self portrait challenge - street scene

Great new theme this month over at self portrait challenge . SP's on the street, man.

La familia and I went to the swap meet in East LA on Saturday; Los Amigos! Mall on Jefferson, which looks, from the outside, like a lavender prison compound topped with silver spiral barb wire. Here we get 75 packs of kids underwear for $1. Socks too. Can't beat that especially when the girls report to have not one pair of underwear or matching socks every other weekend. We also bought 48 pairs of cheap earrings for about $2, twelve of which have already turned black or green. We don't care! And the kids and Husband can't wait to lunch on 10 churros for .50 when we go to Los Amigos. We buy them directly from the strainer where they sit above a cauldron of melted grease. You can't beat those, man, you just can't. I kicked myself for not bringing the camera to capture some of the swap meet for the SPC: The fruit cart filled with cayenne-sprinkled papaya or mango on a stick (this is a non-westside LA icon), the beauty shops set up in portable parlors, the fiber optic Virgin Marys . . . I asked Husband for one for my birthday. In that same booth of state-of-the-art religious relics, Mina stated that Jesus had a 6-pack (from hanging on the cross there), just like her. How can I shellac her quotes and hang them in my living room? And mostly I wanted to photograph the make-shift photo lab where print out posters were made of the quinceañera , la boda by the water, the boy's first suit, an RIP memorial photo placed carefully on a large, white aisle.

Next time, I'll tote the camera though the vendors will probably stare me down suspiciously. Next time, when we're out of chones and socks again, in about a month.

Maya took this photo against a building near our house. We were on our way back from dance class. Maya has graduated into the adult hip hop class and we shake it like a mother-daughter salt shaker set side by side now, which is a lot of fun. We passed Broadway, saw the gorgeous building and I happened to have the camera. More of the photo shoot in my flickr.