A few more snaps...

I shot the 2nd half of the Peace Partners portraits (alliteration!) today. It was a lot less stressful without the TV crew. It was so calm and relaxing compared to last week's crazy circus! I'm really pleased with these portraits. I think there should be a general ban on the adult version of the yearbook photo that so many law firms and real estate agents use. Ack!

Traveling Circus...

Sometimes I can't help but feel like a traveling circus. A trailer with a stepladder, wooden chair and giant globe probably doesn't help. I was a little early to a shoot today and took some snaps of my setup.



My "new" handlebars...pair of Albatross bars with bar ends to provide a more stretched out position..

Rocking the ZeroPerGallon patch on my Carradice...

The Center Celebrates...

Took some snaps for OCW at The Center in Long Beach. I shot a lot of prep. A group of volunteers transformed a dull multi-purpose room into a chapel. I only had time to shoot one ceremony before having to leave to do post and upload in time for the deadline.

Click on the image below to see a slideshow...

Portrait - Bettinger Law

Shot outside on the sly from building management. Slight tone and a faux shift/tilt lens effect.

Met a great client today. Jay from Bettinger Law. We did a little guerrilla portrait photography in front of his office building and set up some lights inside his office.


Love how the vertical lines in the back echo the lines on his tie...Open shade but bumped the contrast to make him look more senatorial.


I set the white balance to tungsten and warmed the strobes to give a real blue, cool, "techy" feel while making him jump out from the background...


A little Dutch angle to make the photo a touch more dynamic...

Lots o Riding

This is what our weekend looked like...

First, we rode to Pasadena on Saturday to taste some IPAs at Lucky Baldwins...


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Things we learned:
LA isn't really THAT big...There is something about going on freeways that skews your sense of distance. We were actually surprised to learn that we could ride our bikes to Pasadena! It just seemed such a far away place before. Granted, it took us all morning, but we learned that it was entirely possible!

Then on Sunday we rode out to the city of Orange....which while a good distance seemed like riding around the block after Pasadena.


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Things we learned:
Garden Grove is one big F'n city. It seemed to go on forever. Lampson is an awesome street to get to parts of northern Orange County. We can ride out bikes to Angels Stadium if we were so inclined and if baseball wasn't so friggin boring.


Bikes weren't the only things ridden on the path...


We passed a park where people fly these pretty big model airplanes...


The San Gabriel river trail is long.....


Nothing like a cappuccino from Aroma di Roma (best caps. in Long Beach) to end a day of riding.

A few more snaps...

A few more snaps from the Discovery Channel/Peacebuilders shoot...

What a crazy day!

First off...yes...that's a giant inflatable globe strapped to my trailer.

Well...today was a whirlwind sort of day. I could hardly sleep last night I was so nervous, which really didn't go away until halfway through the day. The three person crew was great and Nick the producer guided me through the filming. I'm definitely a lot more comfortable behind the camera, but this was an awesome experience (Oprah, here I come...).

The morning was filled with lots of film me getting ready, picking out my gear, stuffing my cases and loading the bike, all the while talking (slightly to the side of the lens of the camera). It took some getting use to. I didn't really hit my stride until the actual photoshoot (and it was a real job too!), where I was in my element. It was a little nutty to have a boom and camera while shooting, but I was able to forget about it all and concentrate on the job.


Amidst the small tornado of activity, I was able to get some good snaps :)

A little spring cleaning...

Nothing quite like having a small TV crew come to your house to motivate some spring cleaning :) I'm going to have a small feature on G-Word, part of Discovery Channel's Planet Green, about my work as the Eco-Friendly Bicycling Photographer.

A little nervous, but I'm excited. It'll be a great way to get across the idea that you can be carfree (even in LA!) and still have a life. So Laura helped me clear out my office and hang some pics.

A few District covers to hang up...

I'll be carrying a chair, stepladder and 3foot inflatable globe to my shoot tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

Rode Trip!

Got the cover of the DW this week and they also ran a story I wrote about going to the Great Western Bike Rally. The layout looks great. More importantly, finally a bicycle story in a local publication that doesn't talk about the following: this new and dangerous thing called "fixies", roadies, centuries, motorists hitting cyclists, cyclists being mugged, cruisers and why they're hot!, poorly placed bike lanes, riding your bike to thinness, how a motorist despite the cost of gas will never ride a bike, how you can "green" your drive with a prius/motorcycle/scooter..or even a bicycle. End rant.

Una Noche de Alegria

Just finished the post on a neat event I photographed with a Spanish theme. I've actually photographed these same flamenco dancers before, so it was pretty neat to see them at the event.

Click on the photo to see the slideshow.

Hit the road Jacks

Today they began the demolition of Jacks Liquor on Long Beach Blvd. Not particularly interesting in itself, except for the fact that it is adjacent to Acres of Books. It seems another nail in the inevitable coffin for one of Long Beach's treasures. I took some snaps for posterity's sake. Click on the pic for the slideshow...

LA River Ride!...or Sometimes you mean to take more pictures than you do.

Laura and I rode the LA River Ride today...sort of. We rode it backwards, just the two of us. The ride starts in Griffith Park and goes to Long Beach and turns back around, which makes no sense for us. Instead, we started in Long Beach and ended in Griffith Park.

We packed some snacks (the touring staples of salami, bread and cheese) and treated it more as a nice Sunday ride and went at our usual touring pace. We got out the door a little later than we hoped, but it was more enjoyable because we were surrounded by other riders.

Total mileage for the day was about 50 miles so we're pretty beat.

Like the title suggests, I meant to take more pics. I carried my LowePro backpack with gear the whole friggin way, but sometimes you just get in a groove and it's hard to stop. Well, here are the pics I did take.


Laura entering the post-apocalyptic entrance to the LA River on 7th street...it looks like an abandoned freeway entrance.


Some zippie roadies that looked like century riders by their pace...


A fortuitous meeting of fellow photographers and bicyclists and blog readers! Hope you guys made it all 70 miles! (Note stylish orange shirt)



Enjoying the shade at the finish.

District Cover!

Grab it while it's hot! Shot the cover this week.

I think it came out pretty well. The tighter crop really makes the subject more compelling and I like the look of the hard light. In retrospect, the light on the tats are a little hot and I would have burned in more detail.

I'm just picky.

I love my photos immensely for a day or two and then I start nitpicking and thinking of all the other things I could have done. Is that perfectionism or self-doubt?

Another fun Farmers Market ride...

A few snaps from the Farmers Market ride I help organize with the LBCyclists...