What an awesome race the Tour of California is! I went up to Pasadena with my friend Ryan to go see the final stage of the race. The final 25 miles or so was 5 laps around the rose bowl on a flat loop. The final laps were made even more exciting by the rain, as it seemed to follow the riders around the course. Every time they passed us it poured, then the rain would stop, then when they came by again, it poured. Actually it was like that pretty much for the whole week of racing with the exception of a couple sunny days on the time trials. I hope this year is a better one for cycling than last year. Those of you who follow cycling know what I mean. Here are a few pics from our day at the race. The first couple were from a BMX show before the race entered town, then we went to find a spot on the course just before the finish. The guy in the red was a stud! He was our front alone for about an hour on this closed circuit. That is a huge task, but the poor guy got caught on the final lap. The last couple images were of the main group coming in at about 40 mph for the final sprint about a minute behind the breakaway group. I like these images as they have two world champions in them. Paolo Betini and Tom Boonen. Thanks for looking…

Last weekend, I headed down to La Jolla Cove with my friend to do some bird photography. It has been a while since I have done any kind of wildlife photography. Sometimes my dog can be considered wildlife if there is a ball nearby, but that is a different story for a later time. The Cove is one of the best and as of recent, most well known places in the country for Brown Pelican photography. This time of year, it is particularly crowded with photographers, as the adult males are very colorful for the ladies…it’s breeding time! You will notice that I don’t have a single photo of pelicans. We got the spot where the pelicans kind of congregate a little after sunrise, and there were already a few people down there with really big lenses, and the gate was locked to keep people from disturbing the birds. I can’t justify spending $9000 on the lenses that some of these people had, for the number of days that I spend shooting birds, so it was time to get creative and find a different spot. We found a point to ourselves and the Terns and Cormorants were all over the place flying to and from the spot we had just left. Here we were able to get quite a bit closer, so a 400mm lens would suffice. Below are some of the images that I got from that morning. Terns are some of my favorite costal birds. The black hat that they wear and the bright orange beak just make them so striking. I caught a series of images with a Sea Gull grabbing one of the Terns tail feathers. I don’t know if they normally attack the little guys or not, but it was interesting to see.
The other birds that were in abundance were the Cormorants. In the shade they look like a black bird, but once the sun hit their feathers, the iridescence really shines, and you can see their bright blue eyes and neck. They are quite beautiful.
It was a great day, and I think I came back with some cool photos of these birds. Maybe I can get a pelican next time?

Happy Groundhog Day!!! It has been a few weeks since I last posted anything. It has been a bit busy around here, I traveled to Phoenix, AZ to shoot the PF Chang’s Rock & Roll Marathon. It was a nice little trip, but the marathon makes for a long day. I do this for Action Sports International from time to time. They provide prints for participants of the race as they progress through the course. This is not what I call great photography, but it is fun to get out and shoot and watch the finishers come through. As an athlete with a love of endurance sports, I dig it, but I don’t see myself running a marathon…I will stick to racing mountain and road bikes. It is a little more exciting for me, but that is me.
You will notice in my contact page, I have added a form to make it easier to request information. For such a simple addition, it has really increased the amount of requests for info by quite a bit. It looks like super bowl sunday might be a wet one here in San Diego, so my plans to go do an engagement photo shoot on an empty beach may be foiled, but then again, weather can be tough to predict around here…stay tuned.