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Samanta Helou Hernandez

@sami_helou

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Photographer 🐸 🇲🇽🇱🇧
DF → TJ →SD → LA
@thissideofhoover @gentedelrio
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Portraits in the Park, August 2026.

Thank you for the trust and sharing your joy, love, and vulnerability with me 🥹🌹

Hoping to host another one soon…DM or email me if you’re interested!

I’m also booking individual portrait sessions (more info at link in bio) ❤️ by @sami_helou

Out here being earnest on main 🙃

I swear sometimes I feel like I’m running a daycare/afterschool program with all this re-parenting of my younger selves lol Healing is fucking WORK.

But for real, I’ve been digging through some teen/pre-teen archives, and it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions.

I used to feel so ashamed of this version of me, but now I have so much compassion for her. She was hurting and doing her best. Through all of it, music was there.

@elizabeth_ai and I have been working on a new project called DEEP CUTS, going through our lives song by song, witnessing what music holds: Memory, grief, desire, culture, heartbreak, joy, survival.

On September 17th, Liz and I are bringing some of that process into a live gathering at The River LA through music, food, archives, storytelling, art and memory.

Come listen with us ✨
luma.com/DEEPCUTS by @sami_helou

DEEP CUTS became more personal than I expected.

A reunion with old selves, old wounds, music, memory, and the people who’ve helped me make sense of it all.

On Sept 17, @sami_helou and I are finally sharing what grew out of that (and @soulsides is coming along for the ride too!)

come as you are. bring what you’ve been carrying.

🎟️ luma.com/deepcuts by @sami_helou

HAPPY HOUR. LIVE LISTENING SESSION. TASTING MENU. ARCHIVES. ZINE WORKSHOP. WIP FILMS. DJ SETS THRU THE NIGHT.

THE POST GEN presents DEEP CUTS,celebrating NEW WAVE now streaming on The Criterion Channel.

THU, SEPT 17 · THE RIVER LA · FROGTOWN
Tix + info: luma.com/deepcuts 🎊 by @sami_helou

Photographed menswear at los callejones for @latimesimage back in January. Feels very full circle because Santee Alley was one of the first places I documented when I took a photography class in college 🥹

Words by @lilliamr
Thank you @elisawoukalmino 💜 by @sami_helou

It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve been on here. I stepped away from Instagram and social media to focus on personal healing. Which is to say I’ve been through some shit lol I am happy to be on the other side of a lot of it, and in other ways I’m still very much making my way though this underworld swamp journey, understanding that trauma healing is lifelong and more like a spiral than a straight line.

Throughout this time I was still making work, but this period also prompted reflection around what role I want photography to have in my life. It’s still my love and a medium I feel most at home in, but I also want to approach my personal work with more presence and through the healing lens I’ve been approaching my own life with.

I’ll continue to have pretty strict boundaries around my social media use because it really has been life changing and necessary for my mental health…but I wanted to come back to share an offering:

For most of my career my photo work has been through editorial assignments and commissions, and oftentimes people ask if I photograph individuals outside of this type of work. So I’m gonna try something new…

On Saturday, August 15, I’ll be hosting my first Portrait Day at Vista Hermosa Park.

During each session we’ll spend 30 minutes together walking through the park, making environmental portraits, and ending with a simple backdrop. Every session includes digital photographs and 35mm film developed, scanned, and edited.

Whether you need updated portraits, want to celebrate a new chapter, or simply want photographs of yourself that feel honest and connected to place, I’d love to work with you.

I have 6 spots available for August 15th. If you’re interested, there’s a sign up form in my bio with more details <3

P.S. I’m not gonna be checking my DMs very often, if you wanna get in touch with me you can reach me at samantahelou@gmail.com (or text me if you have my number 🙃) by @sami_helou

“If I could reimagine strip clubs, there would be clubs dedicated to all different genders and sexualities, and they wouldn’t be catered towards cis men.

“They would be clubs that had dancers that showcase the diversity of people who are dedicated to erotic art and dance and expression, and in turn that would reflect in the diversity of the audience, the clients that come into that club, and they would exist to actually resist patriarchy, resist misogyny, and resist sexism and gender based discrimination.” - Jozey Moon (@templerotica) member of @stripperco_op

This photos essay is complementary to LAist Studios podcast Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union, “a four-part series which takes listeners behind the scenes of Star Garden Topless Dive Bar’s tight-knit community, to examine the workplace conditions that led them to organize, how their campaign sparked conversations around race, class and privilege in sex work, and the limits and challenges of unionization.”

Full photo essay in bio. by @sami_helou

“My ideal strip club, what it looks like, what it feels like, is a little bit like what we’re creating here [at the co-op show]. Where everyone’s represented. It’s all different body types, all different races, all different shapes, sizes, gender identities. You shouldn’t have to dread going to work as a sex worker. You shouldn’t have to dread management. It’s just being in a space where we’re safe and allowed to express ourselves in an erotic way.” - Ace Exotic, member of @stripperco_op and founder of @acrostrip

This photos essay is complementary to @laistofficial podcast Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union, “a four-part series which takes listeners behind the scenes of Star Garden Topless Dive Bar’s tight-knit community, to examine the workplace conditions that led them to organize, how their campaign sparked conversations around race, class and privilege in sex work, and the limits and challenges of unionization.”

Full photo essay in bio. by @sami_helou

In December, I photographed members of @stripperco_op, a worker-owned pop up show and collective, and asked them what an ideal strip club would look like for them. I’ll be sharing some of their portraits and answers in the next few posts ☺️

“My ideal club is definitely along the lines of the environment that we’ve been fostering at the Stripper Co-op: this idea we’ve been incubating that a strip club can be safe and empowering and sexy and also inclusive to a wide variety of identities and looks and backgrounds and personalities.

“The mantra wouldn’t be the customer is always right; the mantra would be the community is always right and we would make decisions as a collective.

“There would definitely be money raining down at all times. Also other fun atmospheric things like bubbles, I love bubbles. There would also be cool non-toxic smoke machines, giving it a cinematic atmospheric feel.

“Another fun thing I imagine is more theatrics. That’s definitely my passion, sexy, weird performance art.” - Reagan

This photos essay is complementary to @laistofficial podcast Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union, “a four-part series which takes listeners behind the scenes of Star Garden Topless Dive Bar’s tight-knit community, to examine the workplace conditions that led them to organize, how their campaign sparked conversations around race, class and privilege in sex work, and the limits and challenges of unionization.”

Full photo essay and link to the podcast in bio. by @sami_helou

Being in community is a choice. And these L.A. artists keep picking each other. - @latimesimage

“At the Edge of the Sun,” a group exhibition co-curated by these artists is now on view at @jeffreydeitchgallery

“I may have known how to weld and I may have helped Maria, but Maria taught me how to weave. rafa has taught us how to make adobe. Gabby has taught me a lot — Gabby’s a performer that I really admire, and I have my own performance practice, too. Most of us were friends before we were peers. I think it adds another layer of trust as we all grow.” - @karlotta.ekat

“[T]hese schools [organically] build up if we’re talking about history. Like the ’80s in New York. We gravitate towards our tribe, we gravitate towards what we see. It’s just so natural. We know what it’s like to be a brown person in this art world.” - @ozziejuarez

“We all are just very close friends in real life. And I think that plays so much in our practice: Talking, sharing information, helping each other out with different things. We have similar ideas or beliefs.” - @gabrielaxruiz

“Right now we’re in a very in vogue moment with brownness, and we want to be really mindful [about] how we’re creating structures that outlast a trend, so that it’s not just a moment but creating infrastructure for ourselves and generations after us, but also the elders that we love.” - @maeamaria

“There’s an organic formulation to the communities within the show. Some people have known each other roughly 20 years, some maybe five years. There’s acknowledgment of spaces and environments within [everybody’s] work to some capacity.” - @__michaelalvarez__

“Because of our identities as people, there’s a lot of crossing lines between everyone’s work. It’s a trip. It’s almost a hidden highway system of information that we’re all tapping into unconsciously.” - @flan_jm

Words and reporting by @goodjuju8
Photography by me
Lighting & assist: @saulebarrera @dr.farfetched
Location: @el_new_jalisco_bar

Full story in bio. by @sami_helou

Being in community is a choice. And these L.A. artists keep picking each other. - @latimesimage

“At the Edge of the Sun,” a group exhibition co-curated by these artists is now on view at @jeffreydeitchgallery

“In this moment, there’s this frenzy to carry the next Latinx art show. That kind of tokenism has always existed. And it just felt like, “Why don’t we just take it over? Take over the project ourselves?” - @elrafaesparza

“I think it’s so special what’s happening now, because finally, we’re being recognized. Not just as artists, but as part of culture, American culture.” - @veteranas_and_rucas

“I think we all grew up somewhat similarly, compared to other people in the art world. And we, for the most part, are inspired by the same things. We find ourselves at the same places, even if we don’t plan it.” @_alfonsogonzalezjr

“It seems normal: to want to share space. I think painting, because I consider myself more of a painter at times, can be lonesome, an isolating way of working.” - @lostbros

“For this one, I was thinking about the friend group, I was thinking about the context of L.A., I was thinking about the symbolism behind this show.” - @deealvarado

“my practice has always been very social in terms of gathering images. I feel so lucky to have this practice to channel the trauma and create pieces that are born out of love and admiration.” - @shizutattoo

Words and reporting by @goodjuju8
Photography by me
Lighting & assist: @saulebarrera @dr.farfetched
Location: @el_new_jalisco_bar

Full story in bio. by @sami_helou

“Over the course of the last decade — some relationships spanning even longer — Diana Yesenia Alvarado, Michael Alvarez, Mario Ayala, Karla Ekaterine Canseco, rafa esparza, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr., Ozzie Juarez, Maea, Jaime Muñoz, Guadalupe Rosales, Gabriela Ruiz and Shizu Saldamando have been in an evolving dialogue about what it looks like, and what it means, to make work in L.A. right now.

Being in the same room with these artists, a comfort and familiarity rises to the surface. Their own little world forms around them, where they all speak the same language and have been for a long time. These artists are peers. Their individual practices inspire and sharpen each other’s in subtle and overt ways. But they’re also homies. Their work is chock full of messages that are coded in an IYKYK experience.“ - Julissa James (@goodjuju8) for @latimesimage

It was an honor to photograph this group of artists. As @goodjuju8 noted, it’s truly special to live in LA at the same time as them and to bear witness to their practice.

Thank you to the artists for the trust and making the time in the middle of installing their co-curated group exhibition “At the Edge of the Sun,” now on view at @jeffreydeitchgallery.

Lighting & assist: @saulebarrera @dr.farfetched - could not have done this without yall 🙏🏼

Thank you @goodjuju8 for being my partner in this 🥹

And mil, pero mil gracias to @el_new_jalisco_bar for their generosity and allowing us to photograph inside this sacred space 💜

Link in bio for the full story. by @sami_helou