HUMELA
Humans of East Los Angeles
Project Director:
Joan Dooley
HAAT Art Teacher
A documentary photographer with a passion for street photography, Joan has received many awards for her photography including National Geographic's "World in Focus" in 2009. Trained as a photographer and an art historian, Joan was Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Getty Museum for 12+ years. Since 1999 she has taught full-time in LAUSD. She launched and instructed full-time media arts programs at four different LAUSD inner-city high schools, teaching Photogaphy, Graphic Design, Stop motion Animation, and Digital Storytelling, This is her 3rd year at HAAT, a four-year-old pilot school in East LA. (More on HAAT) She has received several teaching awards including Teacher of the Year at the Santa Fe Center for Photography, Otis College and CalArts. ... More
Teacher
Collaborators:
Jexy Wadle
HAAT English Teacher
Megan Gerig
HAAT English Teacher
Sandra Gonzalez
HAAT AP Spanish Teacher
Willy "Wil-Dog" Abers is a bassist primarily for the LA-based Ozomatli band, but has also played in Los Super Seven, a Latin Rock Super Group. Aside from playing bass, Wil-Dog contributed songwriting and backup vocals. In 2012, he began a side project billing himself as "El Gavachillo" singing traditional Mexican banda music. Wil-Dog, also sometimes called "Breakdance Willy" as he is an accomplished breakdancer, is of Jewish descent. His father was in the Revolutionary Communist Party, and he was raised mostly by his grandparents. From an early age, he saw, first-hand, police violence, racism, and anti-Semitism. He dropped out of high school in the 11th grade and was living out of his car. Eventually, he joined an at-risk youth-center, where he found his purpose and joined Ozomatli.
Formed in 1995, Ozomatli is a seven-piece band known both for their vocal activist viewpoints and their wide array of musical styles - including salsa, jazz, funk, reggae, rap, and others – their diversity symbolizing an emerging, multicultural Los Angeles. By 1999, they were touring with Carlos Santana and soon won their first Grammy. Recently Ozomatli became the first band to be asked to speak at the TED Conference, sharing their ideas about music and identities in the global age.
Joseph Olvera
HAAT Alumnus, 2013
"I have a passion for photography but never had the opportunity to follow it through. The way my Life has been I have not had much to offer this world. Now that my opportunity has come (thanks to my teacher Mrs. Dooley) I hope I can show people great things. To express the world in a whole new way with the camera has opened my eyes to a whole new world... My Own World. I like to have Simple things but Love to Give Extraordinary things. I don't want much, just to give what I have to the world. I would Love to share this with anyone I can and I Hope that is You. Thank You."
Joseph Olvera studied at HAAT with Ms. Dooley for two years. He was awarded a scholarship to attend a competitive photography program run by CalArts CAP program instructed by Andy Freeman, photo dept. chair at CalArts college. Joseph was also awarded an internship at Art Center College of Design (ACCD) and is now applying to Art Center At Night and, eventually, their daytime BFA program in photography.
Community Mentors:
David Arenas
My photographs capture a simple, complex and beautiful subject - Los Angeles. I am a native Angelino and as a child I yearned to visit the city. I not only found it exciting but also knew that when I was older I would live there. Now I do. Each of these photographs bear my history with the city and are snippets of a larger story in the making. These photograph can be seen as a personal message, maybe love letters from me to the city that the viewer is privy to.
Loretta Ayeroff is an editorial / fine art photographer, born in Los Angeles, CA. She has taught photography since 1983, at UCLA Extension and Otis College of Art+Design Continuing Education Dept., where she was Coordinator, AFA Photography Certificate Program. Loretta was Documentary Film Programmer, for The J. Paul Getty Museum, on several projects. Her personal work is in private and public collections, including the Palm Springs Art Museum, St. Lawrence University, and the Smithsonian Institute. Currently, Loretta is a Teaching Artist, in photography, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Faith Childs-Davis
Director, ETA L.A. Office
The Chicago native sees herself as a nurturer of creative talent. In addition to raising two artistically talented sons of her own (Kahlil Joseph, a filmmaker and Noah Davis, a painter), the former public school teacher was an early pioneer in arts integration in Seattle Public Schools during her fifteen-year tenure there from 1984-1999. After retiring from the classroom, she relocated to NYC, where as a sittings editor, Faith directed and collaborated with creative talent in the production of photo-shoots for Essence Magazine. In 2005, she relocated to Los Angeles and joined the Music Center as a Producer of the non-profit's annual Bravo Awards, which recognizes and rewards exemplary arts educators of Los Angeles County. In addition to her role as Director for Exploring the Arts, Faith continues to be involved in personal creative endeavors as well as arts education consulting. She holds a Doctorate in Education from U.C.L.A.
Michael Dooley
Designer, professor, author, and photographer Michael Dooley earned his Bachelor’s degree at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. His first job was photographing the Johnny Cash Show in Nashville for ABC-TV. He’s art directed numerous photo shoots for various publications, including his time as Creative Director at the L.A. Times. His photography accompanies feature stories, is shown in galleries, and is included in "The Graphic Eye: Photographs by International Graphic Designers." He’s lectured at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and other institutions. He’s contributing editor to “Print,” the graphic design magazine, where he writes features, essays, and critical reviews on art and design. He also teaches design history at Art Center College of Design and Loyola Marymount University.
Joe Medina
I consider myself a documentary photographer. I'm currently instruct the photography instructor
at Harvard Westlake Academy. For several years I taught photography in a small southwestern Arizona border town. My bodies of work revolved around my experience living in that small place in the desert. I grew up in that place until the age of 18. As an adult returning, it still held a sense of fascination and mystery. Education: 1998, MFA in Photography, University of Illinois at Chicago,.
Carlos Quintero
I was born in El Paso, Texas in 1945. At age 11 my family moved to Los Angeles. I graduated H.S. in 1963. I was in the Marine Corps from 1964 to 1968. I attended la trade tech in1963-64 and 1968-1969 and received my A.A. degree in mechanical drafting. 1970 to 1973 I was at UCLA and majored in film and television. Since I was 15 I had an interest in photography. Because I made important contacts at UCLA I started my professional career as a photojournalist in 1973 at KABC-TV. And worked UNTIL 1976. From 1976 TO 1977 I worked for KTTV-TV, KLCS-TV, and various independent companies. In 1977 I was hired as a photojournalist by KTLA-TV and stayed there until my retirement in 2010.
Teresa Foley, a conceptual artist, makes videos, performances, and public art projects. She creates scenarios in which ventriloquist dummies perform material lifted from craigslist, blow up dolls drive cars, and people make and share regionally based ringtones at www.locallytoned.org. Foley holds a BA in English Literature, and studied film/video production as an independent student. She’s received fellowships from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and The Pittsburgh Foundation. She’s been awarded residencies by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Deeplocal, The Banff Centre, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She lives and works in Altadena, CA and Pittsburgh, PA.
Steve Mills
By profession Steve is a space scientist specializing in optics who has worked on some of the most advanced cameras ever built. This includes the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, which a much larger 8-meter (25 foot) wide lens. He has a B.A. in Physics from U.C.L.A. and an M.A. in Optical Physics from Cal State LA. He is the owner of Renaissance Man Engineering, a start-up founded in 2013. From his experience he understands in great detail the technical aspects of a camera, but he also appreciates it creative possibilities. He is an avid photographer, and also a painter, a writer and a songwriter. “All the greatest scientist were also extremely creative individuals,” Steve explains. “I believe that my artistic endeavors makes me a better scientist.”
Christian Garcia
Hello ShutterBugs, first let me tell you that you have chosen a great profession to be involved in and there are no limits when it comes to capturing that moment in time. I have been behind the camera since 1987 and actually paying all my bills with my eyes and camera for the last 14 years, I specialize in PR photography such as press conferences with city and state officials, I also provide images that are currently in litigation with the Los Angeles County Courts. I know it's not glamorous lol but I'm a working photographer and I am grateful, and proud of that..Remember you have chosen the camera for a reason, never let anyone take that away from you. My work can be viewed on Facebook Christian L Garcia. If you can't find me look me up this way clgprphotography@gmail.com
Andre Eric Martinez
Freelance photographer and producer, Epiphany Entertainment.
Education: Studied international relations and global studies at USC.
Project Funder:
ETA
(Exploring the Arts)
ETA is a 501c3 nonprofit organization founded in 1999 by Tony Bennett and Susan Benedetto. ETA's mission is to strengthen the role of the arts in public high school education. ETA's programs connect private funders, individual artists, and cultural institutions to Partner Schools to achieve greater equality of resources and opportunity for youth of all means and backgrounds. ETA currently serves 17 Partner Schools throughout New York City’s five boroughs and in East Los Angeles.
Community
Mentors: (cont.)
José Luis Sedano
“I LOVE being a photographer. I started taking pictures when I was about 10, soon after coming from Mexico. ‘Acopia: A study of a village in the Peruvian Andes’ was my first one-man exhibition at the L.A. County Museum of Natural History. I worked at on the Harvard Semitic Museum’s 19th Century photographic collection. This took me to Oxford, the Middle East, the Persian Golf States, and UNESCO in Paris, where I worked with scholars pioneering photogrpahic anthropology. My photos have been published by the Los Angeles Sunday Times, the Getty Institute, the Peace Corps, etc. My family photo archives are being digitized at the UCLA Cesar Chavez Chicano Studies Department for research and publishing. I’m currently working on documenting families in ELA and Boyle Heights on my 2-1/4 medium format camera. The essay was commissioned by the Violence Intervention Prevention Program at USC Medical Center.”
Videographer/Producer @ LIVE, a media center housed in Boyle Heights' Pan American Bank.
Education: Studied: Cinematography/ Film at Cal Arts; Children's television at Harvard Graduate School of Education
Cintia Segovia is a photographer and educator raised in Mexico City and residing in Los Angeles. She makes video and photographic-based work that examine topics such as immigration and political agenda in the mass media.
Jessica Shokrian
A graduate of Art Center College of Design, Jessica is a photographer and video artist. She was also a group leader during during a daylong community photo workshop at HAAT in the Fall of 2011 mentoring HAAT students as they photographed their community for a photography exhibition at the Getty Museum. Jessica directed her group via the Metro to the "Occupy LA" section of downtown LA and other nearby neighborhoods.
Ana Garcia
Ana studied Photography at Bell High with Ms. Dooley, and wtih her mentrorship, was accepted into the B.F.A. Photography program at California Institute for the Arts (CalArts), a world- renowned 4-year art collge in Valencia. Before and since her B.F.A., Ana has worked extensively as a photography instructor for CalArts in their after school photography classes called CAP (Community Arts Partnership). ... In fact, Ana helped teach fellow HUMELA mentor and HAAT grad, Joseph Olvera, when he attended the CalArts summer photography class.