opening show almost a month ago and I’m now finally getting around to posting them up. You’ll probably notice that I don’t have any photos from Dengue Fever’s actual performance and you’ll probably wonder why. The answer to that is pretty simple as the Halloween party we were planning to attend literally started right after KAA’s opening dance ended. Since the party was down in Long Beach near the Queen Mary and we were all the way up north in Santa Monica we didn’t get the chance to stick around and watch the show even though we really wanted to. Oh well, that’s how life goes sometimes. Anyways on with the show and on with the photos. Enjoy!

Oh and before you go. If you would like to see the rest of the photos from the performance you can find them at my online gallery here.

Fall in Southern California… Plus some Lorikeets from the Aquarium of the Pacific

Kimsua — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:14:32 +0000

Back when I was a kid, summer was my favorite time of the year. Though I’m sure that had to do more with the fact that I had two months just to run around and do anything a kid wanted to do without having to worry about school than the actual season of summer itself. As I grew older, summer was still a favorite of mine until I became a drunken fan of the white powdery champagne that falls every winter in Colorado. So much of a fan that I became a season pass holder who somehow ended up with three different snowboards and would average at least one to two trips up the mountain a week in search of the powdery white stuff. And now, after having spent the last 5 years working through some very miserable winters throughout the Midwest I’ve had a recent change of heart. Fall is now my favorite season of the year as the temperatures are mild and the colors are bright. I guess that’s what happens when you get older. The little things become more important than they used to and the once overlooked pleasures such as being able to walk around with shorts and a t shirt on comfortably take precedence over the other things we had valued when we were younger. C’est la vie!

Anyways, I’ve got more photos from some events coming up including some from Khmer Arts Academy’s opening act for Dengue Fever just the other day. I’m just short on time when it comes to working on the photos since I’ve got to squeeze them in that little bit of free time that I have between my actual career and just life in general. In the mean time, enjoy this random mix of photos from a lovely fall afternoon in Southern California.