Just a Good Conversation

Jeremy Dent-Smith played basketball at Stanford last season after enter the portal. NIL has changed the college landscape in a way nobody would have imagined. Jeremy is a local LA kid who played hoops at Serra High School. Then created a stand-out career with the California State University Dominguez Hills Toros for three years, taking the team to the DII championship game. Jeremy was the 2024 California Collegiate Athletic Association Player of the Year. He graduated with a degree in communications ( in three years) and wrote on the school news paper the Bulletin for three years. We talk about finding basketball over other sports, covid, money and NIL. You can follow him on instagram. https://www.instagram.com/jermdoesit25/?hl=en

Scott Varley has worked for 33 years in journalism and over 6 years at LAPD as a crime scene photographer. He's started at LAPD on day one of Covid lockdown. He has photographed World Series, major Hollywood award shows, Rose Bowl game and more. He saw the change the digital photography has made on the industry and the world. Scott worked in the hey day of photojournalism and has seen in fall apart. Scott is one of nicest people I've worked with, he's straight of casting if you need a photographer. We talk about all that and more.

Clifford Lester is a retired professor of photography at Cypress College and a student of the Jewish experience. Inspired by his mother, Ursula Lowenbach Foster, a Holocaust survivor, Clifford has followed in her footsteps of embracing life. To honor her brother, Ernst, who was killed in Auschwitz, Ursula showed everyone around her that life was something to be grateful for, something to celebrate.Today, twenty years after her passing, Clifford finds himself much closer to his Jewish roots, and much more appreciative of his life. Grateful for his family, his friends, and the opportunity to share photographic adventures with students, it is through the artistic avenues of the photographic lens that Clifford shares his perspective on life. Even in his teen years, Clifford began to notice the beauty in things through the viewfinder of his camera that other people would just walk by. He knew he had to bring this beauty and light into the lives of others.At the present time, after a career of 27 years as a studio advertising photographer, and 18 years of teaching at Cypress College, Clifford is enjoying his retirement by committing to perhaps his most meaningful project, remembering Holocaust Survivors. Clifford says that the goal of these images is to “capture the Faith and courage of those who survived, and to honor the memory of those loved ones lost, so the memory and lessons of the Holocaust will never be forgotten.”This incredible group, the survivors of the Holocaust, have left a legacy for the generations that follow–a legacy of loving, caring for others, and giving purpose to their lives. Many are people of Faith, guided by an intense love of Torah and G-d, all are moved to celebrate their given days.We pray that through these images and the lives they have lived, their spirit will forever carry on and Bless those who follow.If you know any Holocaust  survivors who would like to be photographed please reach out to Clifford Lester.www.cliffordlester.comwww.cypresscollege.edu/holocaust-education-initiative/survivors-gallery/www.instagram.com/clifford1717/