Something Hopeful This Way Comes -Jennifer Field x John Agcaoili

→

Something Hopeful This Way Comes -Jennifer Field x John Agcaoili

…I was in Los Angeles on another assignment with a close friend of mine. We came to the southland for a tattoo project I believe it was. I had to cut my end of the project short and left him solo due to my planned collaboration with Jennifer.

Weeks prior a mutual friend introduced me to Jennifer Field, told me briefly about her background in acting and said her and I should work together on photography and on film. A few emails and phone calls later Jennifer and I set something up. Keep in mind Jenn and I had never met prior to this project we planned. I was forwarded Jennʼs website so I did a little reading and discovered that after graduating college, she became Miss San Jose Grand Prix and won the Miss Asian America Pageant in 2006 with both events only being a week apart. Basically from racingspokesperson to pageant queen in a six day period not even mentioning the other feats she has since accomplished in a short amount of time. Ok… Back on track. I arrived at her K-Town studio on a Friday afternoon. We barely had enough time to shake hands and introduce ourselves; I quickly transferred my gear from myride to hers and we were on our way to Joshua Tree National Park for the first part of our shoot. LA traffic sucks and our destination was overtwo hours away without traffic. We were pressed for time because I needed the sunset and she started driving crazy! Not really crazy just super aggressive. Sheʼs actually a pretty good driver. Jenn must get her skills from her ESSJ turf. Wink, wink.

…So we finally get a chance to introduce ourselves, talk about our backgrounds, shoot ideas around, and so on. Found out we actually have a few mutual friends in our hometown. After driving for almost three hours we finally get to Joshua Tree. In one of our previous emails she states that Joshua Tree is a “majestic” desert and damn she was right. Joshua Park is fucking dope. It takes us another 30 minutes or so to find a location but well worth it. We found a collection of rocks facing the sunset. It was theperfect location.

Jennifer has this magnificent presence in front of the camera, very magnetic. Very elegant and a hint of being sassy. The photographs below are actually a set from the first 12 shots we took. Not only was I impressed with the first few shots but the chemistry and teamwork we developed out of nowhere was just phenomenal. Moments later the sun dropped into the horizon.

On the way back there was a long stretch of road with small boutique shops, tire and auto repair storefronts, and restaurants. We stopped and had dinner at this hole-in-the-wall taqueria. Decent food, a few weirdos in there. After eating, we hit the neighborhood.This girl’s energy is through the roof, we ended up shooting down a vacant street, caged off parts of buildings, almost every part of the sidewalk…

The clear evening sky and warm weather amplified our experience. It was something out of a movie scene—shop lights flickering, the most stars I have seen in the sky since I been camping, and the sight right overthe north-western part of the horizon was just breathtaking. I think it was this blue illumination from the city lights. Absolutely gorgeous.

On our drive back of course we hit traffic. We spoke about a new project sheʼs a part of, its a reality show called K-Town, amongst other discussions about art, photography, film, food, acting. We got back into town just before 2am. We unpacked and headed to her studio. The artistic chemistry we had was just awesome. We continued to shoot through the morning.

It was about 6am, the sun was coming up, and I was sitting there just gazing at her walls. Thesunrays shining through the window blinds highlighted an area on the wall I didn’t recognize earlier that night. It had torn magazine pages of fashion editorials, articles, celebrities, portraits. I turned to the wall immediately to my right and there were post-it notes of motivational quotes. I continued to walk against the wall just reading these notes. I ran into a few more on the front door. I went into the bathroom and there were a couple notes on the bathroom mirror that really caught my attention. After all the shooting and reading random wall mantras I had a chance to sit down and talk to her about what motivates her and keeps her inspired. I really loved what she had to say about everything. I won’t get into any detail here but it was really eye opening for me as an artist and an individual. Jennifer is one of the most inspirational and hardest working individuals I have ever met and not to mention she is also one of the most beautiful. Sheʼs a very down to earth and genuine person. What I really valued from our first time working together wasnʼt necessarily the perfect shot we got nor the amount of work we got done, it was what I was able to learn from her and from each other. We continue to work on projects together often. And its always a pleasure working with her. We have some new work together, to be released in the near future.

@JenniferField

@JohnAgcaoili