When I first visited paulifornia.com, I immediately fell in love with its cool, hip and unpretentious vibe. Paulifornia’s blog features recently completed projects. Individually they are impressive, but collectively, they embody one man’s deep and lifelong passion for media, arts and music. That man is Paul Rivera, and try as I did, I could not find this photographer’s photograph on the website. I wondered if perhaps he was shy, preferring to view life from behind the camera. I quickly found out otherwise.
As many conversations between strangers begin, ours started with the weather but quickly evolved into a friendly conversation. Paul’s natural ease with words and curiosity about the world around him made asking him weird, out of the box questions, such as, “If you could shoot any event in the past or the future, where would you go and why?” even more fun. But we’ll get to that soon.
Paul Rivera is proudly self taught. Back in high school, Rivera first became interested in design when he made fanzines of his favorite bands to sell at shows. Soon, he and some of his friends formed a band and realized that they also needed promotional materials. Paul took a job at Kinko’s and learned everything he could about printing methods, paper and graphics. He bought an old copy of Adobe Photoshop and taught himself how to use it. Within a year he was proficient enough at Photoshop, and decided that he hated stock photography so much that he would rather take his own photographs. Paulifornia evolved from there. At one point he quit photography after his only camera broke at a wedding he was shooting.
Paul Rivera: It was the most stressful day of my life, because you know, at a wedding, all those things that happen, happen once,” Paul reminisces. “I took a year off from taking photographs and in 2012 I picked it up again with a new camera and it felt like a fresh start, a new approach. So, I don’t do weddings anymore.
His new state of the art studio is a short drive from his house, which is great, because he spends most of his time at the studio doing what he loves. When working on a band’s art work, he immerses himself into their world by listening nonstop to the band’s music while working, not only to understand their style, but also to pay homage to their hard work. In a way, each project becomes a collaboration between the client and the designer/photographer. Paul wants every person he works with to truly enjoy what he’s made for them.
Q: Who would be your ideal client?
A: It would be cool to work with a musician who is also involved with other things. I like to be creative and find myself to be dabbling with arts in general. My ideal client would be a musician, an artist, someone with knowledge of science. But then again, I love being commissioned to do something and to be told to do what I want to do. It’s awesome to have a client that trusts you.
Q: What inspired these series of photographs?
A: It shot off another project I’m working on that I’d love to share with you guys when the time comes. There is an artist, David Stoupakis, who has a very dark, yet beautiful feel to his artwork. He has a picture I fell in love with. I wrote him about it and asked if I could do a photographic series based on it. He responded positively, said he was excited and wanted to see it. This project was meant to see what we were capable of. Chloe Sweet designed both dresses and came up with the wigs idea based on what we discussed originally. The duality concept came up and we wanted to use it in a series. It was a very cool collaboration with our model, Hope Eckman, who was a great trooper to agree to be painted white.
Q: How did you direct your model to evoke the feelings you were looking for?
A: In this series, it’s the same person in dual realities. We wanted to think about how one character would act versus another, and how would they interact with each other. We gave Hope some direction, and she did a great job.
Q: How long did it take your team to execute the idea to completion?
A: This project took a lot longer than I would have wanted. The concept developed out of a conversation with a friend, but I knew that Chloe worked for a long time on the dresses, and we took about six hours to do the shooting. A lot of that time went to painting Hope. The rest of the time was spent in post production. The graphic design aspect took around seventy two hours. That’s where my being a perfectionist really played a part. I truly hate stock photography and I knew I needed real trees to complete this project. Luckily, I could take advantage of my trip to Seattle, and photograph those gorgeous trees.
Besides being a photographer and a graphic artist, Paul is also a musician. Currently he is a guitarist in a new band, yet to be named (that is not the name of the group). His previous band, Jupilar, had found considerable success creating soundscapes, and one of their tracks became a soundtrack in a movie. He is particularly excited to see the soundtrack featured in an independent film, now being presented in film festivals. Jupilar also performed at the House of Blues in Anaheim. Their song, “Frozen Burrito,” can be heard below.
Rivera indulged me by answering a few off the wall questions.
Q: If you could go back in time and meet any artist, who would it be and why?
A: I think I would love to meet Leonardo da Vinci. He was a genius and I kind of want to know how crazy he is. His knowledge of science and experimentation and artistry is unparalleled by anybody. I just think he’s amazing. Some of his concepts didn’t end up happening till hundreds of years later. I’d love to meet Leonardo da Vinci.
Jupilar performing “Frozen Burrito” live at The House of Blues – Anaheim
Q: What inspires you?
A: I get inspired by wandering thoughts. I start zoning out thinking about one thing and it leads to another. I was actually falling asleep the other night, and I came up with a really exciting concept for this photo shoot that I want to do. It’s going to have a really cool, artistic vibe to it.
Q: If you could photograph one event in the past and one in the future what would they be?
A: Oh man, there are so many things you can think about. Going back in history, the power of people and groups of people is so beautiful. Even something like the sound of a choir, it’s so powerful. Being in unity and on the same page is, to me, the most beautiful thing ever. I’d love to have witnessed some of the most important speeches in the past. I feel like our country is in for some major changes, the way it’s going. I think in the future, it could be 100 years from now, there could be an uprising of some sort, and I think to photograph that would be interesting, but I think I would be more involved in the event itself rather than photographing it.
Q: Would you photoshop it?
A: If it was a real historic event, I would try not to. I don’t do events photography that often, but I try to do editing as little as possible. I guess it would depend on the picture.
Q: If you could tell your fifteen year old self anything, what would it be?
A: My fifteen year old self was very concerned with pleasing everyone else. I think what I’ve learned in growing up and maturing is that you really can’t please everybody. Sometimes you have to suck it up and let someone get offended by … anything. I think I’d say, ‘just be honest to myself’, and it would be really cool if I could do that. And maybe I’d say, ‘Pick up a camera and learn photoshop’.
Q: What do you do to recharge your creativity?
A: I just need to step away. I am pretty simple. I just need a day to not be in work mode.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to say that you haven’t been asked?
A: I really like to make my art work as authentic as possible to myself. If there is anything I’d like to portray to other people out there, it’s to do it for yourself and not try to think about who’s listening to it. Because, we are so lucky, we get to be creative, to do all these things that so many other people wish they could do, we should really enjoy and appreciate the process for ourselves.
Exclusive MIROIR Interview written by Alisa Solovyeva