Junin, Argentina

This last weekend might have been the beginning of the rest of my life. Well maybe that's a bit drastic, but it was my first job as official wedding photographer, something that has been in the works for some time now. My good friends Julien St. Hilaire and Luciana Patiño got married in Luciana's hometown of Junin, a provincial city about 3 hours to the northwest of Buenos Aires. The happy couple had arranged for transportation for Julien's side of the wedding party, he's from Quebec, and for the close friends here in BsAs to ride up altogether in a big shuttle bus. So off we went at 9 am to real gaucho land, something I had been wanting to do ever since I arrived in Argentina.

It's pretty standard here for people to have vacation or weekend property in the countryside, a way for people to get away without going too far. So even though we all hotel reservations in the city of Junin, our first stop was Luciana's family's campo, a full working farm about 20 minutes outside of the city. Apparently her grandfather, who at a young 81 might be the coolest man on the planet, and some other family friends were putting together a massive asado for our arrival. I had been to asados before, a lot of them in fact, but there is nothing like going to an authentic Argentine asado where almost everything you are eating comes from the farm. The specialty of the day was lechon, or suckling pig in English. The most amazing pork I've ever eaten in my life. We ate, drank a lot of wine, and played on the farm. Some people rode horses, the rest of us just sat there and basked in the silence of the country. It felt so nice.
The wedding wasn't until the evening on Saturday so between the asado and the main event, we wandered around Junin which to be honest isn't too exciting, but still worth seeing I think. Weddings here are pretty much the same as in the States except there are a couple major differences. For one, there are no bridesmaids or groomsmen. I had some ideas for pictures of both those groups of people, but apparently they don't have them. Also, the bride and groom don't kiss facing the priest, they do it facing the crowd from the podium with the priest at their side. Kind of interesting.

After going to this wedding, I can't wait to go to my next one. The party was incredible and in Argentine fashion went until about 7 am, with even the oldest guests staying awake until the end. They just can't get enough here! I have attached a link to the photos on facebook and will be uploading them to my pbase as well as my new wedding photography site (yet to be named or registered). Now that I have something of a portfolio I can let the wedding biz going! Yeah!!

Enjoy!

Full Facebook Album

Video Blog Coming Soon!

I apologize for not updating my blog as much in the past few months, it's just another task for the day, and to do it properly takes a fair amount of time. This being said, I have started recording with my Flip Video HD camera, video blogs. Unfortunately I haven't found any good free video hosting sites to post them since they are at least 20 minutes long. So if anyone has any advice on where I can find a place to do that, let me know! Peace and love to everyone!

Ask me anything!

There is a new website, or at least new to me, that allows people to ask anonymous questions. So, what do you want to know???

http://www.formspring.me/steeznuts

Stencil Art in Buenos Aires

Art in Buenos Aires is everywhere, especially street art. The main medium is the stencil and there are awesome pieces everywhere. Here is a great video (in Spanish) about the stencil and graffiti culture of the city. Enjoy!

Bagels in BsAs!!

After about a year and a half of being down here, I finally got my act together and ordered bagels from El Bagelazo, a family run bagel company. Here's a picture of one of my sandwiches :)

Funny Random Anecdote of the Week

The other night as we were preparing to head out, our doorbell rang. Hmm, "who could it be?", we thought. We open the door to see two policemen standing there, who proceed to explain to us that two wayward tennis players from the gym next door didn't leave the club in time and we're stuck on the courts. We became involved in this because the tennis courts touch our rooftop and their only line of escape was through our house. So after leading the police to the terraza, they helped these two poor guys over the fence and onto our roof so they could run to freedom. It was pretty hilarious.

Floods in Buenos Aires

The last few days have been filled with rain here in the city. Our part of town wasn't hit as bad with floods fortunately, although we did get our power knocked out for 2 days. Here's a video clip from a local news station of the flooding.

BucketFeet is Coming Up in the World!

In the last couple months my shoe company, BucketFeet, has had some exciting things happen. The first is that I was invited to participate in an independent designer feria in the city of Rafaela in the province of Santa Fe. This experience was not only great because I got the opportunity to sell some shoes (which I did!) but the town itself was really interesting. It's about 8 hours to the Northwest, and it's a whole different world. The city I learned, is comprised almost entirely of descendents of Italian and German immigrants. There is actually a dialect that the older generations speak that is more Italian than Spanish. If you were to come from Buenos Aires, and hear them speaking, you wouldn't understand it. The woman that invited me to this feria owns a small shop in the town and organizes these things ever few months. After picking me up from the bus station we went to her family's estate where they had a huge spread of Italian food on a long table with about 40 people sitting at it. Apparently I hit the night they were celebrating the end of 2009. One of those moments that it would have been nice to have a video camera rolling. In any case, the whole experience was great. Here is a pic of me sitting at the feria selling kicks!

The second really bad ass thing that has happened in the world of BucketFeet happened just last week. A good friend of mine lives with the trombonist of a very well-known band here, Onda Vaga. A few weeks ago I came up with the idea of doing shoes for all of the members as a sort of promotion, get them to plug me, and in turn get exposure to thousands and thousands of people. The other day when they had a show, Eva, my friend, got me on the list and I brought the shoes. It was an awesome experience, I got to spend the whole time backstage hanging out with them, partying, and then got to watch the show. I had heard them before but never had I seen them live. They are AWESOME! Great energy on stage. Oh and by the way, they loved the shoes, and they all fit! Here is a picture of the guys with their new shoes, and a couple of tracks to download off their new album. Enjoy!

Onda Vaga - Mambeado .mp4
Onda Vaga - Me Pega Fuerte .mp4

Semana de Musica

I'm on my way out the door to the Creamfields Music Festival right now, but I thought I'd post a cool video of some great music I've seen recently.

This video is of a very well-known Argentine rock star named Palo Pandolfo. A former roommate of mine, Jake Falby, a kid from Boston, is an amazing violinist and while studying abroad here from Pomona College got put in touch with Palo. He subsequently ended up dropping his classes for the semester and touring with the band. Last night was his despedida, his last night in the country, so we went to watch him play with this great musician. It was a blast. One of the coolest things about this show too was that Tigre, the guy who owns the house I live in, has been a fan of Palo Pandolfo since the early 1980's. Jake managed to get him to get a couple of guest appearances on his songs, since he is a musician himself. It was a childhood dream carried out. Was quite a moment.

All the best to everyone wherever they are! Un beso grande a todos!

3 Months of a Photo-a-Day

http://www.pbase.com/afirestein/foto_por_dia

Enjoy! I promise a real blog update soon too! Lots to share...

Back in BA!

I recently arrived back in Argentina after an amazing five week jaunt through various parts of the USA to see friends and family. It feels great to be back here though, I'm re-energized and ready to go! Stay tuned for more posts to come! Much love to everyone!

Even though I am not in Argentina for the time being, I am going to continue this OH SNAP segment.







1. Asado on my rooftop in Congreso
2. 2 more pairs of BucketFeet
3. San Telmo futbol canchas
4. Cathedral in BA somewhere along the way to EZE Int'l Airport
5. A junkyard company in Queens, NYC
6. Stop-sign in Boulder, Colorado
7. A mural of a cowboy musician in downtown Denver, Colorado

OH SNAP! Photos of the Week: Sept 27th- Oct 3rd 2009

1. Drinking yerba mate
2. "Imagine" BucketFeet
3. Nightime view from my terraza in the Congreso neighborhood of Buenos Aires
4. Hype @ Kika
5. Shadow
6. Hype edition BucketFeet
7. Ex-pubcrawl leader, Lilith Eller, doing a little modeling

Parabens, Rio!

BucketFeet Stop Motion

I recently started compiling stop-motion videos of shoes I've worked on. It takes a long time but the result is completely worth it! Check 'em out!