2007 The Story Behind the Pictures

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Most of the time I do not put captions on my images due to time constraints. I might take several hundred images per night at an event so trying to name everyone in every picture would take forever. Some of the better known bands or artists need no captioning but the circumstance might need explaining or perhaps the uniqueness of the situation needs to be told before it fades from my memory. What follows are some of those images from 2007 that have a story worth relating. Some of these images have never been posted. Some are poignant or funny or someday might even be historical. No ill will or embarrassment is intended to any of the participants pictured, but I just want the fans to get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes, backstage, or on stage.

On Feb 11, 2007 Chente Barrera won a Grammy for the best Tejano Album. Congratulations to Chente and Gilbert Velasquez on their Grammy win. The staff at LeftyRay.com is proud to have contributed our small part in this big project.

For a couple of years already the Tejano Academy has hosted a money raising bowling tournament. This year the Tejano Paparazzi decided to form a team for the first time. Not surprisingly we came in last. The rumor for 2008 is that Cool Arrows will our sponsor so we will get to wear their snazzy t-shirts.

Below is a close up of my shirt which is from the 13/92 DLG album. If I remember correctly that meant the 13th album in 1992. When Richard from DLG introduced me to his daughter, I asked her her age. She said "14." I told her my t-shirt was older that she was.

Ram Herrera had just finished recording his latest CD when he requested that a group shot of the band be included in the CD. Everyone came over one cold night, drank all of my beer, and we knocked the shot out. Halfway through the shoot, someone in the band mentioned that the last time they did a group shot, the band fell apart. Shortly thereafter the band did fall apart as various band members left the group for a variety of reasons and some even came back. Currently this CD has been nominated for Grammy with the winners to be announced on Feb 10, 2008

Although this incident occurred in 2006, it explains the DLG poster further down. It is a long read but bear with me.

Rather than shooting DLG at Grahams I decided to take a date and do a little dancing and swaying with the DLG army. I brought along my point and shoot camera just in case something memorable occurred. Shortly after the beginning of the second set, my date and I were standing in front of the stage amongst friends. Suddenly out of nowhere I get hit pretty hard in the back which sends me rolling onto the ground. My cowboy hat flew in one direction and beers flew in another. Next thing I know some idiot is trying to kick me while I am trying to get off of the ground. I pretty much block all of his shots, but when he figures he cannot get to me, he then takes a swing at my date. His fist barley misses her face but it does catch her hair. By then the male friends around the nearby tables jump in and separate the two.

The bouncers finally arrive and throw this idiot to the ground and pound the crap out of him. I am on my feet again and reach for my small camera. It is in a small camera pouch velcro-ed to my belt. As I pull it out, I see that it is broken, possibly from one of his kicks. The bouncers finally have enough fun and pull him off of the carpet and haul him out. It turns out my date had a stalker but somehow failed to mention it to me. What was unbelievable was this idiot had a date that night and left her to weave through some tables to hit me from behind in front of God and DLG. How he expected to do this and get away with it it must be due to the coke he did sometime during the night. The band continued playing throughout all of this but I did see some of them craning their necks to see what was going on. These 2 photos above are courtesy of "Xap."

On Thanksgiving night of 2006 DLG y LM recorded a live CD with several former singers. In early 2007 a request came out for a group picture for that pending CD. We set it up for a Saturday afternoon at Grahams when the place would be empty. After trying several locations inside of Grahams I felt no magic had been captured, so we kept trying. Finally inside the salsa room I found this red and yellow wall with flames on it. I lined up the guys and knelt to take the photo but felt the perspective was still not right. I needed to be lower, so I then laid on the ground to take the shot. By now they were getting pretty grumpy from being there a long time and I reminded them this was the second time I was going down on the ground for Tejano music. I reminded them about the first time when someone was trying to kick my ass and none of them came to my aid. John said they were working. Oscar said he called security, Dave thought it was someone else who got jumped. I told them they did not skip a beat and kept playing. This got them to laugh and I got my shot.

This was the 2007 Tejano Explosion poster. Most people did not notice but it is John from Los Amables in the blue tint playing his accordion.

This is one of the last photos I took of Ricky Martinez from Los Hometown Boys. Tejano Explosion 2007, April 21.

While cowboy hats are prevalent in Tejano music, Oscar de la Rosa from La Mafia wears this flat brim type and is recognized instantly even if his face is not visible. He used to throw a hat into the audience during each performance but explained that hat was no longer available for him to buy so no more hat tossing until he found another manufacturer.

This is another Tejano Explosion photo. Max from Los Texmaniacs called needing a cover photo for their next CD and this pic was chosen. The final result is below. To conform to the square format, I had to create the lower right corner out of thin air. Only 500 copies were made so if you have not bought one as of yet, it may be too late.

While most of us encounter speed bumps in our lives there is nothing like a federal indictment to slow you down. We wish the best for Adalberto from the Latin Breed in his legal entanglements.

At the Tex Mex Fest in Las Vegas I was hired to shoot the show. Ramon Ayala was on the bill and right after he came off of the stage I managed a photo with him. Unlike my counterparts, I am rarely in front of any camera, but this was the first time I had shot Ramon's performance, so why not. 2 days before the San Antonio Spurs had won the NBA championship and I had managed to buy a Spurs shirt at the SA airport the morning after their win. I planned on wearing it during the day, but between covering the rehearsals, backstage and other events I ended up with no time to go to my hotel room to change. I ended up wearing it all night and got several offers for it.

My tradition at the end of a CD photo shoot is to do what I call a "Wrap Shot." This is the last shot of the day and includes everyone that was present, involved, and who assisted for the shoot. I set my camera on a tripod, hit the timer button, and run into view. Los Enmascarados is a 4 man conjunto group which wears Mexican style wrestling masks while performing. They had a number of extra masks and the temptation was irresistible. Besides the band and one of their assistants, the photo includes: Lefty Ray, far left; Chente Barrera, center; Ruben Cubillos, far right. The CD came out in August. The cover is below.

Above are the four guys in the band unmasked. (You didn't really think I would show their faces, did you?)

This is the album cover I shot for for Big Frank Gomez. Big Frank sings and plays the blues and wanted an attractive lady on the CD cover rather than himself and asked Tejano superstar Stefani Montiel if she would do the honors. Stef had sung some backup vocals on the CD and the trick was to make the cover attractive but not make it too apparent that it was Stef on the cover. We did not want people to think that this was a Stefani CD. I think we succeeded because the most asked question is "Is that Stefani on the cover?"

This is the backstage room at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, TX. This was the latest stop of the Tex Mex Fest. The walls on this room are filled with squares with various band logos. Inside the squares are signatures from the respective bands. below are squares form Los Texas Tornados, Little Joe, and Emilio.

This is the finale of the Tex Mex Fest in Fort Worth. I had switched to a wide angle lens so I could capture all of the performers together as they came out for the last song of the night. It turns out Emilio was the only one who stayed behind. Everyone else left. Having no time to switch lenses again, I instead ran to the front of the stage, turned my flashes off, and used the stage lighting to capture Emilio doing his shuffle. This is the top shot of 2007.

It is not often that you get to combine 2 of your specialties, music photography and fishing photography. Throughout the summer Los Desperadoz and myself promised to hookup (literally) and go fishing. We finally got the chance and scored big time as that webpage can attest. The sober anglers did the best while the non-sober angler caught a buzz. Not knowing what type of water I was gonna face, I brought my spinning rod and my fly rod. My preference being the fly rod. I also planned to shoot more than fish because I needed some photos for an upcoming fishing story I was working on. Towards the end of the day everyone did rather well catching redfish except for the non-sober angler and myself. Again I was handling a camera more than a rod, but towards the end I carried both the camera and a fly rod with me. At that point Jesse from Los Despoz had hooked a redfish. I was nearby and was ready to take a photo of it, but Jesse's line broke above the rattle float. Well the redfish hunkered down and did not run off. We could tell his position because the float was still connected to the hook in its mouth and the float bobbed on the surface of the water pinpointing the fish's location. Jesse headed back to the boat to get another rod so he could hook the float and possible bring in the redfish. As he walked off, I told him I was gonna try the same with my fly rod which was now in my hand. After a couple of casts the redfish moved away from me. I could still see the float but could not reach it with my fly rod. Jesse returned and tried to reach it with his fishing rod. After a few misses the fish came back within my casting range and I was able to hook the float with my fly. A few minutes later I landed a 30 inch redfish, got my picture taken, released the fish to fight another day and gave Jesse his float back.

Shooting a "live event" or a CD cover might sound glamorous, but in reality it is hard work. Often I have earplugs in my ears, blurry vision from looking through the viewfinder all night, and cramps in one shoulder from holding up a heavy camera all night. This past year I got to fish with Los DesperadoZ (which combines both of my worlds), took the traditional pre-show tequila shot with Little Joe just before he went on stage (and for the people that know me, I do not do tequila), flew to Las Vegas so I could fall off a speaker, stood a top a 6 foot ladder 10 days in a row, and got dissed by an up and coming female artist wearing Diva training wheels. I have inhaled enough smoke to trigger dozens of smoke alarms and dragged in at 4:30 am more times than I care to remember, but the music and the bands have been great and the army of friends more than fantastic. See ya next weekend.