Survivor Temecula

Last week I photographed A local woman who was selected to be on the T.V. show Survivor. She has been trying to get on the show for the last 8 years and has auditioned 15 times.

In photojournalism you get to meet a lot of interesting people that do a lot of amazing things but after meeting, 61 year old Gillian Larson I think I will have a hard time topping her. She was born in South Africa, a nurse for 41 years, raised three children, has traveled to 46 country's, swum with great white sharks, repelled off 4000 ft mountains, eaten bugs, and a lot of the more adventurous stuff was done in the last 8 years while trying to get on the show. I don't know where she gets her energy but it is absolutely infectious, after spending an hour with her I felt like I could possibly climb mount Everest, which I guess is good for her because her next endeavor after she swims across the San Fransisco bay from Alcatraz, she is planning on doing motivational speaking.

For the photos I was lucky in the fact that she has really amazing decor from all her travels, so I just had her pose for a few casual portraits. One of which I used some of the books she read in preparing for the show as props.

Model Shoot

Last Saturday I did A shoot with a couple of models from San Diego, at Torry Pines beach to test out some "bright" lighting ideas I had. I am always happy to work with models because they really know what they are doing and enjoy being in front of the camera! For this shoot I was accompanied with a local photographer Paul Gallaher, who I can't say enough good things about! without Paul I think It would have been a really difficult shoot! The shots I came away with I was really happy with and I think the whole shoot went really well, even if the sunset wasn't perfect and Paul and I just barely made it out of the parking lot before they started ticketing people because of the park closing. But who can complain about spending a Saturday evening photographing two beautiful people on a beach a sunset? Paul's Blog can be viewed here, Thanks again Paul!

Toxic Terror

Last weekend I photographed the auditions for the "monsters" at the new haunted stadium in Lake Elsinore . It was a lot of fun and I got really lucky as a photographer, when I arrived at around 8:30 am three people were auditioning and two if them where in costume! It really made the assignment for me! The whole stadium will be converted into a haunted maze and I have to say even though it wasn't even nearly started and I was there during the day time, It was already creepy! The haunted stadium will run till the start of November and is expected to have over two hundred monsters!

Friday Night Lights

Well Its official Football season has started, and I can't wait for next Friday! it's really a lot of fun to shoot high school football. Even though the lighting is god-awful and the sidelines seem to be more crowed then ever its still a great time!

Suicide

I had a hard assignment last week, photograph a family who's youngest member took his own life. this was an assignment I wanted to make sure I got right! the family was very nice and had been through a lot already so I tried to set the shots up as quickly as possible and sense it was at the cemetery where the boy was burred I really wanted to respect them and their wishes.

Minor League Ball

I've spent the last two nights shooting the final stretch of the season of the Lake Elsinore Storm for a local paper. Although the lighting isn't the best, I really love shooting this level of baseball. you get almost unlimited access and the games generally never sell out so you have a lot of options when shooting from the seats. Which is something I do almost every game due to the size of the park you are better of shooting from the stands then the field.

Did someone say Fooball?

Well its that time of year again, I spent the latter part of last week shooting pre-season High School football. It was a great feeling to get back on the field and shooting practice it was even better to get some daytime shots. With the regular season starting next week I no longer have to worry about what to do Friday nights! at least for the next couple of months.

The Candy Lady

A few weeks ago I had an assignment to photograph a woman and the candy store she runs, this was a real fun one. She had a just about every type of candy you could think of. Some I hadn't thought of since I was a kid, and on top of all that she had soda's for every taste even a chocolate one! that she said tastes nothing like You Hoo! My main thought in photographing this was color! and there was ample amounts of it with all the different sugar laden treats in the store.

Harvest time

Well I shot this about two weeks ago but I haven't had a chance to post so I am doing it now

When an editor from a publication I regularly shoot for, contacted me about doing a 6a.m. Saturday assignment I wasn't to excited, but when she told me it was in wine country I had a hope it might be something to do with the ongoing grape harvest in wine country and my hope can true! I have lived in the Temecula Valley for over ten years now and have never had the opportunity to see the grapes get picked so this was a real treat. I arrived at the winery just before 6 a.m. with just enough light for me to get a feel for how the picking takes place and to give me some time to think about how I was going to shoot it. I already knew I wanted to get a shot of one of the workers unloading a basket into the gondola with a bit of motion blur, but other then that I was just going to wing it! As the light got better I noticed I could see the workers through the other side of the vines they were picking, so I found a good open spot in the vines and waited for one of the workers to fill the frame and clicked away. All and all I was very happy with the way my shots turned out that day, and it was really great to see the process happen.