THE PREGGIES IN MY LIFE

I was just reading Mary's blog and I had to steal one of her pictures because I thought it was just so adorable of two of my best friends in the world. They are both knocked up right now. Mary is just about ready to pop...we don't know what's going to pop out yet...a baby yes...but boy or girl...who knows. Kelly is almost 6 months and we do know that hers is a little girl. But of course she's being secretive about the name. Always likes to keep us guessing about something. :) Anyway, here is a picture. I can't wait to see them when I get back to D.C. this weekend,

CULVER CITY

My mother has been in town this week and we spent all of yesterday wandering around Culver City. Who knew it was such a fun walking city, and it has a booming art scene. We went to some galleries and little shops and for a delicious glass of wine at Bottle Rock. Also saw Willem Dafoe enjoying some lunch in the window of a local restaurant.


Afterwards we met Gary over at Dar Maghreb on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood for a VERY traditional Moroccan dinner. The food was good but there was WAY too much of it. If you go, go hungry and be prepared to not get to choose your dinner or use silverware or plates. The menu is basically set but there are a few either/ or items. We opted for the chicken rather than the pigeon. I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to food but I just don't think I could enjoy eating pigeon.

ANOTHER CELEBRITY SIGHTING

While I was grocery shopping at Mayfair Market on Franklin in Los Feliz today, I saw Mandy Moore in the produce department. She was wearing sunglasses inside and trying to be incognito but I spotted her anyway. Haha! :)

CELEBRITY SIGHTING

Who: Drea De Mateo

From: The Soprano's
When: Sunday evening
Where: Katsuya in Studio City
What: Eating sushi
Why: Gary and I had just picked up my mother from Long Beach airport and we were all starving so we hit Katsuya for some delicious sushi before dropping her off at Michael & Kay's.

BUYING ART?

Gary and I just spent the most lovely evening at the Grove. First we went to Jack Gallery for the opening of Todd Goldman's new show. We saw Jared, one of the art dealers who immediately recognized us as regular gallery browsers. I was feeling particularly amorous over a 4' x 7' fuschia canvas painting that read "Gold digger...like a hooker just smarter". I don't know why but I have always loved this one but never seen it this massive or in that color. Anyway, I think I stared at it a little too long because before I knew it, they had pulled it off the wall and taken us into a private viewing room where we could sit down in front of the thing to fully absorb it. Once we heard about the 1 year 0% interest Wells Fargo finanacing plan, the $7500 price tag started to sound not so bad after all. Although Gary and I both started to get a little overly excited about the prospect of purchasing big, original art by an artist who is seriously on the rise (it is an investment after all), so we decided to go talk about it over dinner. After we managed to get out of the gallery and after some rational discussion, we came to the conclusion that even if we forked over $7500 for this thing, we have absolutely no where to hang it. Hmm. The decision became very clear after that. BUT, we did go back to tell Jared our decision and promised to return to take a look at our options of buying something a little smaller...which I think will also be very exciting. Oh yeah, and Selma Blair was at the opening too...with a short blonde pixie cut. Adorable!

And that reminds me that last night on our way to Pinkberry (yes again), Gary, Oliver and I spotted Trishelle from The Real World outside of The Dresden on Vermont.

MUG SHOTS

Last night a bunch of us gathered at Kaylyn's to watch the 3 most recently edited Shut Up Stella webisodes. They are absolutely brilliant and I'm just dying for everyone else to see them. Kay and the girls leave tomorrow for a 2 week trip to London. I wanted to go with them but Sony would not pony up the cash for my airfare so it looks like I'm staying around here until my next trip back to D.C. It sounded like an awfully long flight from here anyway, ugh!
Anyway, while we were all at Kaylyn's, I did some headshots for the Sixteen Blue website...mugshot style. Gary rented the little board and all of the letters and we used a blank wall in Kaylan's apt. for the background. I lit it with an off-camera strobe so that it didn't look too much like somebody's apartment. Then I blew out the faces with some really stronng direct on-camera flash. Really against everything I stand for as a photographer but it was the look Gary wanted. I think they are kind of a riot actually.

TRINIDAD WEDDING

Last night I finished designing the wedding album for Amit & Gillian, whose wedding I shot in Trinidad last September. For those of you who don't know where Trinidad (& Tobago) is, (which I didn't), it is just off the northern coast of South America, near Aruba. Amit and Gillian are both doctors with practices in D.C. Gillian is originally from Trinidad so they opted to have a destination wedding there. I was thrilled at the opportunity to go somewhere completely new to me and Gary came along with me to help (which I desperately needed) and to have a little vacation. The wedding was wonderful and all of the guests were great to be around. We participated in many of the pre-wedding activities like a float through a bird sanctuary, a day cruise, a bus tour through Trinidad etc.

The one thing that we didn't plan for was the fact that Gary and I were going to be sharing clothes for the week. This was because my luggage never made it there...ever. Not for the 5 days we were there. Luckily, I had all of my camera equipment since I had carried it on the plane. But no clothes, no makeup, no products, no nothing. And to add insult to injury, our trip coincided with Trinidad's Independence Day, a national holiday so all of the stores were closed. When I finally managed to make it to a mall, I found that the style in Trinidad is well, a little bit "hoochy"...as in I had trouble finding clothes that did not bare my midriff and other body parts. :) I did finally get to pick my luggage up on the way back home so luckily it was not gone forever but I did get to cross-dress for several days and go au natural on the makeup.

Here are some images:

The bus tour...
me and Gary on the bus



These kids really enjoyed being photographed

Somebody is in trouble

Lots of people in Trinidad like to wave at the camera


Floating through the bird sanctuary...

There were lots of big snakes in the trees...more snakes than birds at this point.


This was where it got exciting. A big tree had fallen across the river and blocked the path of the boat. Everyone thought we would have to turn around. Our guide thought he would plow right through until the tree started to come up over the front of the boat. Then he decided to get out his trusty machete and he hacked right through the thing!


The Day Cruise...
Gary with the video camera...all of our traumas on this trip were caught on camera


Some decided to go for a swim (I had no bathing suit since I had no luggage)

I was obsessed with this baby


Gillian & Amit "officially" got married in a small ceremony on Saturday, the real wedding was on Sunday






Here are the layouts for their album:
(my clients select their favorite images and I do the design from those)

HOW MANY OF ME?

http://ww2.howmanyofme.com/

My friend Erin Ogburn sent me this link this morning. It is statistically supposed to calculate how many people are living in the U.S. with your same name. She said there are 3 Erin Ogburns. It doesn't actually search any census databases though....too bad. Here's what happened when I looked up my own name.

JUSTINE
There are 25,497 people in the U.S. with the first name Justine.
Statistically the 1143rd most popular first name. (tied with 35 other first names)
More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Justine are female.

UNGARO
There are 990 people in the U.S. with the last name Ungaro.
Statistically the 26894th most popular last name. (tied with 1178 other last names)

JUSTINE UNGARO
There are 0 people in the U.S. named Justine Ungaro.
While both names you entered were found in our database, neither was common enough to make it likely that someone in the U.S. has that name.

Apparently I am a statistcal anomale but all statistics aside, I'm pretty sure there is at least one Justine Ungaro living in the U.S. :)

DIXIE CHICKS ROCK THE GRAMMY'S


What a big F You the Dixie Chicks just gave to Bush and all of his cronies! With five Grammy's in one night, I feel so happy that their voices are heard and appreciated. Congratulations to the Chicks for speaking up and for finally receiving the recognition they deserve!

THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

Has anyone else seen the previews for The Bridge To Terabithia? Well I've been watching these for the past few weeks and thinking, it's a kids movie but it looks so good. I suggested to Gary that maybe we should take my niece Zoe to see it but he thought it might be too scary. We mentioned the idea to Michael to see if he thought Zoe might enjoy the movie. Then we find out, oh Zoe went to the L.A. premiere of the movie and walked the red carpet and everything. I guess it wasn't too scary after all.

Here she is with her friend Hayden and Hayden's dad, Ed Begley Jr.

GROCERY SHOPPING

Gary and I just got home from the grocery store and you would think we had to feed like 8 people for a week. I've never filled a cart this full before. It was so heavy that I was weaving through the aisles like a drunk driver.
We were not even finished shopping at this point.

Then we were trying to guess just how much that amount of food would cost. Our guess was $210 but it turned out to be more than that.

Seems like a lot to feed two people for a week.

SHIRLEY MANSON



Gary and I saw Shirley Manson dining at Farfalla on Hillhurst tonight. This was not the first time I'd seen her though. About 7 years ago, I served drinks to Shirley Manson and the rest of Garbage when I bartended in college. I remember Shirley drank sea breezes and greyhounds. I wonder if she still does? :) She did go to her room early but everyone else stayed and hung out with me and my sister until closing. They also gave us tickets and backstage passes to the show the next night. One guy in their road crew was this guy named Chad. A couple of years after that I saw him again at the 9:30 Club in D.C. when he was on tour with Nina Gordon. Very random.

GRIPE WITH CHRIS AND GARY

Back in the mid-90's (when I was just a teeny-bopper drowning in horrendously oversized Nirvana-esque flannel shirts), my current boyfriend Gary was hosting and producing a public access show in NYC called "Gripe With Chris & Gary". Over the past few months, Gary has been uploading all of these old clips to a myspace page for the enjoyment of the masses. Well, last night he discovered that one of his clips has landed a place of honor on the myspace homepage and in the last 18 or so hours has garnered some 22,000 or so views and many many comments. There are actually people having racial disputes on his myspace page. How crazy is that?

Deli clerk 'Bittu' is looking for love



Add to My Profile | More Videos

STEVE MARTIN


So yesterday was so incredibly cool and surreal. I got to do a shoot with Steve Martin! Yes, THE Steve Martin. He came over to play the banjo on Lisa's album so I was asked to come and shoot it and I was more than happy to oblige. He was incredibly professional and very nervous, even though he's an incredible banjo-player. Oliver turned out to be a HUGE Steve Martin fan too even though we had to banish him and Bea to the house for a while so they wouldn't interrupt.

Here are a few images:




Steve & Lisa

Michelle, Dan, Steve & Lisa

5 CHICKS

Tuesday night was my 2nd ever meeting of Five Chicks and a Fag...but this time the invite email said to feel free to bring straight boys. So yay, this was my one chance to bring Gary so that he could get acquainted with everyone. He was a little reluctant to go because he thought I should just be having fun with my girlfriends...but since I wanted him to come, he did. How sweet. So we roll up to Liquid Kitty

and of course it's ALL girls and Jim but this time there are even extra girls...no straight boys though. Apparently some were invited but no one showed. So Gary was such a great sport about it and chatted everyone up and they all just loved him.
Here are some pictures:


Erin taking her job as Secretary VERY seriously



A smoke break for some of the chicks, I am pretending to have a conversation here, I don't really look like this :)


Damian brought us way too many shots this time



Gary chatting up the ladies



Here is Erin's recap for all of the chicks:
2/6/07 - Recap....
Hello Lovely 5 Chicks!! What a nite!!

Awards:
Applause Award: Shannon, our fearless PRES! Outstanding leadership in the new year with logo tee initiative, book list, movie list, and cd of the month projects!! We love you and feel loved!
Most Dedicated: Maritza - poor kitty attended looking sassy with walking pneumonia!!
Hidden Talent: Elle - massage expert -awe!
Party Foul: Poor Shannon dropped her phone in the sink while washing her kitty hands - oops!
Stepping Back Award: Jim - he grabbed Shannon's chest twice!! Who could blame him - her clams looked great per usual!
Most Intelligent: Claire - she had dinner other than olives

Points of Interest:
Lacey's Congrats Nite: Lots of toasting and slamming of shots courtesy of Damian!
Dana took a shot - Holy Tuesday! And she is now taking "risks" in the dating world! Go Dana!
New Guests: Monica, Gary, Gary's nice friend? (oopss this kitty was buzzed last nite), and Veronica - YAY - we love you all!
Political Discussion: Very unKITTY like! It was short with a lot of name calling!

Song/Dance:
DANA gets it - signing our theme song "Jammin' and Clammin'" --- the stomp dance along with the singing really topped it off!
Dana and Jess also decided that they are the NEW SALT N PEPPA - dear lord!!

Quotes:
Lacey: "Erin, you are a ghetto b8tch - I need a non menthol cig please!"
Erin: "They are thirsty for us" ; Shannon added "For now" (who knows)
Shannon: " When it's that time of the month, I pick one evil co-worker to take it all out on"!

Observations:
Erin - Lacey needs to eat meat or stop getting so much action. So lil I can put her in my skinny jeans pocket!
Erin- Leah looking all hot and married!
Erin- Monica and Lacey are in friend love - couldn't get a word in edgewise with those 2 kitties!

Future Highlights:
Oops- Half Nelson showing at Wilson's tonite!
Barney's warehouse sales starts tomorrow!!
Justine is planning on starting a 5 chicks blog - be on the lookout!
Launch Party for Justine's website! Let's show our support and sass! Possibility that Justine may coordinate with Lacey to cater the party! Chicks helping chicks - love it!
Gary is dabbling with the idea of a tv pilot all about 5 chicks!
Life is always full of stressors - Elle and Erin are quitting smoking March 1st!
Galaxy game once Shannon's bf "Beckham" gets here!

CAMP LISA

Obviously from this blog, everyone can tell I've been spending a lot of time over at Dan and Michelle's lately. :) Well, one day I went over to photograph Lisa doing a recording session with a bunch of kids who were singing some background vocals for her Camp Lisa album. Zoe, her friend Hayden & Ellen & Doug's daughter Isabel were three of the little cuties.

Anyone else think that Hayden is going to grow up to be a "Type A" personality? :)

Another evening a whole bunch of us were over there. The musically inclined added their talents to the album.
Kay & Michelle

Dave Gibbs

Dan

Michael & the kids

Dave, Lisa & Michelle

Nina Gordon

Gary filmed all of the madness

Oliver just wanted some love

Zoe

Henry

CELEB SIGHTING



This afternoon Oliver and I took a nice walk over to Hillhurst to go to Box Brothers because they are the nearest FedEx location and I had to ship out a wedding album. When we walked in I noticed that there was Kelly Lynch standing at the counter trying to ship out a package of some sort. I guess this neighborhood is a hotspot for celeb sightings. Seems like every time I go anywhere these days I end up seeing somebody.

BABY IVY

I finally got to meet our friends Nina & Jeff's new baby, her name is Ivy and she's a redhead...with cheeks. So incredibly adorable! I don't think I've ever seen so many people fawning over one baby at a time before. And Nina looked amazing. I've never seen her look quite so happy. I can't wait to see my closest friends Kelly and Mary with their babies...both prego at the moment.

Here are some pictures of Ivy.

Nina, Gary & Lisa

Nina showing us that yes, she does have red hair...and Dan leaning in to see just what's in store for him very soon.

I GOT FLOWERS!

On Thursday morning I stepped out of my front door to take Oliver for a walk and I saw this box from Pro Flowers outside just sitting there. I thought it was for our neighbor so I snooped to see who they were for...and there was my name! I couldn't believe it. I brought them inside (without letting Ollie relieve himself, poor thing) and Gary seemed awfully curious also to see who was sending flowers to his girlfriend. Inside were two dozen gorgeous sweetheart roses with a card that read:
"Justine...Thanks for working (and dealing) with us and we look forward to spending our big day with you. You are truly a sweetheart! Love, Stacy and Derrick"


They were from the most lovely couple whose wedding I just can't wait for coming up in November. I would have absolutely cried if I hadn't gotten to shoot their wedding. We clicked from the first second they walked in my door. I'm just so thrilled that it has all worked out so well and I just couldn't believe how thoughtful they were to send me flowers! That's a first for me. :)

FIRST WEDDING OF THE YEAR

I shot my first wedding of 2007 on January 13th while I will still in D.C. for the holidays. Emily and Jeff are a great couple from New York who hosted a very tiny wedding (just 14 people) at the Morisson House in Old Town Alexandria. It was such a sweet and intimate ceremony followed by a fabulously delicious dinner. Here are a few of my favorite images from the day.






(this one I made by photoshopping two images together)

NEW WEDDING POSTCARD


I designed this yesterday to hand out to potential wedding clients/ contacts etc. out here in L.A. I don't have my real business cards yet but I'm heading to Aardvark Letterpress tomorrow to get those ordered. Yay!

SHANNON ELIZABETH

I saw Shannon Elizabeth at The Alcove in Los Feliz the other day.

I was there to meet Jackie from Dollface for lunch and there she was. She seemed nice. She smiled at me and I smiled back and then kept on looking for Jackie. I'm just starting to get used to recognizing celebrities around here. Last year in NYC, I saw Rachel Weisz at Whole Foods and I kept on staring at her because I could have sworn I knew her from h.s. because she looked SO familar. And then I realized, oh that's Rachel Weisz. Oops.