never again.

today i met up with my friend hal to take some photos. we met at a place known as "top of the world" which is basically a road on top of a mountain. the road there wasn't too bad -- very windy and desserted, but nothing treacherous. there were a few "rough road ahead" signs that could be taken with a grain of salt. i took some kewl polaroids that i will post within the next few days. the plan was to hike around for a bit and then go pick up hal's girlfriend from her job interview for the Getty. everything was going good... we trespassed (if you wanna get technical), took some good photos, we could see the smoke from the hollywood hills fire. (my beloved sign was unharmed, thankfully). hal was using his NEW 5D so let me use his Rebel. we saw some AMAZING views and awesome houses. one dark-colored gothic-ish house in particular that my dad would have loved to live in. i pet a white horse and fed it grass and i saw thee largest prickly pear cactuses ever (i hate the word cacti).

there was even this girl who was driving ahead of us, stopping at the same spots we were to admire the view. she drove off then drove back to where we were just to tell us there was a better spot up the road with a nicer view and better parking. i was impressed. that was really thoughtful.

so i made friends with the white horse and then i followed hal down the mountain. (here comes the NEVER AGAIN PART...) the road back down was THEE MOST WINDIEST ROAD I HAVE EVERRR BEEN ON. if you look at the road on google map, you wouldn't believe it. hairpin turns, falling rock, landslide warning signs everywhere, one lane road, alllll downhill. i felt like i was downhill skiing... in a car!! i couldn't tell whether it was my car that smelt like burning or hal's (i think it was hal's) but by the time we finally reached the bottom, my brakes BARELY wanted to stop my car. and i was driving in low gear!! so i freaked out and pulled over to the side of the road and bailed out of the rest of our photo adventure. never again will i let hal take me down a mountain or a "short cut" or both. i felt bad for cutting our adventure short, but after that incident, i didn't want to drive any further away from the apartment.

soooo... next time, i am driving to hal's neck of the woods (read: relatively flat land) and we will embark on another, longer photo adventure. perhaps even rick will want to come along. :)

JENA ARDELL PHOTO TEES!!!!

introducing NEW merchandise!!!!

now you wear your favorite jena ardell photos!! i created a line of photo tee shirts which feature one of my polaroid photographs in the center. there are many different styles and colors... each is fully customizable. CHECK EM OUT!!

ALSO, there's only a few days left for voting for JPG MAGAZINE issue 10 you can vote for my submission here. you have to sign up for an account first, but it's quick and painless (and free)!!

as of now, the photo has 408 Views and 90 Yeahs and 10 people call it a favorite. my goal is to break 100 Yeahs!! so please help me out. :D

work and movie review.

tuesday i worked as assistant for dave. the shoot was in pasadena in a bike shop for a magazine article. it was thee easiest job... one light. one person. one hundred shots. quick and painless. dave and i were talking about movies and i mentioned that rick and i saw Shooter and dave said, "you know mark wahlberg is my neighbor, right??" i accused him of lying because i thought he meant next door neighbor, but really dave meant mark lives RIGHT NEAR his house. so on our way back to his house, dave showed me mark wahlberg's compound and demi moore's house too. then i organized dave's photo equipment shelf in his garage and he showed me some photo programs (photoshop cs3, bridge and aperture). i'm not quite sure what new features photoshop cs3, but i bet the upgrades from cs2 are insignificant (at least, to me).

monday night: rick and i watched the movie Thirteen and it was HORRIBLE. yes, the point is that the main character is "growing up" too fast but the plot jumps ahead waaay too quickly. one day the main character is shunned by the popular, bad girls at school and then the next day they talk to her because she's wearing "cool" clothes. that wouldn't happen. i was expecting to learn that the main character was raped by her mom's boyfriend by the way she'd freak out and have mini flashbacks every time she saw him. the dialogue is lame and the story becomes unrealistic at times. whenever the bad-influence best friend wanted sympathy and didn't want to get kicked out of the main character's house, she'd just say her uncle burned her and pushed her into a fire. VERY UNCONVINCING both in the way the lines were delivered and the fact that the character only had one odd scar on her back. i'm not sure why this film won awards and nominations especially in 2003 and 2004 because seemed outdated. i think i'd be more understanding (and less critical) had the movie was made in the early 90s... it seemed cheesy enough.

bottom line: you can tell a thirteen-year-old co-wrote the screenplay.

steve martin and loquats... two of my favorite things.

this weekend was pretty mellow. on sunday rick and i went to his parent's house and did laundry. we hung out with aldrin, picked up magoo food and checked out head units because mine is busted. i ate A LOT of loquats because they are amazing. for those of you who are unfamiliar with the loquat, it is a small, fragile fruit with the most indescribable taste!! they have a semi-fuzzy skin that needs to be peeled off and about six smooth seeds in the center. the seeds feel really kewl in your mouth when your teeth slide across them. the fruit that you need to eat at least a half dozen in one sitting. my boyfriend's parent's have a loquat tree growing in their back yard. i tried to start one in NJ, but no luck.

one spring, my best friend andrea and i were visiting rick and we raided his loquat tree while he was at work. we ate THIRTEEN of them... EACH!! we were savages!! you should have seen our fingernails!! they were so gunky. we scouted the biggest and best in the tree and i stood on andrea's back trying to reach them. after we told rick about the lengths we went to get the good ones, he asked "why didn't you guys just get the ladder that's sitting right alongside the house???" hahaha.

rick and i wound up eating dinner at chilli's with aldo, tim and his girlfriend morgan who is on spring break right now. we all are going to go hiking this week and aldo and his friend jen want to go to the griffith observatory. i've never been there but i've seen it in the movie Bowfinger, hehe. of which, i had no idea steve martin wrote the screenplay to Bowfinger!! he never ceases to amaze me. he's an amazing writer. i love his voice, his talent and his movies. he's timeless. he's a good looking man and i bet i'd even enjoy watching scary movie 3 (my least favorite movie) if steve martin narrated it.

some facts (from imdb.com) you may not know about mr. steve martin:
*He was chosen as #6 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.
*He was considered for the role of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
and... *drum roll*
*Contrary to popular belief, Martin was never a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" (1975). However, he holds the records for guest appearances (25) on the show, hosting (14 times), and hosting in a single season (3). He is also the only person to have hosted a season premiere, a season finale, and a Christmas show.

"All I've ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work." ~steve martin

is it my birthday or something?!

friday night was pretty awesome. rick spoiled me rotten. i got home and he had done the dishes and bought me fruit... lots of fruit. a cantaloupe, strawberries and grapes. Mmmm!! i was pretty exhausted so i took a little nap while rick cooked dinner for me. then we went to the movies to see Shooter and rick bought my ticket. and then rick said...

rick: damn, i am hooking you up to-night guuurl!!
jena: i know!! is it my birthday and i just don't know it?!!
rick: no, but when your birthday rolls around and i don't get you a daaamn thing... remember this night.
jena: hahahaha.

the funny part is right before rick and i went to bed i realized that it sort of was my birthday... it was my half-birthday (on saturday)!! so i am officially 22 1/2.

anyway, rick and i both thought the movie was really good. i was thoroughly entertained. the plot kept me intrigued from beginning to end. mark wahlberg is fantastic... he's like a modern day McGuyver, but better looking and more sarcastic. his character is cunning and smart. i'm not a huge fan of action movies, but this movie was so packed with plot that i just kept moving along with it. i bet most of the naysayers of the film are going to be people who believe every word their government tells them. yes, this film depicts government officials in a bad light, but what or who doesn't? i'm sure in reality it's much worse. don't let political beliefs interfere with seeing this film; it's a good time no matter what side you are on. it's intense but not overbearing. easy to follow but complex. and you'll be impressed with wahlberg's character. wahlberg excels in playing characters who are determined to make an impact. after seeing i heart huckabees, mark wahlberg has quickly become one of my favorite actors. he totally kept that movie alive. i added Fear to aldrin's netflix queue after rick explained what a psycho his character is that movie.

so after our little "date night" was so successful, rick and i decided we need to have more "date nights" and i proposed a "craft night" since i am having withdrawls because my best friend andrea and i always would always get crafty when we were together. that girl needs to accru more vacation time faaast so she can come visit meeee!!!! i miss her damnit!!!! i need to keep in touch with my friends from high school more because i had no idea my friend lindsay was going to mexico until she texted me about it the night before. i am so out of the loop!! i'd say 80% of my friends are people i met in middle school/high school. 15% are people i met in college. 5% are friends of rick's. i need to meet some kewl chicks around here to hang with and do girly stuff with like go shopping or sit by the pool reading magazines.

work is good.

thursday was a lot of work. dave's wife mary and i prepared and organized a storage room for inventory. the room was PACKED with women's clothing. the clothing company is based in London so they ordered a ton of wool and corduroy. needless to say, Los Angeles is not the ideal market for wool or any other heavy material. dave's wife was really kewl and she was wearing an awesome shirt that she made. it was a black long-sleeved shirt with this beautiful silk swan she stitched on the back that was originally part of a vintage kimono. although the work was tedious and tiring, it was rewarding to SEE the result of our hard work. we moved A LOT of stuff.

friday i worked for john again, assisting a shoot for his friend's clothing line. the day started off pretty hilariously. we were halfway to pick up his friend who was also assisting the shoot when john realized he forgot the seamless (big roll of paper for the background) so we had to turn around to get it. we were a bit more than halfway to pick up his friend the second time when john realized he forgot his laptop which we decided wasn't really a big deal. thirty seconds later, john realized we HAD to go back to his house because he forgot his camera. haha. it was a rough start. to top it off, a model tripped over a tripod and broke john's camera and lens the day before so john had to rent a camera for the shoot. but O'Quinn was an easy job. there were four, young semi-professional surfer guys modeling the clothing, mostly tee shirts. they weren't the most polished models... but at least they were all really chill and cooperative.

i might be doing some photoshop/retouching work for john this monday which i'm pretty excited about. on tuesday i'm assisting dave for a small shoot for a magazine. and the ebay lady is getting back to town on tuesday so hopefully she'll arrange some times i can go in and work again. i'm really satisfied with having a bunch of different jobs because the work is always new and fresh. i get bored easily and hate even the slightest bit of monotony. i would go going nuts if i was sitting in an office doing data entry. schedules don't agree with me, but appointments do. nearly every day i am thankful i never got that job i applied for in the leasing office. office politics and getting all dressied up to go to work just doesn't appeal to me. i want to be DOING something, CREATING something, BEING A PART OF A CREATIVE PROJECT whether it belongs to someone else or myself. that's where my passion lies.

great quotes, new polaroids.

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go." ~William Feather

"In my view, you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it." ~Emile Zola

powerlines
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

malibu diptych
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

hollywood walk of fame
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

hotel roosevelt
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

opportunities and gratefulness.

today dave called, offering me a two-day job helping his wife. dave's really been looking out for me and i really appreciate all of his help. he figures if he keeps me busy, then i won't go get a full-time job which means i can assist for him whenever needed. that sounds pretty ideal to me. so tomorrow i am working 9-4 for his wife mary, doing inventory at a warehouse for a clothing line she manages. should be tedious, but i'm sure i'll manage to have some fun. i will only be able to help out tomorrow because...

on friday i will be assisting john hildebrand again (this time for cash) in huntington beach where john will be photographing his friend's new clothing line called O'Quinn. expect more updates later... now i must run off to dream because i will be getting up EARLY tomorrow.

in the meantime, watch me morph into a chimp.

and an ending thought/story/rhetorical question:
my cousin broke his ankle and his foot fourwheeling on sunday and finally told someone about it today. his parents are visiting his grandmother in florida and he "didn't want to bother anyone" so he's been driving around using his left foot!! what is it with guys and their stong adversion to medical help?!!!