I'm excited to announce the launching of my new personal website: www.jsspersonal.com! This website will have stories and photos from my personal projects, travels, and every day life and will also feature my fashion and band photos. Click on "Read More" to check out some of the stories.

Steps leading to the Temple of the Sun in Macchu Picchu. At the top of these stairs is an altar on which some believe humans were sacrificed. Macchu Picchu, known as the "Lost City of the Incas", holds a mystery. This citadel, which rests at the peak of a high, treacherous mountain was found intact -long after the Spanish conquest- and completely abandoned. Since the Spanish did not discover it, one theory is that the Incas, after facing severe defeats, threw themselves off the cliffs of the high mountain. Other theories suggest that the remaining population all died from smallpox or a disease the Spanish had introduced to South America.

Milagros, age 8, is a modern day Quechua girl and lives in the fallen Inca capital, Cuzco. She is dressed in traditional clothes and speaks Quechua. This was the language of the Incas. It is really interesting to see the resemblance to certain people groups in China. The dress and music (use of the pentatonic scale) of the Andean people is nearly identical, suggesting a possible ancestry from the ancient Chinese.

Pedro, a blind beggar, plays his flute passionately in the streets of Cuzco. After the Spanish conquest, the native Indians were subjected to slavery and poverty. To this day, those who once built a great civilization, are now poor and shunned, their culture destroyed.

My site will also feature some commercial and bands work. Here is a promo image for an upcoming MMA fight. I photographed this in the winter, in a room without air conditioning. It was very, very cold that day!

Guitarist John Bond lights a smoke on a cold, winter morning.

Also some photojournalism. Here an MMA fighter is attended by emergency personnel after being severely knocked out. The band is called to play to entertain a concerned crowd. The life of a fighter is a cruel one. I was able to go behind the scenes to learn more about these modern day gladiators. While the crowd sees a fraction of what they go through and forget about it an hour after the fight is over, they're the ones who have to live through the bruises, broken bones, concussions and worse. Call it pride, call it a way of life, call it desperation, one thing is for sure: every one of them has to have the bravery and balls of steel to enter that octagon.

More images and full stories can be found on my new personal website!