Yoga and The Beatles

I was in one of those blind dates two weeks ago (Sept 4, 2010 Sunday), where the guy & I were talking about our favorite kinda music. And I shared with him that I loved the Beatles. I told him that I can listen to the Beatles over and over again and not get sick of them. I was obsessed with the Beatles music. He told me that The Beatles music was actually inspired by Eastern culture, especially the song “Here Comes the Sun“. I found that fascinating. I didnt know that. I had the urge to share these fact with you guys, especially after I came across one of the articles in my yoga readings for the teacher training by Michael Stone. He mentioned that one of the people who inspired him to do yoga is his schizophrenic uncle who loved listening to the Beatles too, because “they  were studying with Maharishi Mahesh who was exposed to the teachings of non-duality”. For a detailed account of their yogic exploration you can read through Janel Chatraw’s article. It’s pretty fascinating how the Beatles actually contributed in bringing yoga to the Western world. There were conflicts that took place between the Beatles and their influential yoga mentors resulting to the Beatles quitting the ashram, here is an article on the controversy. If you were wondering what happened to the blind date guy.. it didnt work out. I learned a lot from him within the two times we hanged out though. Amidst me and the guy’s differences that drove us to the conclusion that it wasnt gona work, we have some similar interests that I almost forgot about that he reminded me of. He loved the 1970s movie “Harold and Maude”, which was also a movie recommended by my yoga mentor. He also shared with me this awesome trivia fact that I didnt know about the Beatles! The funny part about dating him was he was a childhood friend of one of my yoga classmates who kept me company a couple of times when I was house sitting for my yoga mentor. When he mentioned her name on our first date, I awkwardly blurted out “What… you seriously know her?! Im sleeping in the same bed with her right now!” lol. Poor guy, I got the scoop about him from not only one, but two of my yoga classmates who were his childhood friends! Oh the sense of humor of a small world.

Fraudographer alert!

Beware of Groupon deals like this fraudphotographer, Dana Dawes. :S It’s really disturbing that she has the nerve to rip money off people by creating a fake website and stealing other professional photographers work and claiming it as her own.

http://www.groupon.com/deals/dana-dawes-photography-atlanta/posts#c321807

More blogs discusses her fraud: http://www.petapixel.com/2010/09/15/photographer-offers-groupon-deal-using-stolen-photographs-chaos-ensures/

Her site before deleting the stolen images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53954517@N05/sets/721576249…

More online info about her -> http://whois.domaintools.com/danadawesphotography.com

V-Tarp

June 10-16, 2010. WE newspaper. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

I came across his article a couple of months ago and kept it, but didnt get the chance to read it until today. In May 2009, I got hooked up by an individual who has a network with BC Transit on their planned anti-grafitti project plan to get ready for the Olympics. As a fresh graduate, I was really excited to work on my 1st out-of school contract. As a naive graduate, I am an easy bait for cheap labor, even from the corporate world. I was really grateful that one of my teachers in Emily Carr stood up to act as my agent, because  BC Transit was working on taking advantage of my fresh graduate status by under paying us on the artist fee. She went to all the board meetings in relation to the project. She would update us on their decisions in the meeting. It sounded like a stressful ordeal in her part, and I was pretty stressed too because while this was all happening I was job-hunting and bill collectors were after me from the unpaid bills I have accumulated after graduation.  My instructor stood her ground backing me up and I got paid the artist fee I deserved, than originally planned. The project was a really good plan of preventing grafiti artists to tamper on empty transit spaces, since it was proven to work in Paris. But that didn’t stop Jerm and his V-Tarp team from expressing out their belief/opinion of advertisements and empty advertisement spaces in transit areas during the Olympics in Vancouver. I found the pretentiousness of such a display unbearable. Jerm’s voice is a point that is a MUST-BE-EXPRESSED in nature. I am glad that we have a brave soul who is willing to go out of his way to even get himself in trouble from authority, though the reaction by BC Transit was exaggerated. It’s so cool that we have a Bansky in the city, I am a fan of Bansky and Jerm’s public art. I agree with Jerm “Things like that are some of the things that makes cities cool and vibrant”

Updates of underwater photography services I offer :)

Hello everybody!

Here is an update of the new underwater photography services I offer You can also enlarge the brochure, drag and drop it to your computer and print it out yourself.

sincerely… Josan

Outside of brochure

Inside of brochure

My new & first book is hot off the presses at Blurb!

I finally finished doing the post-production work in the creation of my 1st fine art underwater photography book for the “Bringing Artists Together” project by Linda Arkelian of Drive Dance Studio. I wanted it to be simple, but I’ve never created a book for and I didn’t realize it can take forever especially if your computer system is working sloOoow like a turtle. lol.

Anyway, take a sneak peak and place your order if you’re so inclined

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1560581

Josan underwater

One of the many portraits of me underwater in Mexico

Mexico Evening 1 (June 20): Solstice Celebration at the Mayan Riviera with locals & hippies

I found the Solstice celebration at Sacbe, such a holistic experience. The atmosphere just had that feeling of home. I was really exhausted from lack of sleep from the trip, but I was so stoked when Les told me that  there was going to be lots of hippies, artsy peeps and yogis in the event. La vie boheme!

I wasn’t really expecting much, but at the end of the evening, my jaws dropped from the amazing performances by the artists part of the show. I was fascianted by the wide range of talents and the performers ability to multi-task one talent with another.

One of the performances was a group of ladies & later on men playing the drums while dancing. The original video wasn’t as dark as it got converted in youtube so you can’t really see the other drummers in the background. It was awesome, because there was a live flute musician playing in the background, the music by the flutist was so beautiful.

Mayan drummer

These masked drummers below were the ones behind the ladies in the youtube performance. The 3 sets of drumming performances presented in the show were authentic Mayan performance, and it felt special to be introduced to the Mayan performance art through these drumming performances since I enjoy dance meditation facilitated by spiritual native drummers in Vancouver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBmVEIcC2xE

The drumming performance was ended by a Mayan drummer who played drums on fire, before the fire dancers  presented their stunt.

Fire drummer

I got so mesmerized by the first fire dancer that I forgot to make some photos, but I did take some photos of the 2nd fire dancer and some videos of the other fire dancers.

Fire dancer # 2

There were four fire dancers who performed during the Solstice celebration. I have a few videos of them. Here are some of them.

June 20 (Sunday): Mexico. Fresh out from the airport free flow writing

Out of Cacun airport

Growing up from the Philippines, I knew how it was like being in a tropical country. It’s been 7 years since I came back to my home country. My house mate owns a land with a palapa in Sacbe, a jungle in Cancun. He also has a time-share to 5-star resorts around Quintana Roo State area. When I found out a couple of months ago that he was coming over to Cancun this month, I jumped in to join him for a little bit with tropical dreams. A 10 day adventure with a fantasy of doing underwater photography of people. When I stepped out of the plane in Cancun International Airport, I felt like a fried egg from the humidity in the air. Les waited for me at the airport’s cafe watching soccer while eating ceviches. I just had to have those ceviches so when he asked me if I wanted the rest from his big platter of leftover ceviches, I jumped for it. No resistance. Just gobbled it. I was stuck in Edmonton Airport the night before, and I was planning to sleep under one of those rows of chairs in the airport, and be right in time for my 6:30 am flight to Cancun the next day. I didn’t get any sleep at all since at dawn is when the cleaning people bring out their noisy cleaning machines to disturb the isolation of the airport. Ahh. Adios sleep. I just decided to do some studying for my yoga teacher training. I was able to accomplish a lot of reading, but the uncertainty that all the information just read stayed put in my head was doubtful. Without any sleep, I looked forward to the idea of breakfast in the airplane amidst airplane food’s reputation of horribility, instead we only had an option of cookie and tidbits with drinks. So ceviches when I landed in Cancun was just plain awesome.

Snake separating highway

The surrounding area had some sort of nostalgia. A tiny bit like Manila with its similarities. The humid weather and aggressive taxi drivers harassing potential passengers. The Mayan people look so much like Filipinos: dark, short and pudgy nosed. They were warm with that mix of flirtatiousness and all-smiles. Well, that’s where Filipinos originally came from through boat hundreds of years ago, from the Mayan Riviera…so duuuhh… Every couple feet within the airport vicinity I got hit on by these flirtatious young Mayan men, they were pretty persuasive flirts, but instead of feeling harassed, I found them hilarious, so I joked with them and laughed off their flirty wordyness.

The drive to the resort was interesting. The nostalgia got disrupted when I saw vast spaces of Westernized and commercialized resorts and animal sculptures in the middle of the highway. Manila didn’t have much vast space based on how I remembered it. It didn’t have big thousand acre  resorts and it didn’t have big snake sculptures in the middle of the highway.

Main entrance to the Royal Hacienda Resort

Royal Hacienda entrance

Entering the resort vicinity

The Royal Hacienda’s Grand Coral entrance was fancy. It was touristy and grand. The colors made me happy, since fun colors have a way with me. It looked comfortable, but I had to admit, I was worried of the idea of being stuck in resort mode. I wanted to see, hang out and mingle with locals in a non-pretentious atmosphere.

Another angle of the Royal Hacienda

Royal Hacienda 1

Jacuzzi at Royal Hacienda

My inner hopes came true when Les told me that we were going to the solstice performance celebration happening all day, during my 1st day in Cancun. it was an event at Sacbe where he gave me a short tour of his palapa, and we watched the evening shows. The performances by local performance artists were top notch. It was AMaAaZING! I had soOoo much fun. There were lotsa white hippies from Playa del Carmen. I met a couple of Les’ local artist friends, they were quiet a diverse of characters. It was a good beginning for me in Cancun.

Josan is gone for 12 days

Hello there,

I am in Cancun, Mexico right now pursuing one of my dream goals in life, which is making beautiful photos of people underwater in a tropical setting.  If you are interested in checking out updates of my photo shoot there, continue on checking this blog

I will respond to your message when I get back in Vancouver on June 30. Enjoy the beautiful Vancouver summer! xo.

sincerely,
Josan

www.josanpinon.com

References for Underwater Shoot in Cancun

Videos:

Sam Champion on BP Oilpocalypse

Brian Skerry‘s Underwater photoshoots for National Geographic

Jeremy Jackson on How We Wreck the Ocean

Articles:

Jason Leopold on How come BP is not under criminal investigation?

Fishing Jones on Bluefin Maul Bait Ball