The Inner City's Cliche

I’m Tara Byars aka Queen LaReefa, I am a photographer, and I’m a Northern California native.  I guess my talents are photography, videography, mixed media, good weed, and women.

Um, yeah.  With moving back to Oakland, I’ve realized that everything around me is pretty much inspiration.  Like whether it be homeless people on the streets or a party in the Mission, it’s all inspiration.

If we’re talking like camera set up, it’d be like 10.  I got a Pentax Helios.  My grandpa gave it to me with a tripod.  But if we’re talking about a real setup, my first photo shoot was when I was seventeen.  I did a photo shoot for Volcom, just local surfers and stuff.  Nothing big, but it paid! (laughs)

Well, the first camera I got, I was like 9 or 10, and it was just a cheap ass camera.  It wasn’t until I was 13 or so that I started to develop my own film and really fuck around with it.  I didn’t take any photography classes in high school.  I just utilized the dark room.  (laughs)  And video, in high school I was supposed to take a videography class, but it was filled, so I just fucked around with my dad’s huge, clunky old video camera – just making short films and stuff.

Like 9.

Vincent Moon kicks ass.  Honestly, another good photographer that I like is Oscar from the Freedminds.  Him and Kumasi, have that really raw style.  I don’t want to say that it’s hot right now, but it attracts a lot of people.  Each roll is different.  Black and white or color, but they typically fuck with film.  I definitely dig it.

Yeah.  I remember when I found a box of expired film that my dad had.  I’m pretty sure I used all of it in the past four years of college.  I guess I like how expired film distorts your pictures.  It’s interesting at times, but you can also ruin a good photo.

Film.  Although, I guess film’s more like a retro thing.  Like, if I go to a show, I take my film, but I also keep my digital nearby.  Say you want to catch someone doing a stage drive.  With digital, you get more of an opportunity to catch that shot.  Like it’s fun to use digital, but overall, film has a place in my heart.  I’ll always use it.

Um, honestly, I met Kumasi at a party one time and then we linked up and we did a photo shoot with Left Brain, Syd, and Jasper of OddFuture.  We just kinda fucked around.  Oscar and Johnathon were there.  I had known them from little things before, but that was the initial like, “What up?” to Freedminds.

What’s a good word?  Camaraderie?  I guess the open-mindedness.

The hardest part of photography?  I guess for me, it’s the processing.  Especially if you’re high.  I guess if you’re smoking weed and processing film, those two minutes can either make or break your picture.  But, I guess I just find the fun in photography rather than the struggle.

Pretty open.  I guess it’s weird to say, but I won’t work until you need me, but income’s pretty steady.  (laughs)

For my whole life.

That’s a really good question.  I guess, I just want people to see what I see.  Like, I picture a lens is like you’re seeing it through my eye.  I try to capture  what I see in a particular moment.

San Francisco or San Luis Obispo, because I always put in work.  We’re always having a good time.

It depends.  Most of my work is spontaneous, but when it comes to a photo shoot, I’m more of a brainstorm, play-by-play kind of a person.

I did my freshman year of college and then decided that I didn’t need it.  I already knew the basics.  I didn’t need to waste my money or time in a classroom.

I guess my fisheye.  That, or black and white film.  Those are two very important things to me.

aside from photo i do allot of music as well as a lot of mixed media – album art, covers.  I do a lot of work with True TheFuture, Bossman, and Pub Def, to name a few.