Lakewood Track at Mayfair

It is offically track season for high school. Yesterday Lakewood has their first practice meet at Mayfair High School with Mayfair and Paramount attending. My son throws the shotput and discuss so I was able to quite a few of the events, such at high jump and pole vaulting.

My son threw first place for shotput and fourth for discuss. He was just off and took a hard fall during his warm up for the discuss. He just needs to get his head on straight and focus and he's going to do great.

It was a great day for track, but as the sun went down it sure did get real cold. I felt sorry for all of the athletes wearing t-tops and shorts. I guess that's what the warm up suits are for.

I used the "Beast" for all of these shots. I had my camera set on aperture priority at f/2.8 with an ISO of 100, which increased gradually to 1600 as the sun went down.

"Some running action"

"Hurdles"

"Discuss Action"

"My Son"

"Surfer Dude"

I posted the below surfing shots on Mpix forums and got some great responses, especially on the last shot, so I have another one that I'd like to share. For this shot I ran it through a Lucus Arts action in photoshop.

Surfing at Seal Beach

Received a call Monday evening from my sister telling me about the high surf Seal Beach was having. She told me they had to close both Seal Beach and Huntington Beach piers due to the high surf and it was expected to last through Tuesday. Unfortunately I wasn't off until Wednesday. Now I've been wanting to hit the beach on my day off during the week but the weather hasn't been the greatest. So with the nice warm days we've been having and the high surf warnings I went to Seal Beach to see if I could catch any surf action. There were plenty of surfers there but the waves were really lacking. Since I was there armed with the "Beast", my 300 f/2.8L lens and 1.4x converter, I decided to get some shots any ways.

Even though there wasn't much action, I did enjoy being out there watching and shooting the surfers. Most of them were young and appeared to be students of a surfing class.

A little mishap between these two. No one was hurt.

This guy would often hang five or ten while surfing.

While I was shooting the action I saw this guy come up. Now he doesn't really fit the look of a surfer, buy hey, he was working it and doing pretty good. A hell of a lot better then I could ever do. So way to go.

Wa Bam Fast Pitch Softball

So here are some pictures from yesterday's game.

And here are a few shots of my niece.

Girls Scout Cookies / Softball / Birthday

First let me say "Happy Birthday" to the love of my life. Today was my wifes 41st birthday and the poor thing had to start it passing out girl scout cookies. Once a year the girl scouts sell cookies and all of the cookies are distrubuted from warehouses in each area and today was the day to pass out the cookies to all the girl scout troops. So my daughter, son and his friends, and myself went to pass out cookies with the wife. We started at the warehouse at 6:30 in the morning and were finished at 11:30.

Once finished my wife and daughter rushed home to drop off our troop cookies while I took my son and his friends to a local park for a pancake breakfast. I then picked up some Subway for my daughter and I for lunch while my wife went to a co-workers retirement. I was able to eat some lunch before I was off to take some pictures.

My niece is playing on a girls 12U fast-pitch softball team and today was her opening day, so I went to get some pictures of her in action. I recently bought a AquaTech water resistant cover for my camera and lens, which came in the mail this Friday. Well, that was a well made purchase as the clouds were out in force and we had some rain. The cover worked great and gave me the peace of mind while shooting in the rain. The girls did when, although there wasn't a lot of action to shoot. I did end up with some nice shots that I will post once I'm finished editing them.

In the evening we had some friends and family over for the wife's birthday. Had some ice cream cake and enjoyed some great conversation while the kids did their thing. I know it's not the best birthday a person can have, but it was spent with family and firends, and what's better then hanging out with people who love you.

"Lakewood Girls Varsity Soccer"

Lakewood did make the playoffs and will have their first game this Saturday against Los Al, but due to prior family committments I will not be able to make the game. I've also been requested to take some action shots of another high school team that also made the playoffs, but won't have their first game unitl the following Saturday at the Home Depot Center. Now normally I would stay with Lakewood and follow them along their road to the playoffs but I haven't had any pictures sales from the team / players / or parents. I do have a committment from their booster club to purchase copys of the slideshow I put together for their seniors (13). With the amount of games I attended I have more than enough pictures for their slideshow and will give this other team the opportunity to have some action shots of their girls.

Below in the link to the slideshow I put together for Lakewood's Girls Varsity Soccer Team. It is a bit long, 16 min's, but if you get the chance to take a look, please do and let me know what you think. I used various Photoshop techniques to get the affects you will see. I layered some photo's to get the transitions you'll see, I also used a Photoshop sketch technique to get the painted sketch affect you'll see on one of the shots, and finally I used a Photoshop plug-in "LucasArts" to get the painted affects you'll see throughout the slideshow.

If you get a chance to view the slideshow, leave a comment. Thanks in advance.

Lakewood Girls Varsity Soccer Slideshow

Middle School Boys Basketball "Hughes vs Hoover"

Well, this looks like it might be my last paid job with Hughes Middle School. As with most schools, money is tight and I'm fortunate enough to have worked with them for as long as I have. I will continue to shoot the middle school championship games and all their track meets.

This was hughes second basketball game of the season and I could only stay for the first three quarters. They were winning when I left but don't know what the final score was.

All pictures were shot with my camera on manual at f/2.8, ISO 3200, shutter of 1/400, with my flash bounced off the ceiling.

Jr. Varsity Soccer "Lakewood vs Cabrillo

Here are some shots from my most recent and last league soccer game for the season. If the varsity makes the playoffs, which I'm sure they will, I'll have at least one more game to shoot, so well see what happens.

"Woman's Rugby"

You've seen the guys in action, now it's the ladies turn to get rough and dirty. Went out Sunday to shoot a woman's rugby game. Wasn't sure they were going to play due to weather, so I called the team manager who said that the team they were playing (Las Vegas) travelled far to play so they were going to play in the rain. So I wrapped up my gear and headed out to get wet and shoot some action.

"Belmont Shores Women's Rugby"

Men's Rugby

One of my fellow bloggers (Lisa-Walsh) posted some rugby shots awhile back, which inspired me to go out and find a rugby team to shoot.

Long Beach State's Rugby Team were playing their game when I got to the field, so I shot a half of their game then shot the full Belmont Shores game.

Long Beach State Rugby

Belmont Shores Men's Rugby

The game following Long Beach State's game was the Belmont Shores Men's Team. I was able to shot the entire game and get some good action. Don't really know what their doing, but I do have a better understanding of where to be for some nice shots.

Here are some shots of the Belmont Shores Men's Team.