My Sister

While I was at work on May 4, I received a call from one of my sisters, who lives locally, that my oldest sister, who lives in Missouri, was in the hospital with brain tumors. On Monday morning she wasn't doing to good and not being herself so her husband took her to the hospital. While at the hospital they did a cat scan and found four tumors in her brain. Two of the tumors were bleeding and putting a lot of pressure on her brain, which gave her the symptoms she had earlier in the day. They quickly took her into surgery to relieve the pressure. Once the doctors were in they discovered she had four brain tumors, with two of them bleeding. They took care of the bleeding and removed two of them initially. Based on what the doctors saw they knew that she was in the later stages of cancer and more than likely had additional tumors in her body. A MRI was scheduled for a full body scan to determine how far the cancer has spread. This MRI only verified how bad it was. They found she had tumors throughout her body and gave her only a about six months to live.

This all happened over a two week period. Once the pressure on her brain was relieved, she improved greatly and began to feel much better. This didn't change the status of her cancer, which the doctors put in stage four.

After various meetings with her doctors, it was determined that they will only deal with the tumors in her brain so that she could function normally and hopefully live the remaining part of her life in somewhat comfort. My sister didn't want any treatment that would limit her quality of life and cause her to be sick. Her mind set was that if she is going to pass in the near future, then she would enjoy the remaining part of her life as best she could.

Now her and her husband own a trucking business and made plans to take a load out her so they can visit with family members out here in Southern California. Knowing she would only be out for the day I took the day off so that I could spend some quality time with her. So all three of my sisters and mom went to a local park to take some nice shots. I didn't want the last pictures taken of her to be of someone dying and sickly. I also didn't want your normal family shots taken in the living room.

We had a great time and simply enjoyed ourselves. I've always had a nack for making my sisters laugh and really let loose during the day. I wanted her to enjoy herself and keep her mind off of all the things going on. So here are some shots to share with you all. This first group of shots is of my oldest sister, who had a great time.

Here are my younger sisters, who really helped out and kept the moment very enjoyable. It was great spending this time with all of my sisters.

My three sisters.

My three siters and our mom.

Now what good would it be if I didn't join in on the fun and have my pictures taken as well. So here is me just being myself and a couple of shots with my sister.


A personal note to you Vicky, I am so proud of you right now on how strong you've been throughout this ordeal. I love you and will see you soon.

Jacob

I was asked to take some senior pictures of a friend of the family and of course I couldn't say no, oh and his mom made our family dinner, which was very nice of her. I'm still learning and need a lot of help with posing. I don't really have the eye for your out of the box shots, such as tilted
and different angles, but I'm tying and learning a bit as I go.

With that said, here are a few shots to share.

Orioles Baseball

Baseball is in full swing all over the country and I have finally gotten my first baseball job. Most of the jobs I get for baseball are from a parent who wants pictures of their son in action during a game. This is the fourth year I have taken pictures of this young man and have been able to watch him grow as a baseball player. As a matter of fact his mother asked about me putting together a slide show with pictures of him playing ball over the last four years. This should be interesting.

Any hoot, what I do during these jobs is to capture the athlete in all aspects of the game and hopefully show his personality. The types of action shots I get all depend on their involvement in the game and the positions they play. This young man played first base the whole game and made it to bat three times. So with all that said here are some shots of him.

He had three at bats and I was able to get one bob (ball on bat) during his last at bat.



I had to do one for fun. This last one was ran through LucisArts for the effect.

Long Beach Middle School Soccer Championships

This past Saturday I photographed the Long Beach Middle School Soccer Championship Games held at Wilson High School. There are two divisions for each the boys and girls soccer teams, which meant 4 games, back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I knew it would be a very long day.

For most middle school soccer games there's usually not a bunch of people attending, which gives me a wider choice of position I can shoot from, but for these championship games I was very limited as to where I could position myself. Additional I will only shoot one team, but for these games I was capturing as much action and as many players from both teams as I could. So with all of that said I decided to position myself near one goal, keeping the sun behind me. I knew that at the half they would change sides, which would give me opportunities to capture additioanl players.

For these games I was armed with the 300 f/2.8, which I used my 1.4x on and then on my second camera body I used my 70-200 f/2.8. The wheather was a mixture of light to dark overcast skys to sunny and would constantly change throughout the four games. I kept my ISO set to 200 while I shot in aperture priority at f/2.8 and f/4.0, which was with my 300.

Division II Boys Championship Game

Newcomb Spartans vs Lindsey Falcons

Division I Boys Championship Game

Washington Patriots vs Jefferson Jaguars

Division II Girls Championship Game

Cubberley Cubs vs Newcomb Spartans

Division I Girls Championship Game

Bancroft Bruins vs Stanford Hawks