Masquerade

Racquel Honore's 40th Birthday

From the Polaroid Archives

6 Train New York 1999



Painted Door Downtown LA 2006




Free Elian! Vedado, Havana Cuba 1999



7 Train Queens New York 1999




Cotton Candy Tree Puerto Nuevo Baja CA, 2000

Click HERE to view more Polaroids

A Year in Phone Fotos

Click on grids to enlarge images:

From the Cell Phone Photo Archive,
(c) Mataji Booker Los Angeles, CA 2008

Portraits: 2008

Vanessa Alvarez, Puerto Nuevo: Baja California Norte.

Silhoutte of Tiffany in her new bedroom: Buena Park.



Remmy Morris at home at the Pierce Hotel in Pasadena.

Le Tania Kirkland serving up a home made desert in Echo Park.

My step-brother Andres at my fathers house a couple
of months shy of his move from Cali, Colombia.


Josephine Falla, my sister in law's best friend.



Anthony at home in his new bedroom in Buena Park.
in Buena Park on Thanksgiving Day.



Vanessa Alvarez & Caren Braj in Playas, Tijuana.


Manwell Hernandez (museum/of/traffic ) just before
he ended his 6 months stay in room #14 at the Pierce Hotel.




Dee Dee Burnett & Grace taking a lunch break: Highland Park.



Jameelah Booker & our niece Aaliyah on Christmas Day.


Original Hip Hop Chocolatier, Marcus Gray at "Synchronicity",
an event that Racquel Honore and I put together spur of the moment.


Dee Dee fooling around at daughter Grace's first birthday party.

Film Stills from Tijuana

Leaving Los Angeles. Friday, December 12th, 2008


Arriving in downtown Tijuana



In the Old Cathedral, El Centro (Downtown) Tijuana



Watching a young boy hustle it up at the game table.



Heading back home at La Linea (The Border)

Filmed in Tijuana: December 2008, "The Awakenings of Eva" is a series of 6 short films about woman's journey home to a country and culture she left behind as a child. Starring Vanessa Alvarez, shot and Directed by Mataji Booker. To watch the complete series, you can visit here.

Dream Visit : 4451 Don Tomaso Dr.

1. The apartment I grew up in on Don Tomaso Dr., my younger sister Jameelah’s voicemail & Dad asking me to hem, sew, fix his electric blanket.

I was in his bathroom. He was getting ready for work and he was asking me if I could sew his blanket up in a few places and I was sitting on the toilet and I said sure. I wanted to be a good daughter and friend and help him out.

When I left the bathroom I could hear or sense that he was in the shower in the other bathroom down the hall and there were tons of clothes on the bed. And while I was looking for this blanket to sew up around it’s edges, I found this other strange item of clothing which confused me because it was similar to what I was looking for but it somehow seemed to be part blanket and part clothing. Overhead I could hear my sister leaving me a voice mail. From wherever she was (it turned out she was still in Jamaica) I don’t remember the details, but at the end she left a number and told me to call her. It was a 310 number. She really sounded like she needed me.

Then I went into our old kitchen. I was part looking for a way to replay the message so I could hear it again as well as take down that number. Eventually dad came in from the front door. For a second I was confused because I thought he was getting ready to go to work, but then when I saw how handsome he looked I forgot about that.

2. Taking photos of dad at the Don Tomaso apt. outside.

He was wearing this magnificent gold and orange bolero type jacket and costume like pants to match. Part gypsy belly dance materials like that of the kind my mother used to wear to belly dance (but a slick, male version) and part bullfighter. I have never seen a jacket like it in this life.

He looked strikingly handsome and I told him I must take a picture out on the landing/veranda. I excitedly waited for him out side. When he came outside and as I was lining up the frame, I realized after having taking a few shots of him already, that he’d changed clothes. This upset me quite a bit but I let it roll off my back at first. He’d put on a regular suit and tie. I complained some, but he seemed to be so content that I allowed him to take some more shots remaining in that outfit before I was to send him back to change back into the outfit which sparked the initial desire to take photos. I also noticed that in the background, there was an older woman, and this whole scene where someone was getting married. There were chairs, old women, the neighbors were like, Armenian or something. Anyways, there were some amps and lights set up ready for music, some rows of chairs, all on this little narrow veranda at the other end.

At one point I realized I had to shoot in a way that would not get all of that into the shot, but no one, including myself seemed to be that bothered. I directed him to go inside and change. I was getting a little anxious because I really wanted the original shot idea and I knew he had to go to work, so I wanted to just shoot it quickly. In my mind it was meant to be a fascinating portrait.

By the time he came out again, this wedding type activity that was about to go down, was getting more busy, so I had him stand on the other side of the landing, and a woman was nice enough to move out of our way so he could stand there and not have a bunch of people in the background. I was relieved, but then once I got him into frame I noticed that he had turned into ANOTHER out fit but not the one that I asked him to, the one that I’d fallen in love with. This was some regular old button up shirt. I went ahead and shot him in it a few frames and then frustrated, begged him to please go in and quickly put on the outfit that I wanted. Its like he part wasn’t getting it and part wanted to just do his own thing. Finally he came out and I had him stand in front of the old wooden green gate downstairs. I thought it would be a good simple background.

Two things happened. One, it didn’t look like him (though this wasn’t significant until after I woke up) and two, he wasn’t wearing the damn outfit and I got really pissed and as before, chewed him out increasingly.

So I took the photos anyway, but as I started shooting, the images I was shooting started moving like small film images up against the wooden green gate. And what I was seeing/shooting, were images from like another time. From the times of Jesus or cave men or something. It was strange and hard to describe, but when we were through, he was basically wearing a loin cloth, looked like some young cave man (and this was normal in the dream) and he had blood on his back which had dripped from someone else but it wasn’t clear) and as we walked back up to the apt I started to try and describe to him what had just happened. In his mind, he was just taking photos up against the gate. But what I saw happening in my lens was surreal. I think Mary Magdalene was there, or some other beautiful woman was in and out of the scene, which of course could have resembled my mother his late wife. But the scene was so surreal and the picture so grainy and in and out of a real visible image that it was a big fat mystery. The colors were brilliant tones of earth and golden shadows creating large silhouettes that reminded me of cave man graffiti lit by large torch light.

I never got him into the outfit I wanted to shoot him in, and then I woke up.

'No One Without You' Music Video

Flamenco guitarist Remmy Morris and I joined forces in 2007 and recorded "No One Without You"; a song about two lovers seperated by war. Directed by myself and shot by both of us in Old Town Pasadena, this is Part 1 of the 7 min song. To hear the complete song in its entirety you can visit Nadie Senti's myspace: click here.

Remmy Morris Guitar

Mataji Booker Voice, Accordian

From The Blue Cell Phone Video

"Everyone's searching for love...."

"From the Blue" is a never released track by Sonny Coates / Uriel Bridge. Its actually an old recording he did in his bedroom back when he lived in Brooklyn and I lived in Queens. (circa 2003)."From The Blue" was shot on a cell phone using public transportation in and around Los Angeles, CA through out 2008.