A wonderful coincidence that my webmeister Scott would choose this day for my site to go live - it happens to be my 48th birthday and I feel more alive than ever. I'm the third oldest of nine children born to Nicholas and Guadalupe Mendoza.

Today is a typical Central California / Modesto Summer day, hot as the day I was born to in 1955. 1955 - the year Einstein died and Rock and Roll was born. My homie George Lucas was ready for 6th Grade at John Muir Elementary School, a mere 1.5 miles from Modesto City Hospital where I was born.

After my birth, I returned to my neighborhood just south of the Tuolumne River bridge and the Modesto city limit. I found out years later that the neighborhood I returned to was the barrio, a term often used in a pejorative sense, but to me it was the place of my happy youth. A neighborhood where we all knew each other and children were safe to play day or night.

Growing up in the early 1960's, we children felt no different than those of "Leave It To Beaver" or "My Three Sons." We watched "Howdy Doody" and "The Mickey Mouse Club" like most children across the U.S. were doing. The first Mexican I ever remember seeing on T.V. was a bracero on the "The Real McCoys." Walter Brennan was "Grandpa McCoy," Richard Crenna was "Big Luke." And then there was "Little Luke," "Hassie" and "Big Luke's" wife who I only remember by her nickname, "Sugar Babe." The
bracero, however, was known only as "Pepino." Pepino means "cucumber" in Spanish, so I can only surmise that his nickname was a way for the producers to sneak a phallic symbol past the censors.

Both of my parents were born in Mexico - my father in Changitiro, Michoacan and my mother in La Boquilla, Chihuahua. My father is a World War II U.S. Army veteran and I remember he would wake the sleeping family on Saturday mornings by putting on records of either 1). John
Phillip Sousa marches, 2). Mexican bullfight themes, or 3). Harry James trumpet jams. He was 100% American red, white and blue - but unapologetic for his Mexican heritage. Me? I used to be
Mexican-American. Then Chicano. But never "Hispanic."

But now I consider myself "Americano," American in the hemispheric sense. A statement that America encompasses an expanse from "Tierra del Fuego" to the Arctic circle. A challenge to anyone that thinks they have ownership of the American moniker by virtue of their ancestor's arrival on the Mayflower.

You're damn right I'm a real American. Y que?

My hometown's fame has primarily been as the birthplace of George Lucas and home to the Ernest and Julio Gallo Winery. Recently, however, Modesto has been known as the home of missing women. This - of course - is bullshit. I am a photojournalist for a local daily newspaper, so I'm not at liberty to speak on specifics of recent cases - particularly the Scott and Laci Peterson case - but I can tell you that factors apart from the elements of the case itself have served to be the "tail that wags the dog" in keeping this such a high profile story. I'll leave it at that for now, I will expound on this in the future.

Even though I'm a photojournalist, my true passion spans the art and science of digital imaging. In a true Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fashion, I'm a committed photojournalist by day - unwavering in my ethics of fairness and accuracy; but by night, I'm a tweaking beast synthesizing pixels into realms unknown through blending modes, Gaussian mathematics and mastered gradients.

Thus, in the homepage, you see links to "tweaked" and "untweaked" areas so that you won't have to wonder if the pix have been treated. (Note: within family pix and MetaCreations galleries, a few "tweaked" images are included, but they are very obvious). Otherwise, you won't have to guess if a photograph has been screwed with.

The photographs on this website account for a large body of work, but nearly 12 years of photography is unrepresented by virtue of copyright belonging to my employer. Thus, even though you may know some of my images through Associated Press and other agency distribution - such as
Ellie Nesler in orange jail suit, Chandra Levy's father's tearful prayers; or Scott Peterson's cocked head with cellular phone to his ear - you'll not see them at this site.

So, take a look at the work - perhaps you'll be moved to smile, to cry, to anger, or to think. Or maybe it'll be my next photograph...

Posted by: Adrian / 11:10 AM
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