Worth waiting for

I didn't take this image, hence there's no watermark, but I just wanted to share. This was taken a couple of weeks ago during one of our happy hours. These are the wonderful people whom I work with—the staff at CURE Magazine. The best staff ever.


These are by far the most passionate group of people when it comes to doing their job that I have worked with. Informing people about the latest in the world of cancer isn't just a job for us, its a way of life.

I know, for a lot of people, there are days when they don't want to wake up to go to work. I know I used to be that way, but when you truly enjoy your job, there's less of that. Working on CURE is one of the blessings in my life. Its not just getting to design, going on photo shoots, and making videos. It's getting to do something meaningful, producing something that affects other people, something people clamor for, and something that might change a person's way of thinking about his or her cancer experience is such a wonderful thing to experience. It's something that is worth waking up for. A meaning in life. We do this at CURE on a daily basis, and that is a blessing. Sharing that experience with the folks above in the photo is just icing on the cake.

Each one of us has our own cancer story (or stories for a few) that motivates us to do what we do. A story that we remind ourselves each day when we start our work. The story of the people who we do this for—the people we love who have experienced a bout with cancer, the people we lost, the people who read our magazine. For a couple of the staff, its a personal thing. Two of them are cancer survivors, and one of them going through a recurrence. For me, she's the one who is motivating me to do the best job I can.

Its kind of funny when I think about where I was almost 4 years ago. When I was an unemployed 26 yr old. Two years out of college, trying my hardest to find a job, with little or no luck. Then came an email, which I first I thought was spam, that changed my life. I was fed up with interviews that led to nowhere. So quite honestly, I didn't even try that hard. I started a few weeks later, laying out medical journals about cancer. Then a year later, a position opened up at CURE, so I thought I'd apply. I ended up getting the job and starting what I would consider the best job I have ever had.

I consider myself blessed for this experience. As you can see, there's only a handful of us that work at CURE, producing the actual magazine–not including all the amazing freelance writers and photographers and illustrators we use that make the content one of a kind. We are like a big family, and that's something you won't find in an everyday work place. I don't mean to brag, but its pretty amazing. Seriously the best staff ever.

GZ

I'm baaack!!!! =)

Alrighty then, I can finally start blogging and updating this thing again. I'm so excited! Lots of things have been going on since the last post. The first big, and mos recent, thing is that I got a new computer. My old mac wasn't cutting it anymore. Although I loved the thing, I have owned it for 10 years and it was time for an upgrade. After years of saving, I finally bought a 15" Mac Book Pro. Now I can keep working anywhere. My turn around time for photos should decrease, since I can practically do a shoot, go to a coffee shop (or bar), edit, and publish right away.

Work has been good also. I'm getting to do a lot of things I love doing, including videography and film editing. I recently went to Austin, TX to do a video interview with the help of a very dear friend, Jason. I'll be editing that down to a few minutes then post it for a website we are working on at CURE. Also, I have been cleared to post the photos I take for CURE. My awesome boss told me that since we let the other photographers post their images before the magazine is published, why not me? Did I mention I love my boss yet?? =) So expect those to come in the next few days.

Anyway, work has been very rewarding, but I have been missing doing what I like doing afterwords and this new computer is going to allow me to do just that on the fly.

Another thing is that I'll be going back home to the Philippines with my dad and my brother in October. We'll be there for 2 weeks. I was dreading the 18 hour flight to Korea, but with the new Mac, now I'm looking forward to it. Gotta get a cool video game and see if I can finish it before we reach Korea lol. Anyway, I plan on blogging and vlogging my entire trip. I will be acquiring a Kodak Zi8 very soon to start taping the events in my life. It will help me get faster with video editing. So when I start getting bigger video projects, it won't take me no time at all to edit and finish a project.

So, new things coming up:
1) A new website for GZamora Photographie (a customized website showcasing my best photos... a portfolio if you will, and also, a place for future clients to order prints and items online)

2) Vlogs (video blogs to post here, or maybe a youtube channel, who knows? I feel like a new kid in a big playground.)

3) More blog updates

4) More photos

There are a ton of things I will be doing in the future. It won't happen overnight, but they'll get there.

GZ

Slacker...

Yes, I have been slacking. Honestly, I have been shooting but for work rather than for me. So I really can't post anything here because I don't own the images, not until they've been published anyway, but I can talk about them.

One of the people I photographed is a lady who is living with liver cancer. She was diagnosed 10 years ago, and at the time of her diagnosis, she was told by her oncologists that she only had months to live. So she set out to live the life she always wanted and cross things off her bucket list. Moved out to the country, got some horses, and spent time with her husband and 2 daughters. She's now an advocate for metastatic liver cancer patients, giving them hope and making them realize that there are options and that one should never lose hope.

The other assignment I have, is ongoing, since last year. I have been in contact with a family who recently had gave birth to their second child. While they were pregnant, one of their check ups resulted in a diagnosis that they son had cancer, while still in the womb. The dad is a writer for the Associated Press, and wanted to chronicle the experience and share it with the cancer community so he figured the magazine I work for would be the perfect vehicle for that. So I have been meeting up with them on their check ups, family gatherings and such so I can take photos of them and their son. He's such a cute little kid, now 7 months old.

Anyway, I have tons of photos to post from shows and bands I've shot recently also. But right now, work has taken over my time. I'll get to them eventually, when I can finally breathe.

GZ