I had planned on spending the weekend in San Diego shooting drag boat racing on Mission Bay with Jennifer and some friends but as things tend to go in my crazy life as a sports photographer, the original plan took a back seat to a last second shoot. That last second shoot was a college football game in Utah. Initially I wasn’t very excited about the change of plans but once I found out the game had a late afternoon start with the chances of great light I somewhat warmed up to the idea.
All summer long I have been excited in anticipation for the monsoon season where storms build up in the desert in the late afternoons and descend on the city around sunset. Unfortunately this year has been one of the driest monsoons on record so it has been slim pickings in regards to storm chasing. Last week after I returned from my trip to Amsterdam the monsoons finally kicked into gear and I spent several late nights storm chasing around the desert.
With all the traveling I have done around the world as a sports photographer and a Navy photographer (a few years prior) I have been lucky enough to see all sorts of great places in multiple continents around the world. One place I hadn’t been was Europe. Thanks to an awesome girlfriend I received a plane ticket to Amsterdam as an early birthday present to join her and her friend Amie on their long ago planned vacation. Let the fun begin!
Its been approaching four years since I got out of the Navy with an honorable discharge after almost five years of service but it honestly seems like yesterday that I made my living as a military photographer on the flight deck of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. While I am sooooooo much happier with my life as a civilian I still would kill to go back out on a carrier to do some more flight deck photography! Continue on to see one of my favorite shoots from the Navy.
After being scared to death while flying in an R-22 helicopter a few weeks ago, I jumped at the chance to get back in the air in a more worthy helicopter. One of my friends had a hook up with the Los Angeles County Fire Department Air Operations and invited me to come out and spend a day with the fire department and to do some flying. I am guessing that aerial photography is most likely the only reason I would ever want to be in the back of a rescue helicopter. Lets do this!
It has been three years since I made the trip to the rolling hills of the wine country to cover NASCAR as they raced around the winding turns of Infineon Raceway. NASCAR has 38 races a year and only two of them occur on tracks with left and right turns. This is the first road course of the season. It makes things a pain in the ass for drivers as well as us photographers.
It is very rare that I have a full weekend off, even rarer is actually taking a vacation of any sorts. While most people can’t wait to have time off and go on vacations I am one of the few lucky people who has their dream job. With that in mind I have no problem regularly working 50-60 hour weeks. My partner in crime Jennifer invited me up north to spend a weekend experiencing cabin life and I jumped at the opportunity to try something outside of my normal routine. Continue on to see what occurs when a photographer figures out how to “work” on his vacation.
Continue reading ‘A rare weekend off turns into random remote cameras’
In what was supposed to be a nice relaxing week off turned into a few days of following the number one golfer in the world, Tiger Woods, as he made his return to competition after eight months recovering from a knee surgery following his amazing victory in the US Open in Torrey Pines that I had the pleasure of shooting. Continue reading ‘Tiger makes his return with a whimper not a roar’
Once again for no good reason I spent a weekend shooting NASCAR in Fontana, CA. Now don’t get me wrong, its a nice track, with a great staff and plenty of good shooting positions but plain and simple, its a boring track. Trust me I am not the only one who feels this way, just take a look at any race here and you will see thousands of empty seats that end up being more of a story each year than the races themselves.
Continue reading ‘Plenty of good seats available for yet another boring Fontana race!’
I recently returned home from a 10 day trip to Daytona Beach, Florida, where I was covering the Daytona 500 as well as all the smaller races surrounding it. In those 10 days I only had one off day, for most a day off near a beautiful beach would provide the perfect time to take a relaxing day perhaps sitting at a cool beach side bar or getting attacked by a shark in the ocean, but for my photo geek self it gave me the chance to try something new and interesting.
Continue reading ‘My new Nikon D700 goes on an Aerial Adventure’
