An afternoon with Marie.....

Had a fun afternoon today, i went out to downtown Oceanside and did some hadshots with my friend Marie. Shes in a play that will be palying at Palomar college for the next month i believe. Her and i used to work together at North Coast Church, shes always a blast to be around so the photoshoot was a lot of fun to do. Heres some shots from today.

AMAZING!!!!

Whats so amazing? Well in this case 2 things:

1) My wife. She knows of my fascination with all things Oakley, and since my birthday is coming up she got me this really cool Oakley jacket..........and SOCKS!!!! I know i know whats so great about Oakley.......i dont know i just have a facination for companies that have inovative and weird desings for their products. Oakley is certainly one of those companies and i have a lot of respect for their founder who started the company out of his basement.

2) My hair.......yes my hair. Aside from the fact that my hair grows like a weed my hair also does pretty much what it wants. Those of you who know me also know of the facination that i have with bed head (what hair looks like when you 1st get out of bed). Well my hair pretty much looks like that 24/7, most of the time though its only patches of my head that look messy..... but today my whole head had this messy look so it looked HUGE. So yeah thats it, those are the 2 amazing things, im sure you dont care but hey i think its cool and thats why it was worhty of a post. Heres some pics.

My new jacket and the hair....

And despite my scrubby appearance she still loves me........i am one lucky dude.

Not a total loss.....

So today i had to go to Carlsbad to pick up the tripod foot that was missing from my new lens. That story in itself is a long one so i will spare you all. While i was heading to the lab to pick up the foot the sun was starting to set and with all the wind the ocean looked pretty cool. I was pretty bummed that i was going to miss it as i had all my gear, but i had to be at the lab before they closed. I called to say i was on my way and was informed that the foot was not there.....while mildly annoying i was excited cus that meant i could catch some of the drama in the sky. So i ran back down to the beach waited until the sun dipped under the horizon and started to shoot. Light fades fast so i had to move to get what i wanted, i didnt have time to move to far so i found a life gaurd tower and concentrated on that. SO!! while i didnt get that peice that i needed the day was not lost as i was able to get a couple of shots. Here they are......Enjoy.



I was out of time so this one is sloppy but i still like it....

Im sure many of you will wonder if this shot is photoshopped......so before you ask.....yes its photoshopped. While im not one to extensively edit my files i still like to play around sometimes. I dont like to make things unrealistic so i try to stick to simple edits, so this is the "processed" file....

And here is the original...

Unrealistic? I dont think so, but you can make your own choice and yell at me if you want.

The Mike Baca incident.....

So i awoke today feeling like caca, it must have been something i ate. All of a sudden the phone rings!!! I dint get to it in time so it went to voicemail, it was Mike Baca who had called. He says "wake up you lazy bum i want to go shooting" or something to that effect. So now a choice had to be made, should i stay home and be sick? or should i go out shooting and be sick not close to home? The choice was clear and before i could talk myself out of it i got on the phone and called back. So began our shooting adventure, now you would think that because its been raining that we would think about the fact that the ground is nothing but mud and we would take crappy clothes and shoes. Nope........we didnt and at the end of the day we had about 20 pounds of mud on our shoes plus the mud on our clothes no lie. It was a blast though, Mike has a very unique style that i appreciate and it was a stretching experience for me to try and see the world like he sees it. I had a penchant for vertical today too......weird. Oh well it was a great experience and well worth the destruction of clothes and shoes. heres some pics.....enjoy.








I did an alternate of the image below with some blue toning and burning in the sky and all, so heres the original...

and heres the alternate..

the crazy duo....

and just to show you that i wasnt liying about the mud.......



thats all for now, im sure Mike will post his stuff soon so make sure you check those out.

Chillin with Mr. Curtis Baker II......

Boy it seems like this is the month to shoot sports for me......last night i had a second session with Curtis Baker, a HS Senior who is doing his senior project on digital photography. It has been so much fun doing this with him, i never knew how rewardng it could be to pass on knowlege. It has been so cool to see Curtis use the gear, try out new techniques, having him ask questions, and just have fun. I have been having a blast and as always have been learning a ton of stuff, its been interesting to see where the limits to my knowledge are. These past few experiences just make me want to grow past them and become a better photographer. I have definately taken the hard route by not going to school to learn photography and at times i feel discouraged because i feel so far behind from some of my peers and friends that went to school for it. I just keep moving forward though and every failure and moment of frustration just makes me try harder and study new techniques. I cannot help and marvel at the goodness of God through all of this, and as i write this i look back upon the journey and how far i have come. i cannot help but be humbled, for as a retched man i deserve none of what i have and yet i recieve more and more each day. The past few weeks have been great, and eventhough my heart is full of doubt and fear as to wether i will suceed in this venture i take comfort in the fact that God is the one who gave me this gift and has brought people along to help me grow it, and He is going to do with it whatever He wants with it. May i be ready for the next step when it is shown to me. To all of you who have answered my endless questions about photography i am eternally grateful, and i have racked up a debt that i could never repay but i thank you from the bottom of my heart. To the incredible woman that i have the priviledge of calling my wife......all i can do is thank you for sticking by me, your incredible support, your patience and your willingness to go through this with me. Oh yeah.....we shot basketball last night, it was fun, the gym was hot......heres some pics. hahahahaha sorry for the random thought process i just kind of wrote what was coming through.

A humbling experience...

i think that its Gods hobby to humble me, and rightfully so since i can get a pretty big head at times. so last night i went to shoot a water polo game, my brothers wife helps to coach the team so he told me it would be a good learning experience. i thought it would be a piece of cake!!! i mean what could be so hard about shooting people in a pool? yeah i was wrong yet again.....the game was at night, it was hard to get good vantage points, and on and on the list went. Suffice it to say it was a nice challenge and while i didnt walk away with amazing photos i still managed to get a few decent shots. hopefully ill get to try again soon, i will say this much though, my hat goes off to the photographers that can shoot this sport well. most importantly though i had fun doing it and learn some stuff and that s all that matters.

New additions to the collection.....

aka i gots new toys....so my 80-200mm 2.8 had a little accident the other day. the focus limiter switch was torn off somehow, i have no clue how it happened but i looked down and just about fainted when i saw that the switch was gone. now i know youre probably asking yourself "whats the big deal about some stupid switch?" well the switch sits at the front of the barrel and with it gone i can see straight into the lens barrel and right behing the 1st glass element. of course this happened a week before i needed to use it for a shoot.......figures. i knew that i wouldnt get it back in time if i sent it in, so it was time to get the back up lens that i have been meaning to get. i bought the Nikon 70-200 2.8 AF-S VR man thats a mouth full. yeah its basiclly the same lens, bt i use my 80-200 so much that i needed a back up in case it went down. the new lens is incredible!!!! i love it, it has the silent wave motor in it so it focuses super fast and the VR (vibration reduction) is really cool. i can shoot handheld at 200mm at a 15th of a second and still get a good shot.......AWESOME!!!! i am such a nerd i tells ya!! second item i bought was the Gary Fong lightsphere, i have been reading a lot about these and seeing them all over the net i figured "why not" its a pretty cool little diffuser and the light just goes everywhere.......ok ive said enough heres some pics of the lovely rig.