CEO: Emerging Concert Photographers
A Community Residencies partnership with Las Fotos Project Creative Entrepreneurship Opportunities (CEO)
Program Overview
Las Fotos Project’s Creative Entrepreneurship Opportunities (CEO) program is a social-enterprise and apprenticeship program that provides teenage girls and gender-expansive youth with valuable entrepreneurial skills for careers in the creative industry.
Community Residencies aim to enable local organizations to broaden the opportunities available for youth-centered career development in the arts. Our partnership with LFP CEO empowers photographers to expand their portfolios as they capture live performances and learn from experienced professionals at The Ford.
About Las Fotos Project
Las Fotos Project is a photography mentoring nonprofit located in Boyle Heights that utilizes the power of photography to encourage students to explore their identity, community, and future careers.
Meet the Photographers
Learn about the previous Community Residencies LFP CEO Cohort
Ash Romero Gomez
Ash is a 17-year-old photographer who grew up in both Puebla, Mexico, and Los Angeles, California. During her four years at Las Fotos Project, she has truly expanded her world as an artist. Through photography, she explores her culture and identity, connects with herself on a deeper emotional level, and manifests her creative visions.
Eztli De Jesus
@fotosbyeztli
Eztli De Jesus is a Mexican American artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her goal as a photographer is to create images that merge artistry, technical skill, storytelling, and personal expression into a visual medium that speaks to various audiences. To her, photography is a universal language transcending cultural and linguistic barriers that communicates ideas and emotions that resonate universally.
Lei Rosado
Lei Rosado is a two-spirit photographer from Lincoln Heights who was born and raised in Northeast LA, on Tongva lands. With culture and media such as music and films influencing their photography, they like to do environmental portraits and mixed media photographs on different topics.
Meyuh Gonzales
@in.meyuhs.lair
Meyuh is a Los Angeles artist and photographer who explores different mediums and niches within her art. Based in the beautiful East Side of LA, she explores different ways of shooting with event photography and portraits, challenging herself to be more diverse and advance her skills. She also explores making functional art, as well as pieces to be viewed and appreciated. As she's starting out, she likes to see her photos as statement pieces—statements from the models and what they would like to represent, or as the artist herself.
Sandra Luis Grijalva
Sandra Luis Grijalva is currently a high school senior and was first introduced to photography by her aunt. She has loved photography ever since she started during her freshman year. It is Sandra’s form of expression, and she feels like her images reflect exactly what she is feeling in the moment it is being created.
Virtual Showcase
Enjoy the selected work of the previous Community Residencies LFP CEO Cohort. The gallery updates at the end of every season.
Program Components
Pre-Season Preparation
The Ford welcomes five LFP CEO photographers and their LFP mentors to capture 10 different shows every season after cohort applicants undergo a selection process in review by of The Ford team.
The Ford provides two professional development sessions to the LFP CEO Cohort to foster the necessary skills to excel in their show captures (for which they are paid) and to build their portfolios and their professional network.
The sessions took the form of workshops conducted by LA Phil professionals, offering hands-on training:
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One professional development session, hosted at the LFP site and open to all LFP students and community members, consisted of an in-depth presentation on the camera settings and equipment needed to excel in concert photography, followed by a presentation by Creative Director of the LA Phil, Natalie Suarez, who introduced the importance of shaping one’s perspective to find the correct narrative for a client’s request.
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The second session was hosted at The Ford for the LFP CEO cohort and their mentors to learn about concert photography and asset delivery specific to the venue. We invited Farah Sosa, LA Phil House Photographer, and LA Phil staff from Media Initiatives and the CLARK management system to explain venue-specific protocols necessary for the cohort to have a successful experience at The Ford.
Work During the Season
Each photographer from the LFP CEO Cohort gets the chance to capture two shows, with guidance and assistance from an LFP mentor during their show capture.
The LFP CEO Cohort receives guided support from The Ford and an LFP mentor to help the photographers deliver their images within 24 hours of a show capture, which aligns with industry-standard asset-delivery expectations.
Cohort photographers are encouraged to use any approved images in their portfolios and social-media pages to display their photographic skills and potentially widen their opportunities.
Post-Season Work
To commemorate the work of the LFP CEO Cohort, The Ford inaugurated a Las Fotos Project x The Ford Gallery wall. The gallery highlights 10 images, one image for each show and two per cohort photographer.
Once The Ford season ends, the LFP x the Ford Gallery updates to display selected images by the new cohort. (Unfortunately, the physical gallery is not open to the public, but please enjoy the selected images available for viewing via the virtual gallery.)