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Downtown LA 04.24.2018

Alexa Phelece

Every BODY deserves LOVE is an organizational movement that finds innovative ways to encourage men, women, and children to understand they are worthy of loving themselves. We believe that by encouraging people to love themselves we can inspire them to reach their full potential and motivate others to do the same. Read more>>

Ira Meyer

Once an avid bicyclist, I got hit by a passing car while on an 80 miles training ride with some friends. Broken ribs and scapula, as well as a ruptured spleen required hospitalization and surgery. Then owner of a small landscaping and lawn maintenance business, I was out of work for 3 months. Read more>>

Glenn Fryatt

I’ve been playing the drums for over 20 years now and got the opportunity to play those very same drums in the USA and more particularly LA around 3 years ago. I am originally from Portsmouth in the UK but moved to LA from New York and seemingly the rest of New York followed me across the country! Read more>>

Brandon Savoy

I move out to L.A. at the age of 21 when iI was hired by an award winning design company out here. Over the next 10 years I worked at various design studios throughout the city. (Too many to list) One day when I was 30 a friend I had met through a co-worker out here approached me about a website he needed designed. Read more>>

Roxy Shih

I had a multi-cultural background growing up – I have roots in Taiwan but I was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to the states when I was six years old. Growing up my cultural identity was confusing: I spoke Mandarin at home, had a weird European accent in elementary school while having to sadly accept the fact that Americans eat their french fries (or chips) with ketchup and not mayo. Read more>>

Sara Meredith

In college the root of any career advice I got from my professors, family and mentors was to follow my passion, but my passion to me then was so unclear. It felt as if I knew exactly what my passion wasn’t. Yes, a variety of topics interested and inspired me, but I struggled to find how I would cultivate that into a career. Read more>>

Ashley Rodriguez

I started First Date LA on May 2017 because I found myself going on many failed first tinder dates. jk! However, I did find myself furiously scrolling through Yelp with dates, friends, family looking for new places to discover and talk about. I was always out and about so I was always looking for something new to do. Read more>>

Sarah Kosar

I’m a budding filmmaker and part-time model from Virginia. As a child, I loved to write and draw – this combination created my desire to be involved in any type of visual storytelling and in turn, made me very interested in film. In late high school, I left the public school system to finish my degree online in order to work at the public access station downtown. Read more>>

Drew Bird

It started with my dreams. I literally dreamed that hats fell from the sky and as they landed in my hands they took themselves apart and taught me their construction. I never studied hat or costume design it just seemed to come naturally to me. Read more>>

Sean Michael Smith

I was born on a little ranch out here in California, my family didn’t have much but I grew up happy and healthy. I was homeschooled, like all my siblings, because we were too far from any school and, if I’m honest, my parents probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it even if the distance weren’t a problem. Read more>>

Sean Kyung

I was a student at a Art University in South Korea as a furniture design major. I decided to take some photography classes in the school and ended up really enjoying more than I did my own major. The photography professor recommended me to change my major and I really did want to but my parents disapproved at the time because they felt there was no future being a career photographer. Read more>>

Tracee Nichols

I’ve always been moved towards design and art in some fashion from a very young age. My grandfather was a well-known sculptor in Philadelphia and my father also took up sculpting. My father always encouraged art in our home growing up and it was very common to have paintbrushes and sculpting tools in our kitchen sink. Read more>>

Trevor Hollander

Hi, my name is Trevor Hollander and I’m going to tell you how I went from bartender to a full-time Editor, DP, and the Manager of Norkai Studios. Less than two years ago, I was working as a bartender in Marina Del Rey; spending my spare time reading about filmmaking, watching tutorials online, and researching the essential tools I would need to get my start. Read more>>

Janet Kim

I’ve loved dogs my whole life. I remember borrowing the Dog Encyclopedia from the library when I was little and reading through it with my sister and begging my dad to take us to our local animal shelter so we could go look at all the dogs. Read more>>

Grecia Palma

It all started when I was a stay at home mom trying to make a few bucks off of some old clothes I had piled up in my closet. I opened up a depop account and got such great feedback that I realized, I can do more with this than just sell my own stuff. But I needed money to make it all possible. Read more>>

Summer Evans

I was born in Mesa, AZ and moved to Los Angeles when I was 8 years old. I moved into Artshare, a small apartment building full of creatives located in the downtown arts district, with my mother and her boyfriend. Read more>>

Alyce Tzue

I guess it all started when I learned to hold a pencil. I was two and couldn’t stop drawing. I’d sit in front of the TV and storyboard “The Great Mouse Detective,” and string the pages together with yarn. When I got older, the desire for financial security drove me to pursue architecture at Princeton (funnily enough, the recession would soon teach me that architecture was no more stable than any other industry!). Read more>>

Rob Flate

I started studying photography in High School here in LA at Hamilton High and then spent 2 more years at UCSB as an art major working with film in the darkroom. I left Santa Barbara in 2000 and moved back to LA, but it wasn’t until my daughter was born in 2007 that my interest in taking pictures came back. Read more>>

Zach Bell

I got started with photography in college, which led to video work and ultimately brought me out to LA. I went to the graduate film school at USC, but dropped out halfway through my MFA. At that point I was working on visuals for the band Marian Hill and freelancing, whatever I could find. Read more>>

Michael Madison, Linda Nelson

Michael and I met in 1999. He had just finished college at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas and had moved to LA to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. I owned a company that was developing large format theaters. Read more>>

Kris Mejia

Mom Jeans & Mimosas was started as a visual journal of sorts. When my kids would nap, I’d escape to my newest Instyle mag, try on all my fun (off-duty Mom) clothes and play with my newest makeup products. This much needed “me-time” became more than a hobby especially, when I’d share stories about my personal Mom struggles. Read more>>

Bethany Reed

I’ve always wanted to be a photographer and nothing else really. When I was young my mom used to always get me disposable cameras and ever since then I’ve been working my way up to something more serious. The biggest struggle I’ve dealt with happened pretty recently. Read more>>

Matt McCarty

My past is pretty vanilla. I’m from a very boring but aesthetically beautiful place. I grew up in a small coastal town south of Boston, Massachusetts. I loved movies and music and generally any type of art. I got involved in theater at a young age. Read more>>

Jill Weiss Ippolito

Yoga saved my life from a past of jails and institutions, addiction and medications, depression and hopelessness. I have been able to shed the imprisonment of despair with a yoga practice that changed the direction of my life. Read more>>

Winston Secrest

I come from a family of artist in which I’ve basically learned most of what I know through observation. I’m obsessed with the process. Growing up in household of artists: studios, organized work space, and art material framework fascinated me. Read more>>

Ash Bazar

I’m a Los Angeles native, born I glendale. I started doing hair because of my mother, in junior high she would have me touch up her color, and I fell in love with hair instantly. I also have two sisters who would let me practice on them all the time. I went to beauty school called marinello in Burbank. Read more>>

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