Well its been a wild week, with storms coming through the area every day and all of them bringing massive amounts of water I have been a busy bee trying to cover as much of the storms as possible. The biggest thing I have to say about it is Californians are really really really stupid when it comes to driving in the rain. Not only do they drive way too fast on the freeways, but their complete disregard for signs that say " Road Closed" completely amazes me. Every day this week there were swift water rescues do to people seeing a road closed sign, a fast moving roadway of water, and thinking I bet I can make it.
Other than mass of people trying to turn their family-grocery-getter into an aqua-car, there was also an amazing amount of water, and not that many places for it to go. So roads quickly turned into rivers, which turn into lakes. I was really shocked to see some of the roads I normally drive down transformed into huge bodies of water, that could only be navigated by boat.
This Friday and Saturday I covered two CIF final football games, one was between two schools in my area. The other was a local school against a school from out of the area. The first game was between Vista Murrieta and Chaparral, I have covered both of these schools regularly in the past four years and have become very familiar with the players on both teams. So it was really neat to get to see them play each other for the title match.
I covered the Vista Murrieta side of the game and another photographer covered the Chaparral side, to make sure we got the reactions from the winners and the losers at the end of the game. It rained off and on during the game but for the most part it stayed pretty dry, but it did get a little foggy which kinda made it a bit moody. The Chaparral team endded up winning so I had the job of photographing the sad faces of Vista Murrieta, which I never love to do, I mean these kids worked so hard to get this far and I really feel bad for them not winning, but I guess they can't all win.
The following night I covered Linfield Christian a local school play Rio Hondo in Covina. I knew this game was going to be a wet one do to the fact that we had a big winter storm roll through the night of the game. By the time I got to the field there was probably a good inch of water on the it already and the rain didn't seem to show any sign of stopping.
After being on the sidelines for about ten minutes my pants were completely soaked and I was very glad I remembered to bring my water proof jacket. My biggest problem was my cameras, I had made some waterproof coverings for them with plastic bags but the eyepiece on my main camera kept fogging up and by the end of the first quarter it was useless. So I just had to shoot the action by feel, which might sound very zen but when your soaking wet, covered in mud, and freezing cold its very hard to even come close to anything zen like.
The action in the game was great but the fact that Linfield won was even better because I got to photograph the celebrations after the win. And if I thought I was muddy before the end of the game I got a huge surprise because the guys hit the field like it was a mud covered slip-and-slide and then came the apple cider. It was a great time and a great game to cover. To view more images from both the games go to this link http://www.photoshelter.com/c/andrewfoulk/gallery/CIF-Football/G0000Y.KMlokS8Cs/
Today a fellow photographer and I packed up the car and headed out to the Salton Sea so I could scout locations for an upcoming shoot. The Salton Sea is actually an inland saltwater lake that was formed (in its most recent incarnation) in 1905 when the Colorado River breached its banks and filled the Imperial basin, for a period of almost two years. After awhile it became the playground of the rich, famous, and also just many families trying to escape from L.A. to spend time fishing, boating, or just enjoying the salty brine of the sea.
Unfortunately the good times didn't last for the sea or the people who inhabit the area surrounding it. Due to the fact it has no real water flow with an inlet and outlet, the salinity level in the sea started to rise because of evaporation, causing most fish species to die off. Also with the seas close proximity to the all of the farming in Imperial county pesticides, fertilizer and other chemicals started polluting the water. To make matters worse the New river dumps directly in to the sea, the New river being one of the most polluted rivers in the U.S.A.
All of these factors make this one of the most striking landscapes to photograph in. As soon as you reach the shoreline your hit with the fact that the shore isn't covered in sand its covered in fish scales and bones, and I don't mean just a layer of them above the sand, I mean as far as you can dig you'll be digging through fish bones. The other amazing thing about the area is the amount of abandoned buildings, cars, trucks, and even towns. It really has an otherworldly sense to it. I didn't really get a good amount of time to make images today because most of my time was spent driving looking for locations but here are a few images I made. To view more go to: http://www.photoshelter.com/c/andrewfoulk/gallery/Salton-Sea-Nov09/G0000yn_YwnYN8dI/
Yesterday I spent my morning hiking through overgrown Manzanita bushes, on paths that were never intended to be walked on by humans. The area I was in is just a stones throw away from Temecula. In fact you can even see Old Town Temecula from one of the spots I was at. This area however is completely remote in the middle of De Luz, no real houses near-by, and yet somehow it was littered with trash. That brings me to the reason I was there. To cover a group of volunteers do an annual trash removal. The area I was at was just a small portion of the area involved in the clean-up. It encompassed the entire 26.2-mile Rancho Santa Margarita watershed, and yet in this huge expanse of wild area dotted with orchards and ranches, the organizers expected to collect over 10 tons of trash.
I am always amazed at how inconsiderate people can be, and when I got to the site I wasn't let down. I found the volunteers hiking through a dried up waterfall pulling out broken remnants of old televisions, pulling beer bottle after beer bottle from the soil, and placing it all on to a abandoned couch. It turns out the road at the top of the hill is a favorite hang-out for teens to get drunk at, and after a few what could be more fun than a good old game of "Let throw stuff off the edge of this cliff and see what happens". Well the good news is the volunteers pulled out a good portion of what was there, and they will be back again next year to do the same. Hopefully with less work to do.
Yesterday afternoon and evening was spent in downtown San Diego photographing a few non-models I found on-line. The purpose of the shoot was to do a mock commercial shoot for my portfolio. There is not too much to say about the shoot other than all three of the non-models were great to work with and we had a lot of fun running around the Gaslamp making these pictures. I also had the pleasure of having Paul Gallaher come down and help with some of the lighting.
This morning I had an assignment to photograph a local fish die off at Lake Elsinore, I was warned before arriving at the lake that it smelled awful, but I didn't think anything of it. In fact I had forgotten to even think about the smell, right up until I opened my car door, and was overcome with this nostril burning, eye watering, vomit inducing smell. That really took a few minutes to adapt to.
After coming to terms with the fact that I was going to be surrounded with stench for the time being, I got to work and started trying to visualize how I wanted to photograph this. And unfortunately for me and all the people I dealt with later today, it involved me kneeling on and around dead smelly fish. To get a low angle of the corpse's and to try and get someone fishing in the background.
After waiting around for fisher-men to fill my background at the right time. I decided to leave. My ride to my next assignment, was just awful, the entire car stunk like dead fish, I even tried dousing myself and the car with cologne to no avail. All I have to say is I am sorry if I smelled like a dead fish today when I was near you, but I got to make these pictures for the stink of it!
I am a freelance photojournalist based in Southern California working for various publications, photographing sports, portraits, features, and breaking news.
