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.
I have really been trying to make an effort to cover more NHRA this year so with nothing going on for the weekend I decided to make the trek up to Sonoma for the Fram Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway. I have been to this track several times to cover NASCAR but never for NHRA. I am very happy I went to the race because this is without a doubt one of my favorite tracks to shoot drag racing at.
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 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’
A few months ago I posted this blog on a assignment I did for ESPN the Magazine on college pitcher Stephen Strasburg. It was a successful and fun shoot but the story got cancelled. A few months later the story was resurrected so I figured I would post an update showing how the story ran and the pictures they used.
Continue reading ‘UPDATED: Stephen Strasburg+baseball=103mph!’
After experiencing the excitement and history of the Indianapolis 500 last year I made myself a promise that I would shoot this race every year for as long as I could. That brings us to 2009 which makes two years in a row for me. If I could pick who would win the race I totally would have gone with Danica Patrick, since it would make me a lot of money in sales. My second choice would probably have been Helio Castroneves. For starters he has been in the news a lot lately after being acquitted of federal tax evasion charges, second because if he won he would be a three time 500 winner thus making him one of the greatest Indy Car drivers of all time.
Continue reading ‘Spiderman drives 500 miles for a bottle of Milk’
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’
Today was my travel day from Phoenix to Talladega for this weekends big race. While normally I don’t go to the track on a Thursday I decided to swing by the track to show first time visitor Guy Rhodes around the facility. I wasn’t expecting to take any photos. Of course that went out the window once we got there!
