“Enjoy the little things in life for one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.”  -Kurt Vonnegut

This is a Simple Story about a friend of mine named Lorenzo Diggins. Lorenzo is a creative individual with a unique style and an even better way of making you feel like you’re important. Like what you do is important. Over the past couple of years I’ve spent some time getting to know Lorenzo, and we had this chance to shoot a short film on his process and his new venture called “Simple Things”.

We spend a lot of time during our daily lives worrying, stressing, thinking, planning, executing, creating, that sometimes we don’t stop to take stock of what we have around us. Lorenzo has taught me to do this in many ways. One of these ways is to take stock in my friendship with Lorenzo. We can talk about heavy stuff, deep stuff. Stuff I don’t know much about and want him to teach me. We talk about stupid things, like coffee and pastries, all the while I’m learning from him, and maybe (just maybe) he’s learning from me.

So whether your simple is a cold Mexican coke, a comforting neighborhood staple, a favorite cup of coffee, or an encouraging friend. Take stock. Reflect on what you have because the journey is long an sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. If you look up every once and a while and acknowledge those simple things they make the big things one step closer.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” –Susan Sontag

This is Nate Skinner.  He spends 8 hours a day in a lab as a bio-chemist. He fills every other available moment of his life exploring, framing and photographing the world around him.

Watching this film, we can’t help but get a little bit choked up because we know how dedicated and talented Nate is at his craft – and at this point we want it as badly as he does.  His passion is inspiring and contagious. His photographs are many. His longing for something more is relate-able and his urge to become the best possible version of himself is something all of us should strive for.

For more of Nate Skinners work follow him here:
Flickr  and here Tumblr

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”  -Barack Obama

“A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand” – author unknown

Something about the simple gesture of baking can say a lot about how much someone cares for you. Even if you don’t care for sweets, there is something to be said for a handcrafted gift who’s sole purpose is to make you smile.

Each scoop perfectly measured, every turn of a whisk, every grain of salt, every minute spent in the oven, all measured in anticipation of your enjoyment.

Whether baking for an open house in her professional world, encouraging the team of boys she water polo coaches, celebrating birthdays or occasions, Amy shares her love in cookies, and as two folks that love Amy in return, we are not complaining.

“I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.” – Ray Charles

This is Aaron O’neil. He’s an insanely nice guy and he’s an insanely talented drummer. Come to think of it, he comes from a family of insanely nice and talented musicians. He’s grown up with music and we’ve pretty much watched him grow up. From the start, his talent for drumming and his passion for music has always impressed us and has continued to inspire us over the years.

Aaron currently lives in Washington, plays in at least 3 bands and spends most of the year on tour.

“You’re only as good as your last haircut.” -Fran Lebowitz

This is Audrey Watson. She’ll talk your ear off, she’ll laugh your face off, she’ll dance your pants off and she’ll have more energy and enthusiasm than you can ever imagine.

That’s pretty much her philosophy on life. And she applies it to everything she does.

This is what she’s doing now. This is what she wants to do for the future. This is where she has found her place, and we think it’s perfect for her.

“Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain.”   – Leon Trotsky

This is Connor Spencer and this is a bit about his story.

It’s about passion, and strength, and energy.  It’s about heartache and loneliness.  It’s about power and precision.  It’s about a team sport that’s also about the lone rider.  It’s about dedication to a craft that is so close it can be tasted.  It’s about repetition and routine.  It’s about doing something with so much of your metal and physical strength behind it, that you don’t know how to do anything else.

It’s about Connor, but mostly it’s about riding.

A sport for casuals, a sport for professionals.  A sport for the dedicated.

Connor currently lives in San Francisco.  He rides for the Metro Mint team.

“If you worried about falling off the bike, you’d never get on.” – Lance Armstrong

“The ninety feet between home plate and first base may be the closest man has ever come to perfection"  – Red Smith (American sportswriter)

This is Duane Harris and this is a bit of his story.

It’s about American history, family history and sports history. It’s about brotherhood and memories.
It’s about heroes and storytellers and that unexplainable magic that happens in the grass and the dirt.

It’s about Duane, but mostly it’s about baseball.

A game that to some, is larger than life.

Duane currently lives in San Francisco. He is the man behind the blog 90feetofperfection and is a member of the Mission Baseball Club.

"People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball.  I’ll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring.” – Rogers Hornsby