a moment of personal reflection.

hmmmm...


my boyfriend and i have FIVE blankets on our bed... and we live in southern california. are we wusses or what?!!!

SONGS STUCK ON REPEAT:
*CCS - Music is my Hot, Hot Sex
*Firewater (featuring Jennifer Charles) - Bad, Bad World
*Richard Ashcroft - I Get My Beat
*The Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You
*Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running
*Incubus - Dig

TOO FUNNY.

so i sent my grandmother some production stills from the shoot i assisted for CJ...

"did you get the pictures i sent you???" i asked.
"yeah, i saw that CJ Burton. He's a bit strange looking..."
"uhhh..."
"i mean his hair," she said.
"yeah, i guess it's sorta flat to his head," i said, half questioning.
"what are you talking about?! it was standing up all over the place!!"

and then i realized who she thought CJ Burton was...




"wait a minute," i said between laughs. "why would the photographer's face be painted RED?!!"
"what?? i just thought he had a ruddy complexion."
"and what about the pictures i sent you of the guy holding a camera??" i asked. "who did you think that was??"
"someone who worked for him!!"

aye, my grandmother. one of the many reasons why i love her.

for the record, here's what CJ really looks like.

thursday thru sunday... let me fill you in.

thursday i worked a casting call for dave and, as always, it was a lot of fun. dave is currently casting baby boomers for an upcoming stock shoot. when we arrived on location there was no one there to let us in the studio dave rented, so we upgraded to dave's friend's big, beautiful studio on the second floor with lots of windows and great light. lisa (the stylist who i met at dave's spike tv shoots) stopped by for lunch. she gave me the name of a good thai restaurant that i am definitely going to check out because i have yet to find a really good thai place around here. there was a good turnout for the casting call... we saw about 110 people. quite a few characters and a handful of really good, workable people. toward the end of the day, dave let me shoot some people!! i loved making them do all the "Oooo's" and "HEY!'s" and "WOW's" and funny faces dave has them make when he is casting. i always find it amusing how easily people comply when a camera is involved, hehe.

friday i bummed around/stayed in my pjs all day long. i emailed a few photographers and looked for work on craigslist. found a few promotional jobs. rick and his dad picked up his rick's sister and her family at the airport and guess who they saw... GREG BRADY!!!! haha, yep, barry williams was arriving from somewhere and rick didn't even take a photo with his cell phone!! :( i think i would have had to sneak one... it's not every day you see Greg Brady.

saturday i met up with rebecca (rutabegabunny on flickr) at her dad's house and saw his infamous celebrity pool!! herbert anderson (the dad from the old 'dennis the menace' tv show) was the previous owner of the home rebecca grew up in. the pool is extremely photogenic... very retro looking, with a lot of curves. soon after admiring the pool, we were off to melrose for a thrift shopping spree.


we hit up SLOW which USED TO BE one of my favorite thrift stores. i hadn't been there since may 2005, and A LOT has changed. first off, the store now over-employs a bunch of teenage hipsters. secondly, most of the clothes were NEW. and thirdly, they did away with alllll the kewl tee shirts that used to be on the second floor. :( the prices are still reasonable, but i still am highly disappointed. we ate some soup and shopped at wasteland, crossroads trading co. and a few other places. i would up buying rick a hooded sweatshirt/zip-up and a REALLY nice quiksilver zip-up that is more like jacket. it was only $25 and it looks brand new. i bought myself three shirts that i'm sure you'll see photos of in the near future. rebecca wound up buying a few shirts too and a pair of marc jacobs pants. and no shopping excursion is complete without a dressing room photoshoot!!

sunday: rick went to church with his sister and his neice and then went over his parent's house. he always lets me sleep in, which is nice, but then i feel bad about not going to his parent's house with him. i played boggle online with my mother. some of the people on the boggle site are waaaay too damn good at the game!! (try your luck here). i also did dishes, went for a walk, caught up with justin and talked to margot's mom. sunday night, i watched Dark Victory, a pretty gloomy bette davis movie. i also uploaded some new photos to my flickr so be sure to check em out!!!!

happy birthday to rick!!

wednesday was rick's birthday!! after working (and driving) all day long on tuesday, i stayed up until 2 am baking rick a cheese pie, decorating our apartment and finishing his birthday card. and of course i didn't let the cake finish cooling before i put the icing on... :( you can see the funny result here. on wednesday, i was exhausted!! i surprised rick by having aldrin bring a chuckie cheese pizza over for dinner, hehe.



we had a good time laughin, and eatin and findin silly things online. and although we kept rick's birthday pretty low-key, it was still an awesome night because it was the first time i got to spend rick's birthday with him!! the past two birthdays have consisted of long-distance celebrations and priority mail. one year i even sent rick a slice of carrot cake from my school and my mom and i took photos of the happy birthday messages we wrote on the sidewalk with chalk, hehe. we've come a long way.

color-licious

some of my new uploads on flickr...

stoop
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

pink azaleas
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

man's best friend
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

workin with CJ.

tuesday and wednesday i worked as 2nd assistant to CJ. the first day i was mainly a gofer, which i didn't take to too well. in fact, i called dave, complained and told him i decided i want to work for him for the rest of my life (which i would gladly do). i ran to CJ's hotel, and to the paint store, and then the 1st assistant/studio manager asked me to run to supermarket to buy more soda (and trust me, we didn't need any more soda). OOOO, guess where the 1st assistant got her photography degree... BROOKS!!!! my favorite place on earth, hahaha. poor Brooks' alum/students. this girl is pretty well established and works for 6 photographers but it seems she has lost her shot at becoming a photographer. she feels like she doesn't have a style... and that's after three years at Brooks!!

ANYWAY... on tuesday i did dishes, varnished a veneer panel and painted a large square of linoleum "weathered brown." it was exciting to be involved in the making of the set (for about two minutes) until the fumes started to get to me. on wednesday i served as the model fill-in and packed up a very large desk. each afternoon lunch was catered by local places like Tender Greens and Bamboo!!

the shoots were pretty fun. there was an earth, wind, fire and water theme which involved a lot of hair and makeup. it was interesting to see how CJ works and what a different style he has compared to the other photographers i've worked with. CJ is really precise. he starts with sketch and follows that sketch to the very last detail. instead of shooting a bunch of various shots, CJ has ONE shot in mind and he achieves it. personally, that method would scare the crap out of me because i like options, but if you have a high-end client (in this case, Geiger Furniture) and you sent them a sketch for an ad they are paying big bucks for, i can see why you would want to be precise.

overall, CJ was really professional and personable and i would like to work with him again. he said he'll contact me the next time he has another shoot on the west coast. :)

monday at venice beach

on monday i drove to culver city (got lost on the way, of course) and met with photographer CJ Burton to find out what i'd be doing for the shoot on tues and wed. the meeting lasted all of 5 min. luckily i brought my polaroid camera to take some photos in venice, otherwise the trip would have been a TOTAL waste of gas. my goal was to find the infamous starry night mural in venice beach.

i stopped in aardvark's (a thrift store) and was highly disappointed... the clothes were more costume-y than wearable. from there, i ventured down to venice beach, which reminded me of the bad sections of the seaside boardwalk (down the jersey shore) circa 1990s but with more bums. and instead of wafts of garbage, there are wafts of urine... so maybe venice isn't like seaside at all. needless to say, i wasn't too impressed but i still wanted to take some photos.

i parked on a little main street and was paranoid about getting ANOTHER parking ticket, so i made it back to my car with PLENTY of time to spare. i called hal to see if he wanted to meet up. he had a meeting with someone but asked if i could kill an hour so i drove around the block a few times and found what i believe is the ONLY FREE parking in the area. i couldn't believe it... free parking in california?!!! that's unheard of.

i walked down the nearest street to get to the ocean walk and took a photo of a cute little mural i found along the way. i walked to the graffiti wall on the beach, wandered around snapping polaroids, and peeked down every side street hoping to find the starry night mural. i found this guy who sits with his dog (who wears sunglasses) that i remember seeing on mike's (wakejunkie) flickr. later i saw a bunch of little asian girls get yelled at by the tattoo parlor guys for getting too close to the dog while the man was sleeping.

i walked pretty far down the ocean walk before turning around and heading back to the street that would eventually lead me to my car and *TAH DAH!!* found the starry night mural. i don't know how i managed to walk right past it, but it was on the first street i walked down to get to ocean walk. in fact, it was DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM the other mural i took a photo of!! haha.

naturally, by this time, there was an BIG, ugly yellow utility truck blocking half of the mural. i, being the sometimes nervey photographer that i am, walked up to the men sitting in the truck and said,

"excuse me, are you guys planning on staying here all day??"
"why do you want to take a picture??" the passenger asked, looking at my cameras.
"yeah."
"well then i guess we can back up, but just for you."
so the guys had to sit there, watching me take my polaroids and then moved back to their spot after i was finished, haha. i was trying to hurry, so the first polaroid i took is more faded because i just held it while i was taking the second photo and i was standing in direct sunlight. :( as i was leaving one of the guys asked if he could take a photo of me and held out his camera phone. i laughed, trying not to drop my camera as i juggled the polaroids, my other camera and my bag.

my plans to meet up with hal had to be postponed (the lady he was supposed to meet up with was late) so i headed back to the apartment.

What did the mom tomato say to her little kid tomato when they were walking into town?

..................Ketchup!!

thursday: i bummed around. all. day. long. i called dave who will have some work for me the end of the week. he wants to have another casting call. rick brought me home roses... just because (aw!) hehe. i did dishes and played scrabble and boggle online with my mother. she always beats me at scrabble (only online) but i always beat her at boggle. rick and i watched The Best Years of Our Lives, a black and white film (from 1946) about three WWII veterans who return home and must adjust to being a civilian again. it's a REALLY good movie. i highly recommend it. there's a man/actor in the movie who has hooks for arms and he is amazing with those things!! the movie has really good story line; only one thing irked me and that was one of the main characters' sons. he was barely in the movie and they his family never invites him anywhere. it was almost as if he was just a fill character. i didn't understand his purpose or significance in this film.

friday: turkey burger night at aldrin's house with tim and their friend fonz. aldrin made his special turkey burger patties mixed with bacon served with ranch dressing and potatoe chips. i made some veges to go along with the burgers. we rented The Jerk, a classic steve martin comedy. rick and i stayed at aldo's til 11 pm then we stayed overnight at rick's parent's house while they were in washington d.c. i also got a package from my mom filled with eastery goodies and my dad's old camera AND a package from my aunt stuffed with a new spring-y bedspread. :)

one of many crazy hats:


why skippy doesn't like tim:


saturday: worked an easter promo in a furniture store from 10:30-4:00. i was the polaroid photographer. good pay, easy job and it was fun. it was kind of a funny scene tho... me talking to a giant bunny. i felt bad for the guy (paul berg) who was the bunny though... that suit was hot!! and he talked in his bunny voice the entire day, in case any kids were lingering nearby. paul was pretty interesting though, he's a puppeteer and has worked on a few snuggles the bear laundry detergent commercials as well as Men in Black I and II. (he controlled the lungs of the little alien who lived inside the big alien's head). after work, rick and i got some jamba juice and watched 13 going on 30 on tv (cute movie). later that night, we picked up his parent's from the airport.

easter sunday: my mom had groceries delivered to the apartment again!! :) this time she sent over mangoes, pineapples, strawberries, swordfish steaks, asparagus, grapes, clementines and beef jerky. my mom is the best!! rick went to church and then we went to his parent's house. we were expecting a low-key BBQ with his parents, but his old neighbors stopped by as a surprise. they were very nice, brought a cake and stayed for dinner. the daughters (nicole and racquel) are our age and are living in pasadena now, so we will probably go out with them sometime. rick's sister and her family stopped by and rick's niece isabel taught me some new patty-cake rhymes. then rick's neighbors all came over and lots of funny old stories were exchanged.

my mom loves me:


monday-wednesday: i work for photographer CJ Burton. wednesday is ricardo's birthday!!!!! so hopefully i won't be working too late that day because i have a few plans up my sleeve ;) i just hope i have the time to accomplish them all!!!!