David Cruz: Owner of Eight Chickens and a Self-proclaimed Mezcal Connoisseur

Film Wedding Photographer from Oaxaca Anchored in Los Angeles

Dixeebee (dee-shee-bay) exclamation, informal: proclaiming gratitude towards mother earth when expressing good wishes before drinking Mezcal

I'm David Cruz, The Drunk Wedding Photographer. I was born in the slums of Oaxaca, Mexico, to Mixteco parents and grandparents. I'm a fire rabbit Sagittarius, I own eight chickens, I hate the summer, I despise wearing shoes, I edit client's wedding photos while listening to Relatos de la Noche, I can speed-run Donkey Kong Country 3 at 105% under two hours, my three favorite songs of all time are Bizarre Love Triangle, True Faith, and Girls Not Grey. I grew up watching Daria, and my guilty pleasure is watching high-speed police pursuits on live TV.

We immigrated to Los Angeles in '93 and lived in Westlake MacArthur Park for a while before moving to South Central. Both neighborhoods were shitholes then, and are shitholes now, ain't even gon' lie. But there's no place like home.

I'm a self-proclaimed Mezcal and street taco connoisseur as in, I eat with my hands and prefer to day drink Pulque and Tepache from random street vendors in the Piñata District. And while I'm a Mexicant at heart, I'm a certified L.A. local due to serving time in the LAUSD — all twelve years — the second largest and worst-ranked school district in the nation. Grade school in Historic Filipinotown; John Muir Middle School on Slauson & Vermont, class of '01; George Washington Preparatory High School on 108th & Normandie, class of '05; even did a few years at East Los Angeles College when I lived in East L.A. recently, completing the photography, marketing, and business administration certificate programs, even one in accounting, though I never officially graduated.

So why am I a 35mm film wedding photographer in Los Angeles? Honestly, I don't know. It pays the rent I guess. But back in 2003 at the Crenshaw Mall while skimming through random magazines at Waldenbooks, I read a Men's Health article ranking you guessed it, photographer as the sexiest job for men, and it was all the convincing I needed. I was in 10th grade.

After deciding what I'd waste my life on, I asked my Mom for a Nikon film camera because I saw the F5 in The Lost World: Jurassic Park many years ago at the theater in Huntington Park. At the time, the Nikon N75 was the entry-level Nikon, so that's what she got me from Ritz Camera in the Fox Hills Mall. Ended up working at Ritz Camera in the Beverly Center not long after, where I learned to print, and color-correct film on Fuji Frontier optical printers and scanners. And with that dead-end salary I was able to get my dream camera, the one I saw on the big screen those many years ago, the Nikon F5. The one I still use today.