Packing Light

Well. After great time and consideration, I was able to get my internal frame backpack to 50lbs. Through a miss calculation it was 60 and I whittled 10 lbs more off here n there. Much of the weight however is the minimum camera gear necessary to still achieve the quality I expect in the field. The minimum list (20 hrs before wheels up) is: Nikon D3s with video. Three lenses, all Nikon 2.8 17-35 and 70-200. A 50 1.4 a Zoom H4N audio recorder and the minimum amount of support gear. I guess one flash and a teleconverter may be in order. And a Canon G12 as backup ;)

3 Weeks to Takeoff

Standby for fun for you and me! January 1st 2013 is launch for a 47-day photographic odyssey in Asia. The pieces are falling into place for Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal and India. I will make every effort to post here and or Facebook when possible.

Holliday Lighting

Its that time of year again... no not Christmas. Newspaper players of the year, and its my lighting for the holidays :) Sports portraits are a bit more fun than the average because of the potential for action. I have always liked the look of well lit portraits but I am trying to push my understanding and skills of lighting a bit more for this year's resolution.

Here on Yucaipa High School senior volleyball outside hitter Kelli LeClair, I used three sources of light. (I should draw diagrams and post them if anyone wants to see them?) A six-foot diffusion pannel with three heads to light her from the left and head to toe, a bounce fill from the floor and a softer fill umbrella from the upper right.

Melissa Fairchild of Serrano High School in Phelan is a cross country runner who I lit on campus with three lights to our right. Side, frontish and from the ground. Needless to say the focus on the last two shots was a B----.

St. Lucy's senior Jackie Macy in Glendora, made for a nice clean portrait in the gym with only five lights. Grid spot to the left, barn doors to the right, umbrella overhead, back light and accent on the cross on back wall. One may notice I shoot all this at 2.8 for various reasons. This shot is with the Nikon 35-70 at about 60mm. The runner with a Nikon 70-200 at about 135mm and the jump shot with the Nikon 17-35 at about 24mm.

A little exercise in light: I got to shoot a cycle class at the Fontana 24 Hour Fitness and decided to bring the light to play with. Sometimes a different look at the usual flash on camera off ceiling and room light look.

24 Hour Fitness member Roslynn Pomahatch of Rancho Cucamonga exercises during a cycle class in Fontana. This was the 17-35mm as well with three lights: front umbrella, bounce fill on the leg and a back accent light behind the instructor.


Redlands High School's Jacob Rubio, right, against Fontana High School's Robert Duran (win) during, Thursday night's, Dec. 15, 2011 varsity 145lbs weight class wrestleing match in Redlands. This match was (no joke) 10,000 iso at 2.8 at 1/125th with out the lights! No bueno! But I fix... three lights, left and right Nikon SB 800s and the on camera master as a fill and voilà its 2.8 at 1/500 at ISO 800. The sensor on the D3s can handle very high ISO ratings so I like to push it a little to save battery and recycle times on the flashes.
As with lighting a very poorly lit high school gym...
Which brings me to a tool that makes this all possible... wait for it... Radiopoppers. Yes, 2.8 in the daylight, high ISO and high sync speeds with any other strobes does not fly:)

Lane Victory

Mojave Floor

Ok, Let Me Splain

Ok, Let me Splain... no that will take too long... Let me sum up.

It has been a quite a while since my last post but things had got away from me there for a bit. I will break all the big news into acts for easier digestion.

The Epic Post in Three Acts

Act I: Transition
I am self employed, again. A funny thing happened to me on the way to the assignment... I was on one of the best shoots I had while at SGVN (and there were only a hand full) not good news but good pix, during the memorial of a police officer.
An added bonus was shooting next to L.A. Times' Don Bartletti all day. Whata great guy!
Any hoo, I got back to the office and got layed off, again, from the same company, after 11 years, from different papers. As the journalism industry continues to circle the drain I had been working in earnest on the preparation of my own departure to go back to freelancing. I was only weeks away from cutting through the fence when low and behold, a severance package. I was giddy, nervous but giddy.


Act II: Freelance
Through several sources I am able to photograph for corporate and editorial outlets as and independent contractor/freelancer. This is keeping me moderately busy photographing for companies like Baskin Robbins,
events for T-Mobile
and Hershey's,
Magazines like Foothills Magazine
and online news services such as The Associated Press and Patch.com.






The Hershey's event was to photograph their S'mores Snacktivity Suite at the BlogHer 2011 convention in San Diego, which brings me here. 2000 women bloggers got me inspired to start posting again!




Act III: Family Time
One thing that was very hard to do in my last job was spend quality time with my family. With abysmal conditions in the newspaper including furlough days and no vacation accrual our time together was a bit dodgy. So a long awaited trip to Monterey and San Francisco was not to be missed,

visited Evan at Boy Scout summer camp,(right)
Hiked Mt. Baden-Powell
and went to The Huntington Library to see some nice art.

Its been a good summer :)

An L.A. 80 Degree Winter

Fred Judkins of Burbank sets up for the Alice in Wonderland Croquet Field at the Coach Barn on The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden grounds on an un-seasonably warm, Sunday, Dec., 12, 2010. Judkns was dressed for the Victoria Tea and Dance Society.

While many of my Facebook friends are buried under snow drifts it has been a miserable winter here in SoCal... not to rub it in...