Hi, I lied. I said I’d be back later on that day but ended up being sooo busy! I just got back today, and will probably add more to this post as I sift through photos.

First off, I’d love to say that I was working with theeee most approachable father and son photography team, Los Alex (y el argentino!)de Gort Productions. I think they really made my week, b/c they were so helpful and chock full of advice which I soaked up like a sponge.

Orgullo encompasses so much more emotion than its literal translation, ‘pride.’

Orgullo is what I felt to be working with such a prestigious organization.

Anyway, on to the photos!

I woke up at the crack of dawn to capture the Diabetes Dash:

Raul Yzaguirre, the original founder and president of NCLR showed up, of course!

My homeskillet, hermanito Marcos was a panelist in one of the Afro-Latino workshops we held. Watch out world, Marcos is going to do BIG things.

I later went to Centro Campesino (one of our affiliates) to shoot a couple pics. They work with farmworkers in the South Florida area, and it was a beautiful thing to visit a neighborhood that they helped build, and meet Latinos who were homeowners. I hope to be among that population someday!

Their building is fairly new as the old one was destroyed by a hurricane. The architecture was gorgeous.

This pretty lady is my fellow ar-teest friend from across the coast, Araceli. She’s a phenomenal poet and singer/songwriter, and just a great person in general. She volunteered at the Naturalization Workshop we held and I think she put in a saint’s work.

Pitbull stopped by to give some advice to the Lideres youth group. He was….candid! Very candid, but the kids (what am I talking about, I was in their shoes just 3 years ago!) were really appreciative of his time.

Hilary Clinton stopped by and I got to listen to her speak candidly about her goals if she wins the presidency whilst clamoring for a shoot spot in the photographer’s pit. Talk about competition!

Al Sharpton also was a guest speaker. I got this shot in between bites of platano.

And the man who was too cool for school, Barack Obama came by:

I caught a pic of his shoes, yes, unusual, but I was half-expecting him to be rocking some crisp politic-kicks or something:

Why is he too cool? He has his own REGGAETON song!

Como se dice,

Como se llama,

Obama!

Obama!

This is to be continued, but I’ll pseudo-end with a view from my ‘lovely’ hotel (more about that later)

I’m here!

I’m going to work a LOT this week (and the next), but every second is worth it.

The only equation that perturbed me:

2 beds + 3 people (the other two are arriving today) = guuuaaaa??? Hopefully the hotel will work it out for us.

Xandi crashed in our room last night, so I crashed her face. Wait, did that sound right?

The fountain at the hotel:

Can’t close this entry without a bit of narcissism!

i’ll be back with more. the day is young.

I thought I’d open my awesomely fabulous photo blog with this.

My beautifully fierce femme friend Melanie held her baby shower. She’s due this week!

I had a large print of this in a nice frame as a memento of her first pregnancy:

b/c I was at Best Buy trying to resurrect my beloved laptop (and now typing to you live and direct from my *new* laptop… , I arrived fashionably late:

Her curly eyelashes got me:

Party Favors:

Baby Langston is going to be sooooooo spoiled. But fashionable!

Elephant Cake (The baby’s room has a safari theme):

I had QUITE the sugar buzz:

And had no room for *this* cake:

More elephants! One of Melanie’s family members made the elephants out of chocolate.

This little boy was a HANDFUL. He was sticking his fingers in the cake!

And…OMGaw they were looking out for us. When I say us, I mean, me and my wonderfully fabulous femme friend and assistant (!) Val. Yes. They had bubbles in the favor bags!

and the path back to childhood commenced–the good old days!