Life & Work with Bumdog Torres

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bumdog Torres.

Bumdog, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m originally from LA, the Crenshaw District. I left in my early 20s to bum around. I went across the United States then into Europe: London, Amsterdam, Paris, French Rivera, Morocco and Spain, before getting deported from Spain for being over my visa.

Back in LA I just kept bumming around, trying to write but never getting published. In 2001, I decided to self-publish, and printed out 300 copies of a book I called “Sketches of Nothing by a Complete Nobody”. I gave most of them away and then started selling them on the street for $10-$20. When I started running out of copies, I sold them for $50, then $100, then $250… Currently, I only have about 8 left which I price at $500.

I was sleeping in a parking lot in the Arts District part of DTLA in 2004 when I bugged the director of the Downtown Playhouse to let me put on play in his theater. Eventually, I put on a play I had been working on for several years but never finished. I called it “Masterbation Theatre Presents”, it wasn’t about masturbation, it was about a theatre class that I once attended. I put it on for one night, and 13 people showed up. It was awful, when I was done only 6 people were left. It was the most humiliating experiences of my life. But surviving all that humiliation was a serious life lesson.

Looking for something to do to follow up on that humiliation, I got the idea of making a feature film with a little one chip camera and iMovie. I thought it would take me 11 days to make it. Instead it took three years to complete it that I named after my book “Sketches of Nothing by a Complete Nobody”.

Once it was completed I left LA to travel around again. I was in Maui for three years before leaving the country for Thailand where I stayed for another 3 1/2 years.

In 2014, I was deported from Thailand for being over my visa and flown back to Los Angeles AGAIN.

By now I wasn’t just temporarily homeless, I was a CAREER homeless bum and I was either going to stay in Santa Monica, the Fairfax District, or Downtown. Santa Monica was nice but too boring. DTLA was my heart, but I knew it had changed so much just looking at it would break my heart. I choose the Fairfax district because I knew my way around it.

First thing I did was buy an iPhone off a guy who found one in a dumpster. I used it to take self-portraits Vivian Maier style in thrown away mirrors in the trash.

After a few years of that, I was given an old Sony point and shoot, and I began to take portraits of friends. Eventually, a gallery up in Denver asked if they could display some of my photos. I was shocked by the invitation, and it inspired me to take my photography more seriously. In 2019 I bought a midrange Panasonic LUMIX and began to concentrate on improving my skills.

That same year I made another feature film called “Tarantino’s Basterds: The Homeless Filmmakers of Hollywood”.

When the pandemic hit, I began to write Photo Essays for the LAist.com about living on the streets during the pandemic. Titled “6 Feet Back From Life: A Homeless Man’s Photo Essays on Life During CoronaVirus”.

The lockdown inspired me to I self-published six photobooks in eight months:

A collection of my photography up to that point “#FindTheBumdog: A Homeless Man’s Development as a Street Photographer While Living on the Streets (Photos from 2014-2020”

My photo essays from the LAist.com “6 Feet Back From Life: A Homeless Man’s Photo Essays on Life During CoronaVirus”

Portraits of the Fairfax Orthodox Jewish Community “‘Happiness is a Great Service to G-d’: A Black Homeless Bum’s Photographs in an Orthodox Jewish Community”,

Photos of the homeless in Hollywood “Hollywood Dogs”

And portraits in South Hollywood home to the largest Black Homeless Transgender Community in the city.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m just a creative person. “Jack of all trades, King of none”, in a creative sense. I’ve lived all my adult life on the streets, that’s where I’m most productive. It’s not a hindrance to me, it’s my element. I’m sharper mentally and more productive out on the streets.

I’ve traveled the world, writing books, performed plays and produced movies on almost nothing. I’ve done more than 99% of the people who ask me if I ever want to do with something with my life.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
It’s my home town. It’s like my best friend.

What I like least? The developers who run the city.

Pricing:

• Photographs $10
• DVDs of movies $25
• T-Shirts $75
• Photobooks $75

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bumdogtorres.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bumdogtorres/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bumdog
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BumDog007/featured
• Other: https://vimeo.com/user9303370