Ken Matsumoto

Ken Matsumoto is a sculptor and gallery owner in San Jose's Japantown.  His art is strong and simple. He is calm and unpretentious. He lives with his wife Joy and his dog Bugsy who is "a real stinker" and "pretty endearing." 

photo essay

Adam Kim

 

Podcast

Adam Kim manages Roy's Cleaners, a dry cleaning shop just off El Camino Real. The shop will be closing permanently on December 30th due to lack of revenue; Adam is not sure what he wants to do after it does. Perhaps he will go to basketball games and watch television: Adam is a huge Golden State Warriors and Game of Thrones fan.

Lilia Sanchez

Lilia Sanchez is the manager of Coupa Café at the Stanford Business School. She runs a tight ship yet she is always open-hearted and extremely welcoming to all of her customers. She immigrated to the United States 20 years ago from Michoacán, Mexico and has worked very hard to get to where she is today. Lilia is always eager to talk and treats everyone like family!

Link to photo essay: HERE

Faith Bell

Faith Bell is the owner of Bell's Books, a bookstore in Palo Alto that her family has owned since the 1930s. She loves buying and researching collections of old books, talking to her favorite customers, taking walks in the fall near her home in Hidden Villa, and drinking English tea.

Photo Essay

Ross Ziegler

Dr. Ross Ziegler of Palo Alto is a recovering addict and alcoholic with 29 years of sobriety. He is actively involved in the recovery community in Palo Alto and has helped untold numbers of addicts and alcoholics achieve sobriety through the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).  Ross founded and currently runs the Escalade Recovery Foundation which serves to “assist addicts recovery from substance abuse and reintegrate into their community and become a productive member of society.” Ross is pictured here with his best friend, Apollo.

Photo Essay Here

Blythe Bulmore

Blythe Bulmore was a former flight attendant for TWA (Trans World Airlines) and she is now a dog-walker and dog-sitter for families in Los Altos Hills. She enjoys making clothing with her sewing machine and she loves spending time with her mom, children and grandchildren. Blythe loves being around animals: she says, “they make me so happy and I always smile when I’m either petting a dog or a horse.”

Link to my photo essay

Lydia Klutzman

Lydia Klutzman is a 43 year old immigrant from East Berlin who moved to Palo Alto with her family 15 years ago. She works at Barron Park Elementary School as a special education teacher and manages the curriculum for children with autism. Since a very young age, Lydia has been passionate about working with kids. However, if she had the money, she would be living in Amsterdam and exploring every European country she could.
Photo Essay

Mercedes Navarro

Mercedes Navarro has owned the Ladera Garden and Gift Shop for the past 35 years. When she was a  young adult, she immigrated to California from Mexico. Now, her favorite things are spending time with her grand children, working with the community at the garden shop and relaxing with her husband. When I asked if I could photograph Mercedes while worked in the Garden, she replied modestly, "Oh, wow! Take the photo from far away!"

Here is the link to my photo essay.

Clara Rhee

In this picture, Clara Rhee smiles as she makes alterations on a dress.  Clara has been the owner of Ladera Cleaners for almost 30 years, where she runs a dry cleaning and alteration business. Over the course of her life, she has lived in North Korea, South Korea, and Canada before finally settling in California.  Now, she spends much of her time traveling, golfing, and photographing, along with working at the store.  You can view my photo essay on Clara and the store here

Iris Vasquez

Iris Vasquez is thirty years old and dreamed of being a dancer or singer when she was younger. Although she never fulfilled that dream, she found a passion for fitness and found out that she could be a different kind of performer and teach fitness. Iris now works as the group fitness manager at the Equinox gym in Palo Alto. She has worked there for four years and expects to be there for a long time. Iris loves her job because she says, “I get to inspire people to get outside of their box. It’s super important to not just live your life doing the same old boring things that you’re comfortable with, but to challenge and push yourself.”

Click this link to listen to Iris teaching one of her classes.

Bismarck Rosano

Bismarck Rosano is a 40-year-old immigrant from a small town in Uruguay. He works as the chef at Stanford’s Theta Sorority. He has many hobbies including working out, fishing, and hiking, but his biggest passion is music. He DJs at nightclubs and parties in his free time, and loves listening to and creating EDM and international music.

Here is my podcast:

William Danz

William Danz is a fifth-generation ocularist, who inherited the family business in the 1980s. His great-grandfather was a German craftsman who was renowned for perfecting the glass eye in the 1800s. Mr. Danz, who also goes by Willie Danz, is currently self-employed with his own office in San Francisco. He works alongside his son, who is an ocularist-in-training.

Click here for the photo essay.

Amanda Boyce

Amanda Boyce is the Principal at Addison Elementary School in Palo Alto and has worked in education for 19 years. She was born in England but grew up in different parts of Asia, and moved to Cupertino when she was eight years old. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and spending time with her husband and two daughters.  

Click here to listen to her talk about what she thinks is the biggest problem and how it relates to her core values: Link

Patrizia Crystene Brioss

Patrizia Crystene Brioss is a makeup artist at Nordstrom’s MAC Station at the Stanford Shopping Center. She is a part-time makeup artist and a full-time student, attending a community college in Santa Clara and majoring in biological sciences. Patrizia has been working at MAC for the past two years and hopes to become a veterinarian.

Link to Photo Essay

Deanna Payne

Deanna Payne is an elementary school music teacher with the organization Music for Minors and serves as a teaching assistant for first through third grade music classes at iSing Girlchoir. She graduated from Ithaca College this past spring and moved to Palo Alto, intending to stay only for the summer. This photo was taken after I asked her permission to photograph her during a class, to which she responded, "Of course!"
Photo essay

Gordon Tonthat

GORDON TONTHAT (right) is the owner of Rave Burger in Downtown San Mateo. Before starting his restaurant, Gordon had no cooking or restaurant experience and now, his restaurant is the first hit on Yelp for "burgers, San Mateo" and is among the most highly rated burger joints in the city. When Gordon was in 2nd grade, he and his family moved to the United States as a refugees of the Vietnam War.

Click here for the photo essay

Karen Koy

Karen Koy (right) is a stylist who works for the Anthropologie in Stanford Shopping Center. She worked in the television industry before switching over to retail, a profession she used to view as superficial. She has been working in Anthropologie for two years and is also the mother of a 15-year-old girl.

Click here for photo essay.