Lakewood Track vs Wilson

Went to Lakewood's most recent meet to get some shots for their end of season banquet dvd slide show. I try to get as many of the athlete's as possible for the slide show. Today I concentrated on the long jump and high jump. I was also able to take some pole vaulting and a few track shots.

For this first set of three I wanted to try something different, so I shot these in landscape (horizontal) to give me a different crop. I was very happy with how these turned out and will add this type of shot more often.

Well as I said I concentrated on the long jump and was able to get some great action shots showing the jump and we all know what goes up will always come down. For these first few here are some good examples of kids in flight.

As I said above, "What goes must always come down."

A couple of weeks ago I took some shots of a young lady pole vaulting during the Jim Aquilla Relays. I was able to get some shots of her getting her personal best and jumping into her dad's arms afterwards. Here is a shot of her doing the high jump.

A few shots of the pole vaulters.

These last two young ladies are friends of my son. I mentioned in a prior post that this is their first year participating in track. I wanted to get some decent shots of them doing their two events, the high jump and long jump.

Women's Rugby - Belmont Shores vs San Diego

Had the opportunity to shoot a little women's rugby this last Saturday. It was a great day to be outside and a great day to shoot some action. Below you find some shots of the game.

I used both my 300 f/2.8, which had a 1.4x attached, and a 70-200 f/2.8 for this game.

El Dorado Park

After I got home from work today I decided to take a walk around El Dorado Park and see what I can see. Now be warned that I don't know what their all called. I need to give a bit more effort in identifying these birds, but it's late and I'm tired.

These first two are your normal visitors to El Dorado, but I've never seen the third bird pictured below, so if any of you viewers know, please post a comment telling me.

I've been in this park numerous times and have observed these guys standing in open fields quite often and never understood why. Now I've heard that they do eat rodents and gofers, but have never seen it. After watching this one land I decided to work my way towards him bit by bit. I stayed low and would crawl or scoot closer every few minutes until I got close enough to get some shots without scaring him off.

He started by standing there for quite some time listening and looking. I continued to wait patiently hoping to get some shots of him catching a meal. After about 30-45 minutes he darted his head down into a hole and came up with his prize.

For this last shot it was as if he was displaying his catch to me like a puppy with a bone.

Jordan vs Poly - Shot put

If you follow my blog or even just come by to take a look you know that my son is on the track team at Lakewood High, unfortunately his sister has not been able to get into the same high school and goes to Jordan High School. This is her sophomore year there and her first year on the track team. As her brother, she has become a thrower. Currently she is only throwing shot put.

Well she had her first meet today and unlike her brother, who has attended a few invitationals, this is her first time throwing in competition. This was a league meet against Poly High School and she was the only girl thrower for her school. For this being her first time I was very proud of her and enjoyed watching. Her best throw was 23'

Congratulation sweetheart and I look forward to watching you throw again.

California Relays

My son was invited to attend the California Relays held this last Saturday at Cerritos College. He participated in the discus and shot put.

This is a huge relay consisting of both high school athletes and college athletes and really opened his eyes as to the level of competition there is and what he will face if he makes CIF championships.

He started the event with the discus throw with his best being 130 for the day, which was 1 foot less than his personal best. He did not place in this event, but hopefully knows what he needs to work on.

Next was the shot put. He did very well in this event adding one foot to his personal best going from 42 to 43'. Although he increased his personal best he did not place in this as well.

Either way, I'm very proud of him and can't tell anyone how much I enjoy watching him compete.

As I normally do, while waiting for my son's shot put event to start I managed to take some shots of the long jumpers. These young ladies were competing at the college level.

I also managed to get a couple of shots of this young college athlete during the high jump. She had already won her event and was going for height now.

I decided to take two different shots to show how background can either add or take away from a shot. The first shot had the field and empty gray sky as a background. In the second shot I moved so that the stadium would be in the background, which added to the event and color of the background. I prefer the second shot much more.