Onyx & Ash

06/18/2025

We had the pleasure last week of photographing the graduation ceremonies for Five Keys Charter Schools in San Francisco - one of our favorite and most emotional shoots of the year. As one of the graduates so beautifully stated, "It doesn’t matter where you came from, what your background is, where you started, or who finished before you, it’s all about what you do with your life today." Five Keys is absolutely amazing, and does so much in addition to their charter schools: housing and navigation centers, reentry programs, ecological agriculture training, a prison education and therapy program amongst others. So happy to partner with them and promote their work. fivekeys.org

04/22/2025

Ready for your moment of zen - a meditative minute on the magic of forests? Such a beautiful video to shoot and edit. This section narrated by the inimitable Connie Best, cofounder of Pacific Forest Trust - they have conserved over 360,000 acres (and counting) of private forests in California, Oregon and Washington. This is the first minute of a longer video we made for them sharing the origins of the organization and honoring the legacy of Connie and PFT’s work.

04/17/2025

A great finishing week - very lucky to be working with the talented Gary Coates-Motion Picture Color Finishing LLC to help breathe new life into the amazing amount of archival footage used in our upcoming film.

12/19/2019

Excited to share our newest piece - a photomontage short film documenting the magical week that Los Cenzontles, a Mexican-American roots group, spent in New Orleans with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band collaborating, recording and performing - and making some amazing personal, cultural and musical connections in the process. The band also conversed and performed with other local cultural groups and artists as well - Ashé Cultural Arts Center New Orleans, WWOZ 90.7 FM New Orleans and Backstreet Cultural Museum.
Please consider donating to support the amazing work the Los Cenzontles Academy is doing supporting kids, artists and the community in being a hub for traditional Mexican music and culture. They are an invaluable resource and living proof that America’s strength comes from its diversity.
Film shot and edited by James Hall.

07/26/2019

Flow Kana asked us to document the Northern Nights music festival in Humboldt County last weekend - it marked the first time cannabis was legally sold onsite at a multi-day music festival in CA. We got to meet and interview some of their local sustainable craft cannabis farmers and watch as festival goers attempted to make homemade bongs out of the other produce those farmers grow in their field. Amazingly some of them worked really well!

07/17/2019

This video we produced for the Innocence Project was a centerpiece at their gala event and in subsequent PR efforts to help communicate a lesser-known aspect of their work to their supporters and the broader community. Storytelling workshops are one way of many that the Innocence Project empowers these wrongly-incarcerated individuals to share their stories and advocate for changes in the law and raise awareness of systemic faults in the justice system.

09/16/2018

We documented the 20th anniversary of the GSA Network on Friday night - a totally beautiful and uplifting event at the The Oakland Rotunda. Can’t wait to share the video they screened - super powerful and beautifully shot.

Highlights from Visions for Liberation! Thank you to everyone who helped make it an amazing evening. Check out more on gsanetwork.org

*Feel free to tag yourself, but please do not tag others.

09/07/2018

Conexiones, the first feature documentary from Onyx & Ash is airing tomorrow on KQED at 6pm! Hope you can tune in and watch this happy soulful musical journey of cultural connection between Cuba and Mexico. Featuring local Mexican-American roots group, Los Cenzontles. Thank you to everyone at Los Cenzontles Academy for sharing their talents and time to make this film a reality, Rick Swigg for his logistical genius, and to Jonathan Logan for his invaluable support and friendship.

09/07/2018

Conexiones, the first feature documentary from Onyx & Ash is airing tomorrow on KQED at 6pm! Hope you can tune in and watch this happy soulful musical journey of cultural connection between Cuba and Mexico. Featuring local Mexican-American roots group, Los Cenzontles. Thank you to everyone at Los Cenzontles Academy for sharing immense amounts of time and talent to make this film a reality, and to Jonathan Logan for his invaluable support and friendship.

08/01/2018

If anyone can do it... We believe!!!
It's World Lung Cancer Day - and we are so proud to work with Bonnie Addario and the Bonnie J Addario Lung Cancer Foundation - they are really bringing hope and making real change for patients and families around the world.

04/19/2018

Very happy to share this beautiful story of perseverance, love and long-delayed justice which we worked on recently with the amazing Northern California Innocence Project. This is the story of their work to free falsely-convicted Ed Easley and to gain a different kind of liberation for the heroic victim, Nichole. The Northern California Innocence Project fought for over a decade and got two laws changed in order to bring about justice.

01/10/2018

Really excited to share our newest inspirational lung cancer survivor story! There's no doubt that Jeff Julian will bring hope to newly diagnosed lung cancer patients. With support from the Bonnie J Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, his doctors, his family and a giant swimming community, he's been able to defy his original prognosis of less than a year to live. Go and ! And special thanks to Jaimi Julian Thompson too!

Almost three years ago today at age 39, Jeff Julian was told he had Stage IV lung cancer and just 6 to 9 months to…