East LA 7.24.2017

Yaresly Santana

My business was born a little over three years ago in February 2014. I am a mother of three. Valentine’s day happens to be my youngest daughter’s birthday! I decided to take some photos of her for the special occasion. I used a chalkboard wall the kids had in their playroom and hung a couple of heart garlands that I made. I set up a couple extra props for decoration and was having so much fun coming up with new ideas to photograph her! My daughter was turning two. Yes, the terrible twos. After a short while she grew tired of being in front of the camera. Realizing how much fun I was having, I didn’t want it to end! On what felt like a whim at the time I went on social media and offered my friends and family Valentine mini sessions for their kids. Read more>>

Tara and Charles Probst

Tara- I was a stay at home mom expecting my second son when my husband bought me my first camera. I would say my passion for photography just exploded from there. I studied up, practiced often and we started taking photos of family and friends part time for the first year. We’re now four years into the business, I run it full time and have recently picked up a studio space that I absolutely love. Charles assists me at photo sessions when he isn’t working. I couldn’t do this without him, and I wouldn’t want to. Tara- I don’t think being a business owner is ever a smooth road. It’s been a lot of trial and error. Read more>>

Henry Thompson Jr.

My interest in photography started with me traveling around the world and wanting to capture those special moments so I could revisit them at a later time and share them with others. I received some great feedback from coworkers, friends, and family saw my photos and were amazed at how I structured the items and people in my photos. My work with photos became well known around my office that I gained the privilege to work with our media department as their main technical support specialist. This position provided me my first exposure to more advanced photography and video equipment as well as the editing software that they used to finalize any projects. Read more>>

Claire McKeown

I trained to be a professional Opera Singer and was about 10 years deep into that when I started noticing it wasn’t inspiring me anymore. I felt very alienated from my peers. I was falling into a deep depression and knew I had to rethink my path. I had stopped singing for about a year when a friend of mine asked me to arrange vocal parts and sing in an up and coming indie rock band. This got my passion for singing and music back. Around this time, I started teaching privately and since I was playing so many local shows people would always ask If they could study with me. It was a very beautiful and easy transition. My clientele grew quite rapidly. Read more>>

Joey Munoz

Santino Bros. Wrestling originally started out as a Submission Fighting Tag Team of Kaos and Mongol back in 2004. The duo’s most notable feud was vs La Familia De Tiajuana Damian 666 and Halloween. Fun fact: In 2005, The Young Bucks made their debut vs The Fighting Santino Bros. Kaos and Mongol at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA. Joey Kaos’ friend and mentor Darren Dynamite D McMillan passed away due to complications of cancer. One of the last things Darren told Joey was “you gotta Keep the Dream Alive”. And that’s just what Kaos and Mongol did. In late 2007 an opportunity arose where they could give back and they ran with it. Read more>>

Armando Estrada

While attending a retirement party, my girlfriend (Gaby) and I saw this little tent that would take pictures of guests and decided to try it. We were immediately hooked on the experience and made a few trips to make sure we got every silly pose possible! A couple of weeks went by and one day the thought came, “If we had this fun with the photo booth, why not provide this service ourselves?” It was beyond our belief that as many parties as we had attended, from weddings to baptisms to quinceaneras, we had never seen this featured in the parties. We began our research as far as equipment, design, and target clientele, This was something that had to be affordable, fun, and of course memorable for the client. Read more>>