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In an industry as ever-changing as hip-hop, it takes someone ingenious to have longevity. Meet Estevan Oriol, the Mexican photographer/director who has made his lifestyle into a career. From bouncer to Cypress Hill tour manager, Oriol started documenting his times on the road and soon became renowned for capturing the raw essence of street life through his photography. Within a short time, he became one of the most sought after photographers of the urban community. In 1995, Oriol broadened his horizons by teaming up with tattoo artist Mister Cartoon to create Joker Brand Clothing. A decade later the two opened SA Studios Agency, a multi-cultural multimedia design/art company. SA's clients include Harley Davidson, Nike, Toyota, T-Mobile, and Rockstar Games. Oriol took time out of his busy schedule to sit with Bridgez and discuss his career.

Bridgez: How did you and Mister Cartoon meet?
Estevan Oriol: Me and Cartoon met in 1992 at a record release party for a group called Penthouse Playas. Then I brought him in on this deal where a friend of mine needed a T-shirt line drawn up. He was opening up a store built around Latino culture so I put them together, and the store did pretty good. But then the guy was shady with us so we had to shut him down. So then I started a line called Scandalous Clothing. Cartoon had started his own line but it wasn't working out too well with his partner so he quit. [In turn] he was left with the entire inventory. So I told my people at the clothing line, look at his stuff we should buy it from him and just continue where he left off. We did and we even got Cartoon to draw more shirts up for us. So now everyone is happy, and that line evolved into what is now Joker Clothing line; we've been doing it for 11 years.

Bridgez: How did you get started in photography?
EO: My dad was a photographer. He came up to me and said, “Hey man, you live a cool lifestyle, you are lowriding, touring with these bands, you should be taking pictures documenting it all.” Then he gave me a camera. I thought photographers were like paparazzi or tourists, so I didn't take it seriously at first. Then I slowly started taking it around with me until I had like 50 rolls of film developed but never made prints. So a lady at a photo lab asked me what [I was going] to do with them, and I told her nothing. They were sitting in a milk crate in my house. So she said, “How about I do a show for you, like an exhibition here at the lab and make some 20 by 24 pictures and you can keep all the money if it sells.” She made 11 prints and ended up selling eight of them, which was unheard of ‘cause I was a no-name guy. Everyone else that had shows there were well-known people that shot celebrities. So she said, “It's crazy how many pictures you sold, you should really think about doing this, I think you got something here."

Then in 1997, B Real of Cypress Hill wanted me to do a video for this group called Psycho Realm. The label was so happy with the first video that they assigned me another one. Then DJ Muggs gave me two videos to do from his side projects, and Cypress Hill gave me two of their videos, and it just took off from there. Since then I've directed videos for Blink 182, Eminem and his group D-12.

Bridgez: I heard that you don't like to shoot in digital. Why is that?
EO: I hate digital because it's cheap and it's cheating. The whole digital and Photoshop thing is sickening to me you know, because it's taking away from people's talent. You don't have to be good anymore, all you have to do is put the digital on automatic—point, shoot and Photoshop it to death and you got a good picture. I only shoot digital if they make me, if there is an impossible deadline and I don't have a choice, because you don't want to be difficult to work with either or else no one will f**k with you. You don't want to be one of those bitter old school guys. I used to watch rap documentaries back in the day and you would see the poor guys that started the hip-hop movement and they'd be saying, "You know these kids don't give no respect to the elders, the ones that started it all, and it's not cool. The songs these days they don't make no sense, etc." And it makes a lot of sense and it's 100% true, but no one wants to hear it. As long as it sells they don't care if they say, "F**k your mother, I'll b**t f**k your daddy, kiss, kiss apple bottom jeans" and all that s**t, but to me that's not cool.

Bridgez: We hear you’re a staunch supporter of Omar Cruz?
EO:  Oh yeah, Omar Cruz, of course. I did his video for [“I Hang With My Dogz”]. He's not trying to do the gangsta rap and he's not trying to do the pop rap either. He's just coming with the street stuff but he's not claiming to be the killer, and he's not talking about selling drugs, he's not trying to blow all that up to make money. He just talks about his point of view of what kind of place L.A. is and who he is. He likes to go to the clubs, party, have a good time, but not doing scandalous stuff.

Bridgez: What upcoming projects do you have in the works?
EO: We have a movie coming out with Universal Imagine. It was called Ink and was originally a documentary [but we’re renaming it]. I got a project coming up with Adidas that I just did. It's a pair of shoes they are bringing out again called 1979 [The Project]. We are carrying on with our magazine RIME. I still do photo shoots and videos, and Cartoon still does tattoos everyday. Omar Cruz's project [Sign of the Cruz] is coming up, we just did Snoop Dogg's [album]. We did the packaging, the cover, the layout and the logo. We also put out a doll, Lost Angels. We got a third version coming out in April/May. We also have an exhibition going on right now in the Petersen Automotive Museum, where Biggie was killed in front of. It's an exhibition on [how] lowriding led us to become entrepreneurs.

Omar Cruz's "I Hang With My Dogz;" directed by Estevan Oriol