Thank Goodness for Cute Kids

I GRADUATED COLLEGE!!!!!

I’m sorry, that probably sounds like I’m happy about this recent change it my life. Let me try again.

I GRADUATED COLLEGE AND I LIVE AT HOME WITH MY PARENTS AND I DON’T HAVE A STABLE JOB!!! WOW MY HEAD HURTS FROM BANGING IT AGAINST THIS WALL THAT HAS MY HIGH SCHOOL TRACK MEDALS ON IT!!!

In case you live under a rock, the economy ain’t doing so hot so trying to find a job has been an interesting, if not completely frustrating experience. But as my dad would say, “Suck it up Slepoy,” so it is time to stop feeling sorry for myself (not gonna happen) and move on. My new plan, brilliantly entitled “Make Moves,” can be broken down into a few parts. The two most prevalent include an internship with Slate Magazine in NYC and working as a freelance photographer for my local paper, the LI Herald.

So far I am really enjoying my internship with Slate, I even got my very first byline. WOOHOO! On the other hand, my work for LI Herald started off a bit rocky, including an event in which no one, and I mean no one, would give me their names for caption information. But last night I was asked to shoot the third of the Cedarhurst Tuesday night summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park, and I have to say thank goodness for cute kids.

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Children watch a magic show performed by Magical Productions at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Zahava Aryeh, 6, pets a bunny rabbit during a performance by Magical Productions at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Zahava Aryeh, 6, watches a magic show performed by Magical Performance at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Naomi Polanco, 3, shows off her balloon animal at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Jeremy Cruz, 3, plays with a balloon sword at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Daniella Weingarten, 5, plays with a tortoise at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Andrea Gianmalvo of Sister Act sings during a performance at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

20110719 - Cedarhurst, NY - Harry Kaminez of Valley Stream dances along with Andrea Gianmalvo of Sister Act during a performance at the third of the Cedarhurst summer concert series at Cedarhurst Park in Cedarhurst, NY. Photo by Isabel Slepoy / LI Herald

How cute are they? Come on, how can you not love little kids with balloon animals and grown men dressed as hula dancers? Take a break from reading about the Murdoch scandal and the debt ceiling crisis and enjoy the cuteness.

I need a hail mary

I am not a tall person, not very short, but just short enough that I look ridiculous jumping for items that sit on the top shelf in a supermarket. I also tend to have a difficult time at standing room only concerts in which I find myself wanting to tackle all the tall people standing in the front row and ask them “WHY MUST I BE FORCED TO STARE AT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD? YOU’RE TALL, MOVE BACK A ROW.” The caps were necessary because this has happened more than once, and don’t doubt  my ability to tackle a person, I’m feisty.

Despite these “short-comings” being on the smaller side doesn’t really bother me. Even being a photographer I have found ways to work around it. When everyone goes up, I crouch down. When everyone groups together, I bend down and pop on the other side to get in front. I found that it has made my style, a bit more sneaky. But the one thing, THE ONE THING I can’t seem to get is a classic “hail marry” picture.

A definition is necessary: “Hail Mary photo is one you shoot with the camera extended out away from your body, usually up high, but sometimes out at the side, because you’re either blocked or obstructed from a more normal approach, or in some cases, because the angle you actually want is higher up and the situation does not allow you to physically raise yourself up. Usually, it’s because fans, police, or other photographers are in your way, depending upon the event you are shooting.”

Basically I find myself often blocked by people, or just plain unable to see over their tallness to get the picture, so I try to take a hail mary photograph. Problem is it seems that no matter how hard I try my hail marys come out terrible. They are usually tilted violently to one side, even though I swore I was holding it straight. I usually over exaggerate the tilt so that the frame cuts out subjects heads, and somehow I manage to make it blurry.

So here is my  latest attempt…

Although it is a sorry excuse, I will not give up. One day I will get my hail marry photograph and it will be a beautiful moment. dammit.

I’m Back!

So I’ve finally got my act together and have decided to start writing on my blog again. Last semester I had an internship with the office of the Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick; an amazing experience but one that took up a lot of my free time. That combined with a full class load made it hard to stay on stop of writing posts. But now I’m back, a part-time student with no internship and I’m back! So let’s get this started.

I am currently enrolled in a portfolio class and our first assignment was to take feature pictures, and with the weather being as bad as it has been lately I decided it was time for some weather shots.

January 22, 2011- Marco Cappiardi, 29, walks his pug Hazel across the frozen pond in the Boston Public Gardens in Boston, MA.

January 22, 2011 – James Moodley, 5, plays in the snow by the “Make Way for Ducklings” sculpture in the Boston Public Gardens in Boston, MA.

Hope you like! It’s good to be back…

Coming Soon…

This week I started a new internship at The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s online newspaper based out of NYC. So far I have a lot of editing photographs, most memorably some images from a soon to be released book called “The Big Butt Book.” Yes that’s a real thing and yes I starred at considerably large behinds all morning. Don’t worry, that gallery will be up on the website soon.

Anyway today I don’t seem to be doing too much so I decided to start working on putting together a new website. Unfortunately my lack of internet skills is making the process take a bit of time. Thank goodness photo shelter has a video about everything, I swear they answer every question I have.

So for now all I have is my newest portfolio. Hope you like!

Barcelona: A True Vacation

Somehow all the other trips that I have taken during my time abroad have left me feeling every more exhausted than when I left, so I decided Barcelona would be different. I needed a true vacation, where my main goals were to relax and read as much as possible. Mission accomplished.

For this leg of my trip I visited and stayed with my best friend Marisa, whom I’ve known since I was 5 years old. The nicest part about staying with her and her amazing roommates was not just because it was free, that was just a plus, but that I felt more relaxed and comfortable. I also felt that staying with her allowed me to see a different side of Barcelona, a more insiders version. Most days I slept until a little before noon (it’s allowed because I am still in college) and then just went to the beach. Just a few metro stops away the weather was perfect so the beach was amazing. I spent most of my time just laying there thinking, “Yeah I’m just laying on the beach in Barcelona, Spain right now, no big.”

On the way to the beach on my first day Marisa warned me that the second I walked onto the sand I would accosted by people trying to sell me things. Alrighty, how bad could it be. Answer: Bad! Oh dear lord you need to listen to your ipod so you can drown out the noise of people yelling things at you. The list of noises/sounds goes as such:

1. “Massage?Massage?”- Asian women yelling in a thick accent that sounds more like masahe, they carried around massage oils so you can get a massage while relaxing on the beach. I found it quite entertaining when two of the women see a customer at the same time and fight over who gets to give them a massage…apparently its a cut throat business.

2. “Tattoo?”- Yes, perfect, that’s exactly what I want to do, get a tattoo from a random man carrying a book of examples around on the beach. He was a smart businessman however because he always had his book open to the page of playboy bunny tattoos. Nah I think I’ll pass.

3. “aklsjdfkajsdfa”- yeah no idea what this guy was saying but he was definitely selling slices of coconuts.

4. “BEER!”- men carrying around cans of beer in plastic bags.

5. This guy didn’t saying anything he was just walking around holding scarves for sale…oh yeah I totally want to buy that scarf that is all around your sweaty body. ew.

6. Favorite by far was donuts man: guy walked around with a platter of donuts on his head and did a show by throwing them around and spinning the platter on his head.

7. Rastafarian looking man walked around holding a fake joint the size of a 12 year old. Whatever makes him happy.

Since Marisa still had classes I made myself take at least one day to do the truly touristy thing. In the morning I decided to to go the Picasso museum, which I ended up liking a lot. Having only known his most famous work it was interesting to see his progression as an artist from when he was a young man. After some lunch I headed over to La Sagrada Familia, the world famous Roman Catholic church that was designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. Started in 1882 it is still not fully completed, but I was able to take a look inside and take an elevator ride to the top for some amazing views. The most interesting part was that it was different from any church I have ever seen, very different from the typical churches around Europe. You know the joke, a tour of Europe is a tour of its churches.

Here are some of my pictures from Sagrada Familia..trust me these don’t do it justice.

The rest of my time in Barcelona was spent relaxing and reading a total of 3 books, go me! Next it was off to Greece which was also relaxing but wayyyy more stressful.

To be continued…

Bienvenue à Paris

I’m finally back home in America…okay that’s a lie, I’ve been home for almost three weeks but my laziness has taken over. Ehh. Anyway the recap of my two week adventure begins with Paris. After packing all my belongings into two suitcases and leaving one for my roommate Theresa to put in storage me and my friend Nathan headed out to a 5:25am train to Paris on the famous Eurostar. To be honest I don’t remember much, being so early I fell asleep minutes after finding my seat. I woke up for a few minutes and was able to see some of the gorgeous French countryside in the early morning light, it was beautiful.

After leaving our luggage in the hostel we headed out to meet up with a group called Sandman that gives free walking tours in Paris, as well as around Europe. For the next three hours we walked around Paris getting to hear all about the complicated French history and seeing some of the world famous sights. Of course I took a ton of pictures.

This is our eccentric, but very nice tour guide (whose name I can’t remember) who was from Australia. Here he is giving our group an abridged version of the complicated French history…it seems the French like revolutions.

This is the River Seine that runs right through Paris; in the background you can see  Notre Dame in the background. Unfortunately since we were only there for two two days we were unable to go take a look inside.

We walked across Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge across the River Seine. Considered one of the most romantic places in Paris, next to the Eiffel Tower of course, couples put their names on locks and lock them to the bridge to symbolize their eternal love.
Girl Alert: This was the bridge where Sex and the City filmed their final scene of the series in which Carrie and Big finally get back together awwww

After the tour we headed to the Arc de Triomphe where we saw the eternal flame. Apparently a guy was arrested for putting out the eternal flame by peeing on it…he is forever banned from entering France.

Next we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We were so lucky because it was such a beautiful day.

The view from the second level of the Eiffel Tower.

Nathan got a picture of me on the Eiffel Tower, again just look at that ridiculous view behind me.

Nathan checking out the view a little closer up.

Needless to say after a lovely dinner of French Onion Soup and cheese (oh the cheese, it was soooooooo good I couldn’t stop eating) we collapsed after the day of sightseeing. We needed our rest because the next morning we woke up early and headed out to Versailles. As some of you know I am absolutely obsessed with all things monarchy, such as anything relating to the Tudor Dynasty, and that love includes  Marie Antoinette. So one of my had to do things was to take the train outside Paris and to see the once capital of France.

This is just one side of the incredible palace.

The gardens were just HUGE,  we only saw a fraction of them.

AHHH it’s the Hall of Mirrors, how beautiful and over the top is this room.

After just a mere 3 hours of walking around we headed back to Paris to go to the Lourve , because clearly we are crazy people and are trying to makes ourselves collapse from exhaustion.

The Pyramid is the modern entrance to the Louvre designed to unify the expansive museum. The subject of much controversy, many do not believe that it takes away from the museum’s beauty.

I found this little girl who was playing in the fountains at the Louvre.

This is the Raft of Medusa, a painting on display in the Louvre, it was one of my favorites from a class I had taken on French painting the semester before. When I finally found it I just stood with my mouth hanging open for a few minutes, I couldn’t believe I was finally getting to see it (I’m a geek and I’m okay with that).

The rest of our trip was spent sleeping and eating of course and the next day Nathan left early for the south of France while I went to the Museo Dorsey since my flight was not until 5pm. Again, being the giant art history geek that I am, I was overwhelmed by the fact that I was getting to see so many of the paintings that I had studied and loved in the flesh. I was surrounded by the works of Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Courbet, Degas, and Gauguin.  If that wasn’t enough they had a special exhibit called Crime and Punishment in which Gericault’s pieces Severed Limbs and The Death of Marar were on display. SO COOL! Afterwards I headed to the airport and took a quick flight to Barcelona where I was going to spend a week with my best friend Marisa, my best friend since I was 5 years old, who had been studying there for the semester. The flight was uneventiful except for the fact that everyone on the flight had just come from Euro Disney and were covered head to toe in Disney gear. I was jealous.

Next stop Barcelona, Spain.

I’m Off

I can’t believe it but my time here in London has come to a close and I am off to travel around Europe for two weeks before heading back home. Don’t worry by the time I get to New York I will have a ton of stories and lots of pictures. I threw together this little graphic to show you guys my travel plans. Bye for now…

See you all again in two weeks!