Unripe Experience

The Long Game of Growing Into Your Own Work.

I had the tools. The drive. The taste.

But truth is, it was an unripe experience.

The fruit looked good from the outside but it hadn’t sweetened yet.

I am a photographer at heart with 15 years experience. I've tested, scouted, and launched models (in my opinion) many times. I was always a good producer, host, then later after getting a good sense of how the model scene worked with the fashion scene, a decent editor for an independent magazine that closed in 2021. In retrospect I found that I don’t have any true regrets. At first when I closed down the magazine I was angry, bitter, and feeling like a sore loser.

Maybe that bitterness that sting of being left out was part of the gift. Maybe that’s how the ego finally shatters so the person can start to grow. I remember when Purple did the Mexico issue. I remember thinking, “That should’ve been me.” I remember scrolling, zooming in, reading the credits, feeling like I had been forgotten by the scene I gave everything to. I wasn’t even angry at them, I was more angry at myself. For not being sharper. For not being elevated. For not being ready.

But now? Now I thank the gods I wasn’t featured. I am thank full that my work my true student work didn’t make it into the permanent record. (I was 22 when we launched, just in case you needed that context).

Because I see it now. I was still learning. Still forming. That was my university. And I passed. Not with awards, but with scars. With lessons. With deeper eyes.

In Mexico we say la tercera es la vencida third time’s the charm. If that’s true, then 2025 is Year One of Chapter Three. Chapter One was childhood. Chapter Two began when I was 16, when I started working in all types of creative industries like my life depended on it. And now we’re here. Full circle, but sharper. Slower, but more precise.

I still have the taste. The eye. The vision.

Now I also have the patience, the protection, and the power that comes from having lived through it, and not quitting.

So no, I’m not that bitter kid anymore, waiting for a feature.

I’m the man who’s building something that can’t be ignored.

See you at the office.

LUi