All the rage back home
Drug dealer Rick Bolivia exhales a hit of methamphetamine in his room in the Pacoima area of Los Angeles, Calif. on Oct. 22, 2015. Photo by Joshua Duarte
The lighter clicks on, the flame burns the glass, the smoke fills the room, it smell like burning plastic. He puts the pipe to his lips and inhales. Two seconds go by...
An out of body experience
Photo by: Alan Castro
As he glides across the concrete ground with a hypnotizing stare, his body seems to shift form to a liquid-like movement. Resembling the motion of a contortionist, pair of arms are brought over a tilted head that is followed by a shoulder that rotates all the way around without popping out. He stares into his audience’s...
MusicAli Speaking
The sound of seventeen carefully blended voices fills the room in a swelling crescendo as the cohesive group of UCLA students concentrates on executing the songs they’ve spent more than one hundred hours rehearsing. One soprano with shiny dark hair and a powerful falsetto stands out among the assembly.
Ali Hepps is a 19-year-old student starting her sophomore year at...
Striking with all 8
Whether in a classroom wearing jeans and a t-shirt or in the gym with his royal blue Muay Thai shorts, covered in yellow accents with red trimming, his intensity is always the same.
Focusing on Muay Thai for the past two years, Omar Suarez first gained interest in martial arts at the age of 10, following his enrollment at World...
Streaming to Success
Photo by: Alan Castro
In the gaming world people are now able to make a living. It’s just another day at work as Mark Neacey sits on the computer in his casual attire of a T-shirt, baggy shorts and flip-flops. He screams various phrases at his computer screen.
Neacey makes ends meet by working as a full-time streamer, known in pop...
Form & Function
The sun rises on the canyon and with it comes not the sounds of birds singing but the whirring of drills.
Hammering echoes over the hills that are covered in grasses nearly waist high in some spots. A breeze caresses the curves of the hill and causes the grass to wave lackadaisically in cool of this early Saturday morning. The...
Other Worldly
A half-formed face pieced together from scraps of clay stares at the blanched ceiling—voiceless yet unnerving. Its hollowed eyes gaze upward in a state of perpetual shock while its mouth—prodded and pulled out of alignment—hangs slack-jawed as if it were screaming. Like the many other sketches and sculptures that litter Naomi Nadreau's modest home, the mask is a work...
Producer on the run
Juxtaposed against her thin frame and bubbly personality, Racquel Lehrman plays a leading role in theater entertainment. Despite being almost 3,000 miles from New York, she is bringing Broadway to Southern California.
Theater is Lehrman’s greatest passion. Her goal is to help keep the art alive as she runs her own production company in Los Angeles.
She believes in the personable...
Welcome to the Game Grid
The kids’ audible joy melds with the bleeps and bloops of arcade machines that are old enough to belong to their parents. Air hockey pucks smack around the tables, punctuating the laughter and talking that fills the room.
The 2,500 square-foot facility is packed, almost every machine occupied by an eager kid or parent trying to get to the next...
Little Ethiopia
The LA neighborhood expands its flavorful landscape
A plate filled with cabbage, tomato salad, lentils, pumpkins, green beans and other vegetables are served on injera, a pancake-like bread, from Rahel Ethiopian Vegan Cuisine, in Little Ethiopia in Los Angeles on May 1, 2021. Photo by Katya Castillo.