Meet Angelita Valdez

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angelita Valdez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Angelita , thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

I believe my generosity comes from the lack of that I received as a young girl. All my life i’ve given to others that I hope one day would fall back onto me. I’m a big believer of treating people how you want to be treated and there’s such a beauty in that. Not all people you’ll come across will have that same mentality, but it’ll speak volumes of your character when you’re not in the room.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Thank yall so much for having me and giving me the platform to share a piece of me with the world! I come from South Tucson Arizona born and raised. My upbringing was a rough one as for a lot of kids that come from my area. I grew in a very broken family, but never the less my parents always assured that there was food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our head. My dad went to prison at a young age and lead me to be the leader of my family. Since a little girl growing up in the environment that I did, entertainment was a form of comfort and distraction of the reality that my siblings and i were going thru. We’d turn our brains off and the outside world by having movie marathons and having oldies blast throughout our house 24/7. As a little girl with my sister, we loved putting together skits and jokes to perform for my family just to see them smile and laugh. I got into photography at a very young age and wanted to document everything and everyone because my photo documents were stolen from us when someone broke into our home. They took all our pictures and videos so i don’t have much of them from a little girl. When i could get a hold of a device to capture memories i took advantage of it since. I started documenting everything and telling a story along with it. That’s the beauty when it comes to art in any form, you perceive it how you see it. From then it led to me falling in love with fashion and playing dress up in a sense. I started uploaded my outfits on tumblr back in 2011, another escape from everything but I was having fun and loved the recognition i’d receive. At the age 15 i left my home and focused on my education as life got too distracting and wasn’t allowed to concentrate. I believe education especially from kids like me is the most important thing we can have because it’s something that can’t ever be taken away from us. Thankfully i graduated and was able to succeed a statistic. Life became life again and i couldn’t think of persuing any dreams of mine because it wasnt realistic at the time. In october of 2022 i was 23 years old and for the first time I took initiation and a risk by a putting myself out in LA to chase my dreams of being a model/creative. All thanks to my now bestfriend Alma, she opened her doors for me and allowed me to stay with her once a month in order to collab, meet and expose myself to the modeling scene in La. Without her lots of opportunities would’ve never unfold, jus like this one. I’m forever blessed and thankful for her. Since i’ve been able to meet some of the best people in my life. Most of them have became my family. Telling my
story has always been sensitive because it’s the only thing that I have for myself, but within art, i’ve been able to slowly but surely share it with the world. My latest project, Before the Next Teardrop Falls, was something I put together to heal lots of wounds I’ve endured throughout my life. Everything from the makeup, to the props, to the title, to the people involved was all with intention, and that’s what my future projects will intale as well. Lots of young girls have been on the path I’ve been, or currently are on and don’t have ways to express themselves or feel like they’re stagnant and don’t know what direction to turn. The direction I took was art and modeling, that a girl who’s came from the gutter of South Tucson can always make it to the big city of LA and get her name out there, her face out there, showing these brands it’s not jus about the face, but the story that comes with the person, the authenticity. I will continue to put out projects, work with brands, in hopes of getting out to not just LA, but billboards and magazines all over the world. My ultimate dream is to be an actress, see myself on the big screen, see myself with the names of actors I looked up to my whole life that have brought me comfort. Open doors for my family and be able to get out the hood, and put them onto success right with me. I want to write my own movies, direct my own movies with my brother and see my vision play out on the screen. Next I’m going to be working on a short film that’s rooted from a specific time in my life. The audience will presieve it how they will, but my goal is to have them feel the emotion that is put into it n leaving with a heavy heart and something to think about for the rest of their lives, as I lived it.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

For me, the three qualities/ areas of knowledge i feel i had to master in a sense was getting out of your comfort zone, being the only one to trust n believe in your work and taking the risk. I feel like talking to people and going to these events are key factor in getting into this business because you meet so many people, and most of the time you meet people that have been watching your work and you just never knew it. Having trust and faith in your work is the biggest one! As i’ve said before, everyone is going to precive art in their own way, they’re gonna interpret The way that they want to either way, so just have faith in what you’re doing and love what you’re doing. Lastly taking the risk. A lot of people have missed opportunities because they never took the risk and were too scared of what if this happens What if that happens and at the end of the day, we’re never going to know until we actually take the risk and do it! The best way you can improve on any of these is just to have the confident mindset that you can do it and that it is possible, even if you’re the only one who believes in themselves, that’s all you need.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

The number one obstacle that i’m facing is just settling down in LA. I’m still currently in Arizona and trying to make my way to live Permanently in LA. It’s not an overnight thing but I know it’ll happen sooner than I think! I have a lot of missed opportunities because i’m not there if I get referred or reached out for a potential booking. All in time though!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: photosteddys
• Facebook: N/A
• Linkedin: N/A
• Twitter: N/A
• Youtube: N/A
• Yelp: N/A
• Soundcloud: N/A
• Other: TikTok: photosteddyss

Image Credits

@axbshots
@shotem.la
@snoopz_visualz
@pete_the_shooter
@jairo.wrtc
@steveecarrillo