I Can Teach You How To Do It

No words needed... One of my favorite blogs... One of my favorite cities... It's all about the photos...

Meet GeeJ, Barcelona, and icanteachyouhowtodoit.com...

Conrad: Hey GeeJ, could you please explain to my people what it is you do...

Gerard: Well, My name is Gerard Estadella, also known as GeeJ. DJ and Photographer media hyped as the "Spanish Cobrasnake," thanks to my webpage icanteachyouhowtodoit.com.

I also work as a freelance PR and fashion photographer for lots of Spanish and overseas magazines.

C: Ok, tell us about your site, how'd you get into it?

G: I started 4 years ago when I decided to start my own blog. In which I explained my day-by-day life and put some pictures I took with my shitty digital camera to get a better idea of what I was trying to explain. It started just as a blog for my friends who wanted to know where I was and how I was doing because back then I used to DJ a lot around Spain and had my own electroclash band and we were touring the country every now and then.

One day, after 1 month without updating it, I had too many photos and no time to write at all so I decided to just upload the photos... What was my surprise when I saw that the website counter jumped heavily and unexpectedly. That's when I decided to just upload photos.

After a while and when blogspot was not big enough for me and also when I bought my new reflex camera I decided to make it a dot-com website. That was probably a year and a half ago.. and since then every thing's just been crazy.

C: What makes the night life in Barcelona so great?

G: I love that my people are in it. I have friends who are promoters, club owners, performers, DJs... It's all like a small family where we all know each other. Also Barcelona has a big indie-underground thing going on. If you know how to avoid the house music venues you can easily get yourself in some pure roc, electro noise venue which you'll love it.

Also Barcelona is a very open minded city and every single non-gay club has a mixed audience and that makes things even more interesting. We're a unique European flavored city next to the sea that reflects on the people who live here, visit the city or just moved from around the world to live here.

C: Since I've been checking out your site I've noticed how much it is updated and how the photos and style never suffer. First of all, you must live with a camera strapped to you, right? And secondly, what's your "motivation"?

G: Yeah, I do live with my camera as my third hand... but I'm used to it now and I really like it.

My motivation has always and will always be learning. Everyday you learn new things and in that case about photography, lights and stuff like that. I really enjoy what I do and right now what I've accomplished with it really makes it worth it.

C: Your creating a sort of celebrity culture, shooting the same dozen or so kids a every party and in your photo shoots. Are these just your friends or the kids who go out the most or what?

G: The people who are flashed by me are usually my gang. I wouldn't say it's an entourage but some kids will definitely love to be called like that. I take photos of what surrounds me and the people in it. That's why some people are almost in every update of the week. I try to take photos of foreign and unknown people, just because it makes it more interesting for the audience of the website. But some days I don't feel that social myself and just go for "my" people. And I'm aware that people all around the world are starting to know them. There's even forums in the Vogue.com page talking about some of them... It's just so random that me, and anyone in my position, is able to create i-celebrities out of nothing. I'm starting to get phone calls of production companies because they want some specific person that they saw on my page to be featured in a TV ad, magazine fashion editorial or campaign.... soooo scary.

C: Soooo... What are you teaching us to do?

G: Nothing, absolutely nothing. the name is random picked with no second intention in it...

I get loads of e-mails of haters, saying "what can you teach me, huh?" I'll just say.. If you like the page and the photos, go check it out and enjoy them... If you don't... There's billions of other websites to go... Just don't bother me.

C: Have a good Barcelona story?

G: Hmmm ... The latest unexpected thing was when in carnival, (a Halloween kind of holiday that we have here,) I got in a bus to go downtown. There was 2 girls dressed up as Cory Kennedy and Kate Moss... not that you could tell by their looks, but they were loud enough to let everyone know they were having fun and what they were dressed as. The thing is that I entered sat down 2 rows behind them and just listened to what they said. One of them was calling her friends to let them know the plans for that night and the conversation went as follows:

"oh, yeah, I'm Kate, she's Cory Kennedy, you're gonna be Nicole Richie and your friends will be Paris and Lindsay... I think we should call the boys so one of them dresses up as The Cobrasnake or the icanteachyouhowtodoit"

uh-mazing.

C: What's next for the site? Maybe traveling to other cities, maybe Philadelphia?

G: Right now I'm trying to get an official sponsor for it. I don't wanna put banners in the site.. It's independent and banners take out all the credibility of it. It's pop-up free, easy to surf and "what you see is what you get". When I get that my intention is to start traveling around... the States, Europe and hopefully Asia... So... when in the states, I'll try to make it to Philly ;)

Interview by Conrad Benner