Beauty in the Struggle

Hello! My name is Jose Luis Azcona! I'm part of the Winter Sunday team and I am extremely excited for what the future holds. Aside from that, I went on a trip to Higuey, Dominican Republic in May of 2015 to visit my family. As one gets older, one tends to start focusing on the human condition around them, and that is exactly what I did on this trip. Everyday I would tell my cousin to walk around the neighborhood with me because he knew the area more than I did. He took me everywhere you can think of: salons, banks, clubs, bars, restaurants, auto shops, and of course, the streets!! I would walk around and capture the moments that, at least to me, described the human condition as best as possible where I was staying. This was my first crack at what we call street photography so please bare with me. Enjoy!

Submitted By Jose Luis Azcona

A Forever Day

How did I end up shooting at A wedding?! Well, my Girlfriend and I got invited to one of our good friend's wedding in a beautiful little town in central Florida and obviously we took our cameras to make a couple of memories and call it a day. the sunset was amazing, the weather was breezy, and the couple was looking beautiful. I decided to annoy the "Professional" photographers by getting in the way and shoot my own photos. Thank God the couple is our good friend because if not, I would have been kicked out immediately. I instantly got in the "zone" and stayed shooting the rest of the night until the batteries ran out: remember, i just wanted to get one or two shots and relax. I did not come prepared at all. With all that said and done, I had an amazing time shooting such an important moment in the life of two great friends and they loved the quick shots. All in all it was a win-win. Maria and Alex, love you guys! Here are a couple of the shots from the wedding session, the rest belong to the clients lol Enjoy!

Submitted by Cecilio "Tin" Ruiz

Off to space.

If you live in Florida and have not visited the Kennedy Space Center, plan a trip ASAP! I seriously don't know why it took me so long to check it out. I had an amazing time! It is one thing to see/read about all of these shuttles and rockets in movies and books, but it was another thing to see them in person! Witnessing the massive scale of all of these engineering masterpieces in "full color" is mind blowing. It clearly displays the perspective of how small we really are in this epic ecosystem of space and how truly powerful the will of the human brain is to be able to navigate through the uncomprehending distances of it.

While my brain was going a million miles per hour because of all the knowledge and greatness around me, I was trying to slow down a bit to make photos of things and people enjoying their time at the park. Didn't get that many. I was trying to do some serious mind multitasking while walking around but I got some shooting done. Enjoy!

Submitted by Cecilio "Tin" Ruiz

LA FERIA

while driving around with my girlfriend looking for something to do, we stumbled Across A local carnival. I got pretty excited as I had my old trusty nikon with me, loaded with some kodak portra. While strolling through the small park for a couple of times, I started to notice the stark difference of people enjoying the carnival rides and the workers behind the amusement. Once I got over the initial fear of conversing with some of these intriguing characters, I understood why most of them ended up in this fast paced, never-the-same place, crazed life they call home. Many come from broken homes, boring routines, and some even had pretty dark motives as to why they chose this carnival life. Anyways, after bothering them persistently,  some of them were starting to get pretty annoyed of all of the "personal" questions that i was asking. Right before these carnival faces had the chance to yell "fuck off" I quickly asked to take a photo. Let's just say it did not work out as well as I hoped, but I still managed to get a couple of them to cooperate. In my book, This was still a successful day of shooting. Above are some of the shots from that great night, Enjoy!

Submitted by Cecilio "Tin" Ruiz