Top of The Heap, Monthly Newsletter, March 2010

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Jordy's Corner

In this issue of our newsletter, Jordy's Corner will a combination of several different things. The pic of Jordy was off of Steve's camera phone, taken late last fall. Jordan, like most kids, loves riding in the car! He's often very curious about all of his surroundings, is usually excited that he's going some place fun with mom and dad, especially to the cho cho train!

Between the last newsletter and this one, Jordy has suddenly started saying sentences, seemingly out of nowhere!?! Some of the things he is saying are, "Hello, how are you?", "What did you say?", and "I don't think so!"

But one of the absolutely funniest new words Jordan said for the first time, was his first profanity. Yvonne was giving Steve a foot massage, with Jordan playing on the bed. At some point, Yvonne massaged an extremely sensitive area of Steve's foot which prompted Steve to yell out, "Fuck!?!" Well, immediately following Steve's outburst, Jordan calmly repeats the word, "Fuck". Both Yvonne and Steve began laughing their asses off, looked at each other, and then it hit them, that they're in trouble if Jordon goes around repeating everything Steve says all the time! :P

Jordy's Corner

Lastly, did any of you see the smash movie hit a couple summers ago called, "Knocked Up"? Well, we're actually involved in the making of the sequel, specifically working on the possible title for the sequel. Some of the possibilities include, "Knocked Up, Again!", "Ooops, I did her again!", and "Jordy's Gonna Get A Sibling Soon!"

Ok, so the previous paragraph was actually a hint to let you know that Yvonne is in fact pregnant again, and sometime around Oct. 7 should be delivering a sibling for Jordan! Jordan turns 3 the end of September! So, that is a pretty good distance between the two kids. Pictured is the first ultrasound of the new baby. At this stage it's impossible to tell the baby's sex, so Steve is simply calling it "spot", as that is all it looks like right now. More as the baby develops!

child number two, aka spot

The Many Faces
of Shin Lin
by Steve Trapero

My wife Yvonne will always be my favorite model to shoot with. But after our son Jordan was born, she doesn't have the stamina she once did for photoshoots. Sadly these days, we only get to shoot together about 4 times a year.

In June of 2008 I took on the first of many muses. First there was Patricia, then Sin Gin, Naomi, Shoko, Juliet and currently Shin. Shin was not a model when I first met her, she was and still is, a graphic designer first and foremost. Shin was a web design student of Yvonne's at Cal Poly Pomona. Yvonne often invites me to her final class presentations and this was the case in June of 2009.

Often when I see attractive or unique looking people, I will approach them with a card and an invitation to either do one of three things. 1) Sit and model for me, 2) suggest they should get into modeling, or 3) encourage them to take our Fashion Modeling 101 class at Pinnacle Design Center. There have been several other classes of Yvonne's at Cal Poly Pomona where I was her guest at a final presentation. I usually approach whoever I think might make model material, give them a card, and ask if they're interested in modeling for me? But in this particular and rare case, instead I decided to do something different. I decided mostly to do this because instead of the usually 2 or 3 potentials individuals, there were like 15 young, asian girls in the room, all cute, all with potential. So, I got up before the presentation began, and made the following announcement...

"Besides being Yvonne's husband, I'm an award-winning graphic designer, and college level graphic design instructor, and I am also a photographer. I am always looking for young, hot, asian girls to model with me! Well, um, because I'm really into asian women, and it's what I like!?! If any of you sitting here today are interested in modeling for me, please contact me thru our website at info@pinnacledesigncenter.com as I get all of those emails, and we'll go from there. Thank you!"

With that, I sat down. Sitting in the same aisle, about 4 people to my left, there was a particularly cute asian girl that I kept staring at. She had a very unique look to her, a bit like a character from a Japanese anime film or something. Throughout the presentations, I was seriously distracted by this girl and kept glancing over at her. I really wanted to approach her privately, but because I already made a general announcement in the class, I didn't want to promote the idea any more than that.

Two days later I got an email from one of Yvonne's students expressing interest in modeling for me, but wanted to know more. Surprisingly, Yvonne could not tell me exactly who the girl was or where in the room she had been sitting during the final presentations of her class. So in a reply to this student, I asked for any pictures of herself, so I could know who she was. In her response, I was happily surprised to find out that it was in fact, the girl I had been staring at in Yvonne's class. Her name was Shin Lin, and as they say, "The rest is history!"

Shin and I began working together at the end of June 2009, and started shooting together regularly right away! After only a couple of shoots, I invited Shin to become my "official muse". She thought about it, and accepted the proposal.

Working with Shin, together we have broken several of my previous records. Up until working with Shin, I had done two 13 hour long shoots. On our first shoot together we did a 16 hour shoot with 3 different looks, a new record! On our third shoot, we did a mammoth record setting 21 hour long shoot, with 9 different looks! Yes, you read that right... a whopping 21 hours!

Additionally, at the release of this newsletter, we have just completed our 15th shoot, about to do our 16th shoot, and are still not bored yet of working with one another! What's very clear, is that Shin and I have a great working relationship! And although she is a very quiet and laid back person, we share a common interest in creating creative, edgy, and sexy photographs.

Recently I was curious to do a count and kind of visual record of all the different looks we have shot together. You see, although I know how many shoots we've done together, I didn't know until putting together this newsletter article the exact number of looks we've shot. We have to date shot a grand total of 50 different looks over the 15 shoots accomplished!?! So, what you see on the right is a chronological visual record of all of Shin and my shoots together, up until now, as we are still shooting and I would guess, long from stopping to work with one another! So, without further ado, here are the many faces of Shin Lin. Enjoy!

Steve Trapero

Click for larger view


The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 1, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 1, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 1, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 2, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 2, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 4 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 5 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 6 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 7 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 8 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 3, look 9 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 4, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 4, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 4, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 4, look 4 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 5, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 5, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 5, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 5, look 4 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 5, look 5 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 6, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 6, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 6, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 7, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 7, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 8, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 8, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 8, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 8, look 4 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 9, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 9, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 9, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 10, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 10, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 10, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 11, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 11, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 12, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 12, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 12, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 13, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 13, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 14, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 14, look 2 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 14, look 3 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 15, look 1 The many faces of Shin Lin, photoshoot 15, look 2

Click for larger view

East Vs West
art + photo show
by Steve Trapero




Top of the Heap Newsletter, East Vs West art Exhibition

THE EAST VS. WEST ART + PHOTO SHOW

Last summer we threw the Top of the Heap art + photo show, with over 120 people attending the opening reception. On April 3, 2010 from 7-11pm we're having another opening reception for a new exhibit, the East Vs. West art + photo! We're very excited about this new show with 24 exhibitors! Hope to see you there!

For all the details, click on the link below...

www.pinnacledesigncenter.com/eastvswest