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. 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, despise wearing shoes, I edit client's wedding photos while listening to Relatos de la Noche, can speed-run Donkey Kong Country 3 at 105% under two hours, my three favorite songs of all time are Bizarre Love Triangle, Persiana Americana, 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 the Westlake MacArthur/Echo Park area 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, my dad got me the Kodak Easyshare DX6340 from Best Buy in Culver City, later 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.