The other day, Estevan Oriol, appeared on CNN to discuss his new book L.A. Woman. L.A. Woman captures Estevan's signature raw shooting style, which he began to cultivate in 1992 when he went on the road as the manager of House of Pain. With a hand-me-down camera, Oriol established himself as a go-to photographer for the hip-hop and Latino communities. He boasts working with Hollywood A-list actors like Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Forest Whittaker, along with Eminem and other musicians. Oriol’s book is out now via Drago.
Here's a video of Estevan Oriol and Mr. Cartoon creating the album cover and insert for the upcoming Snoop Dogg album, Malice In Wonderland. It is interesting to see the process including the photoshoot, rough sketches, and then the finished product. Malice In Wonderland is due out December 8th.
The homeys over at XWEDX just posted an in depth interview with famed photographer Estevan Oriol. You can read the interview here.
I’ve been in the middle of shoot-outs before, and I definitely try not to take pictures of that cause I don’t like to have photos that incriminate anybody, so I just would put the camera down... I got love in the hood! Yeah, so nothing was directed at me ever. But I was photographing in the middle of a neighborhood and a guy from another neighborhood came by and they ended up shooting eachother, but I didn’t take any pictures, and they were wondering why, because the clients I was taking the pictures for sort of had a gangster element, and I just told them that I didn’t want to be the guy holding onto photos that incriminate nobody.
SURU has been killing it with their artshows recently. Their upcoming show is a photo exhibition by Estevan Oriol entitled ‘This Is Los Angeles; A Photographic Retrospective’ being held at SURU on Melrose Ave. This show will run from February 1st to the 28th. Limited edition prints, along with a collaborative t-shirt with SURU will be made available at the show.
Estevan Oriol stopped by the shop today. Estevan is the CEO of Joker Brand Clothing, a full time photographer, and directs music videos for groups including Eminem, Cypress Hill, D12, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Paul Wall, P.O.D., and Xzibit. He devised shooting campaigns for Nike, Rockford Fosgate, and Cadillac. He has directed new media projects for My Cadillac stories, MTV, and Apple Computers. This year Estevan Oriol will release three separate publishing book projects that he has been working on for the past decade: Ink, a retrospective of his last ten years with Mister Cartoon, Adidas 1979, a collaboration with Adidas originals chronicling street ball through his lens in an 80 page custom book, and East of Havana, a book about Cuban hip-hop. He is one busy man! Estevan also helped put together the collaboration tee that we did with Mr. Cartoon and SA Studios.
