May 2023-A little about me(actually maybe not so little!): I was always a creative-minded kid, from building things out of popsicle sticks or wood to folding origami and making toys out of paper. I just loved letting my imagination flow through my hands and fingers. I loved the satisfaction I received looking at what I had just made, simply from imagination. Not to mention of course that my parents also encouraged this creative nature since they would rather me do "old-school" kid things than shoving my face in an iPad or other electronic devices and letting my young brain power go to waste.
As I began to grow up into a more mature kid and soon a teenager, I let that artistic creativity begin to fade slowly and instead focused on things like sports and school. Don't get me wrong I still loved making things but I guess my interest in that began to change as I discovered things that would release my energy and give me more adrenaline rushes like motocross and sports. I joined my school soccer team and became a starter right away, began riding on the "big track" at the motocross track for the first time, and simply loved playing things like basketball and soccer at recess.
That artistic creativity re-sparked quickly in September of 2020. In the midst of the Covid-19 Pandemic and at the beginning of my full year of online school, my 14-year-old self was introduced to the art of Photography by my Photojournalism teacher, Mr. S. I had been cooped up for roughly 6 months and pretty restless so when I began exploring photography, it was a way for me to get outside and capture nature. I saw things differently through the lens. I experienced my own backyard like I never had before, capturing macro photos of ants marching into their nest, simple yet so complex leaves from fruit trees, and my favorite of all, the bougainvillea flower we had planted shortly after my Great Grandma passed away in 2019. I didn't like the photo because of the composition of it or because of the colors or even because I thought it was a great picture because frankly, I can take such a better picture now! No, I loved it because of the meaning. We planted that for HER! It was HER favorite plant! It reminded me of HER! I never realized the reason she loved it and honestly, I still don't know why, but I can imagine it was because of the sheer beauty of it. The purple-pink color of it contrasts beautifully with the green of the leaves. The lushness of the flowers makes them look abundant and mighty. Upon closer inspection, you'll notice that what from afar looks like a big pink flower is in fact only a tiny whitish-yellow flower surrounded by pink leaves. Even though the actual flower is tiny, it still looks strong and mighty surrounded by its pink leaves. And this may be a stretch, but it really reminds me of Her. If you knew Her, you'll know that She was the smallest, most gentle, cutest little thing you've ever seen. But don't even THINK of messing with Her because She wouldn't think twice about giving you a piece of her mind and she was smart and STRONG! As my uncle found out one day at a family pool party, She had a really strong arm. Even at her 70+ age, she was able to throw a full water bottle roughly 20 feet across the pool at him simply for splashing her with water. So again, like the small but mighty bougainvillea flower, my Abuelita Trini was our small but mighty flower. And from that simple, amateur photo, a passion was sparked to capture moments and meanings in simple arrangements of digital pixels we like to call "photos". https://martin26photos.com/bougainvillea
Soon after, I captured my all-time favorite photo I have shot(the bougainvillea was my favorite from my backyard). This photo was my famous sunset photo which if you've ever seen one of my business cards, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. That photo was slightly edited because of how naturally beautiful the sunset really was. I had never seen a sunset so full of color and so full of life. The composition of the silhouetted palm trees and powerlines contrasted with the colorful, vibrant sky and for that, it became my favorite photo to this day. I loved being able to capture the beauty that God created through a new perspective. https://martin26photos.com/sunset
Nature photos as I mentioned definitely sparked my passion to continue and pursue the art of photography but what sparked my idea to turn this newfound hobby into a career was shooting motocross. I have ridden motocross since the age of 4 so at this point, it's a part of my life. Not many people know what motocross is let alone ride motocross so for me to be so involved with it is pretty rare. So anyways, I thought, "Why not take my camera to the motocross track and try to capture some photos and see how they turn out?" Little did I know that this choice would lead to me dedicating my life to this niche of photography. Sports photography became my life's career goal. I was able to combine 2 of my passions into 1 and honestly probably the safer option. At this age, I'm past trying to compete and race to become a champion and I don't ride enough to dedicate my life to riding so why not use my lens to capture moments from this sport that I love and create a career out of it? (Not to mention my mom loves this safer option as well) So that's what I did. Every weekend that I would go to the track, I took my camera. In between motos I would ride around on our pit bike looking for fast guys or big whips and shoot away. When I got good ones, I would note the rider and later go find them in the pits. This would lead me to show them the photos and offer to give them to them for free as I was (and still am) growing my career. Every day I'd be eager to go home, upload them to my computer, import them into Lightroom Classic, and edit away. From the 500+ photos I would shoot, I would select maybe 100 good ones and then minimize even more to a small 40-50 photos. If I had gotten the rider's email, I would send them a link to the edited photos and then wait. I would wait for a reply email. I would wait to hear if they enjoyed the photos as much as I did; if they enjoyed seeing themselves do something that most people wouldn't even think about doing. I loved the satisfaction of seeing their "These are great man!" or "Thank you so much! These are amazing" replies because it was just one more person that I was able to share the moment and memory with. Whether they had gotten the same level of satisfaction I got when I saw the photos or not, I didn't care because they still were able to see my perspective of this incredible sport we call motocross. https://martin26photos.com/motocross
Fast-forward to me being a 16-year-old beginning to think about my future, I continued to build my website, constantly adding new photos I took that I thought looked amazing. More opportunities began to arise in this new field of mine including being the unofficial photographer for my high school's basketball teams. I always felt so happy being able to capture the raw emotion of the players as they ran up and down the court, being violently fouled, and even just celebrating with their teammates. Even though I was friends with most of them, things felt different. I felt as if I was a fly on the wall, not watching the games through my own eyes but through the eye of the lens because honestly, I watch about 95% of the games with the camera up against my face making sure not to miss a single moment of action. As if I hadn't already fallen in love with sports photography through motocross, this just reassured me that I really wanted to do this with my life. Again, I enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing my friends' reactions when I showed them the photos, them showing their friends, and then seeing their reactions. The feeling is sort of indescribable. Just being able to let your creative perspective flow through multiple lines of people and convey your message feels amazing. I began to get involved with people in the motocross industry, meeting one of the biggest photographers/journalists in the industry, Donn Maeda. Though nothing has come about from that interaction, I still have hopes that I will one day be hired by his team to shoot an AMA Supercross event in some giant football stadium I can only dream of being at!
Today, I continue to pursue this career more than I ever had before. Sending "cold call" email sales pitches to companies and shops trying to set up opportunities to shoot their products and business and continuing to get my name out there by getting involved with other photographers and content creators in the industries I'm interested in. I just recently shot the 2 biggest events of my short career; my high school's graduation at the partner university's basketball stadium as well as shooting "backstage" at a professional freestyle motocross show in Ventura, CA. Both these only excited me more for the future to come in my career.
As I said multiple times, the main niche that I am interested in pursuing is sports photography with a primary focus on action sports like motocross and BMX. I do also enjoy shooting portraits, products, and even some events! Please join me as I continue to grow as a photographer! If you like what you see, follow me at @martin26photos for more content!
I'd like to lend thanks to multiple people supporting me through this journey including all my family and especially my photography teacher, Mrs. P, who keeps encouraging me to pursue photography as my ONLY career choice (and not computer engineering which I did not mention I am also interested in).