Diego Contreras: A Few Of My Favourite Things

When I received the invite to list A Few Of My Favourite Things, I looked around my space and smiled.

Funnily enough, I’ve made my workspace almost impossible to work in. 

Distractions are everywhere: instruments, cameras, art books, drum machines, game controllers... always calling my name. And I love that.

After years of constantly travelling for work, I wanted my home office to feel soothing, inspiring and fun. Never, ever like ‘work’.

This space is a little retreat where I get to make music, write, edit and read. Time seems to vanish here.

Everything in it reflects who I am and my constant urge to make things, to create and to tell stories in all shapes and forms.

Even when there are no urgent deadlines, I come in every day, sit down, and let inspiration take the lead. I never know where the day will go. 

That’s the beauty of it. 

The important part is just showing up.

The Chinatown Piano

This piano sits against the wall just outside my office.

I found it in a music shop near Chinatown, LA, surrounded by massively overpriced pianos.

As I wandered through the store, I pointed to a lonely, unkempt one in the corner. “What about that one?”

The owner, a sweet lady in her 80s, laughed.

“That’s an old student rental. It’s not for sale… and why would you want that one?!”

But when I sat down to play it, the sound was so soft and heavenly. 

Like something Ólafur Arnalds would play on a dreamy Icelandic glacier.

She hesitated but finally agreed to sell it, and I walked out with the best deal of my life.

This piano has become one of my most cherished possessions.

Nothing quiets the noise like sitting at this piano. 

It offers a moment of true stillness. 

A chance to reconnect with the beauty of life and the goodness of God above.

The film cameras

My spark for filmmaking ignited in 2013 when my honeymoon video, ISLANDS, unexpectedly earned a Vimeo Staff Pick.

My wife and I dated long-distance for eight years, and I made short videos from every trip we spent together. Before discovering the video setting on my DSLR, I was snapping hundreds of 35mm photos and turning them into little keepsake albums for us.

It all started with the grey Minolta 35mm point-and-shoot in the back here.

I take these cameras everywhere I go. What I love about them, especially as a director, is that they keep me connected to the craft.

As shoots grow bigger, I spend less time behind the lens and more time managing everything else.

Photography brings me back to basics. 

It keeps my eyes sharp — lighting, framing, blocking, even directing talent. 

It reminds me of where it all began. 

Looking through a viewfinder and letting curiosity lead the way.

The Guitars

While most kids at my Guatemalan high school spent their days drinking and partying, I split my teenage years between playing guitar in a punk-hardcore band and skateboarding every afternoon.

I tried picking up skating again recently but ended up hunched over in a doctor’s office, getting an MRI. 

That dream is officially retired.

These guitars, though, I still play daily. Each one holds deep emotional value and marks a different era of my life.

The wooden one, a cheap Schecter Deluxe 006, has been with me since 2002. It has travelled across multiple countries and five U.S. cities. It’s the guitar I played in my first band and the reason I met my wife nearly 20 years ago, when her brother’s band covered one of our songs on Myspace while I was still in high school.

It was initially a crimson vampire red, but I recently sanded it down to its raw wood, replaced every part, and polished it with some random avocado oil from my kitchen, giving it that olive tone.

The Gibson Les Paul was bought in 2008 with my first paycheck as an Art Director at Crispin Porter + Boguski in Boulder. I played it in a metalcore band called A Beauty to Fight For.

The white Telecaster came when I composed my first soundtrack for Las Amazonas de Yaxunah, an ESPN Sports documentary.

And the green Gretsch I bought just before our son Kian was born last year.

[Bonus photo: Some of the guitar pedals I use]

The Books And Lamps

There’s something about working in a dim, moody atmosphere that just clicks for me.

So, first thing every morning, I turn on my collection of lamps scattered around the room. There’s one in every corner. That warm glow flips a switch in my brain and gets it going.

Next to each lamp is a stack of books — mostly photo books from incredible photographers I love and admire, along with The Art of _____-type reads.

All perfect for quick inspiration.

Here are some of my favourites all in one place.

The Sidekick

Pictured here, next to Marcel the Shell, is my FlatFace fingerboard.

I’ve carried a fingerboard in my pocket or backpack since I was 11.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving. 

A tiny best friend that never bails on you. 

Got five minutes to spare? Fakie-flip noseblunt over the desk hard drive, no biggie.

If not for fingerboards, I might have ended up in a suit and tie, trapped in some dreadful office like Mark from Severance.

To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever lost a game of fingerboard S.K.A.T.E. 

My friend David G. back home might say otherwise, but don’t believe a word he says.

See it in action here.

The Purple Maschine+

I bought this at the start of 2022, inspired in part by my friend Jason Nitti — an incredible musician behind Kool Head and an ECD at an agency in Atlanta.

I’ve been making music and playing instruments since I was a kid, but I had never touched an electronic beat machine. 

It completely changed my life.

It reignited a passion for music I hadn’t felt since my college days.

Over the past two years, this Maschine has helped me compose an hour-long documentary soundtrack and create an electronic album under the name HUNABI.

More than anything in 2025, my dream is to finish and finally gain the courage to release these tracks. 

They’ve been stuck in my headphones for far too long.

If you want a sneak peek at one of my tracks - Malu - click here.

The Nomada Drum Kit

By the back window sits my Nomada Milagro — a drum kit crafted by Santa & Cole, a furniture studio in Barcelona. 

I first spotted one in a beautifully shot commercial by the talented Spanish DP Pepe Gay de Liébana, and I knew I had to have it.

They don’t sell them in the U.S., but the company was kind enough to make an exception and shipped me the first kit to ever land on American soil.

Don’t get jelly 😎

The XBOX Controller

Back in 2003, I saw a flyer for a one-v-one Counter-Strike tournament at a tiny LAN shop near my house. 

I was decent at the game but had never thought about competing.

I signed up for fun. 

To my surprise, I steamrolled everyone except for one guy in the finals, who had over 12 years on me.

After the match, he and another player I’d knocked out in the semis were waiting outside. I thought I was about to get jumped. Instead, they invited me to join their competitive team.

I didn’t even know that was a thing, but I joined in. We became back-to-back national champions in 2003 and 2004, and made it to the World Cyber Games in Korea... where we got absolutely wrecked.

Between matches, I killed time at a Halo multiplayer booth in the lobby. 

I ended up outplaying the world’s number five Halo player. 

That’s when I realised I’d been competing in the wrong game.

So an Xbox controller always sits near me. 

Like a Batarang, ready to strike down noobs on Friday nights.

Fast forward 20 years, and it’s still my connection to my friends back home.