Sundays with Sondheimer: Fulfilling a dream

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On Sundays this summer, I’m presenting my favorite videos from those I’ve shot over the last three years and telling the back story.

This is the final look back for the summer, so it’s appropriate to tell the story of the first video I ever made. It was 2008, and Laron Armstead was an All-City basketball player at Los Angeles Fremont dreaming about getting a college scholarship and being able to move on with his life.

He invited me to his family home in South Los Angeles early in the morning before he went to school. Much of the video focuses on the conversation we had as he ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Yes, there’s a little too much focus on the cereal, but I remember being mesmerized by the commitment and determination of Armstead to succeed in school and in life.

Now he’s entering his senior year at Loyola Marymount, still playing basketball and on path to get his college degree.

Here he was just weeks from graduation at Fremont, talking about how he was able to earn a college scholarship.

-- Eric Sondheimer