New Horse Photos!

I recently got the chance to visit Hart Ranch in Corona and photograph their beautiful horses. Check out the photos I took in the Horse Gallery.

Acura L.A. Bike Tour 2007

This past Sunday, March 4th to be exact, was the annual Acura L.A. Bike Tour which took place in downtown Los Angeles. The actual course is a little over 22 miles and begins in Exposition Park right next to the Coliseum and ends on Exposition Boulevard across the street from USC. Bryan participated in this year’s ride, he also participated in last years when the course was different. The actual ride begins at 5:50 in the morning, which means we had to wake up at 3:00 am to get there in time so Bryan could be towards the front of the pack. The pack by the way is quite large, about 18,000 cyclists ride in this particular tour, it is after all “America’s Favorite Ride.” It’s definitely not my favorite, only because it’s in the middle of “ghetto town USA” and driving in L.A. makes you crazy. Anyway besides that it’s quite fun to be apart of, and lots of fun to watch. 

So after Bryan went off on his merry way to bike the streets of Los Angeles I walked toward the finish line on Exposition Boulevard. I decided to visit USC while I waited patiently for Bryan to return. USC has some beautiful architecture and is definitely a great photo spot. After about 50 minutes the first cyclist crossed the finish line, so I decided to position myself across the street to wait for Bryan. As I waited I took pictures of many cyclists, I had my camera set in shutter priority mode because I wanted to be able to catch the fast moving cyclists. The fastest shutter speed I could set it at to make sure the camera didn’t underexpose the image was 1/100, not a fast shutter speed but combined with the panning technique I was able to stop the motion pretty well. Obviously with a faster shutter speed I could have really frozen the action but panning really gave me the effect I was looking for.

After about an hour and a half Bryan crossed the finish line. Around that same time the other thousands of bikes were also finishing which made it impossible for me to cross the street, however I decided to risk my life and run across the street to celebrate with Bryan. This is a great bike ride for beginning to avid cyclists and is a great event to photograph, however if you’re looking for nicer scenery there are many other bike tours in the Southern California area that you should check out. Bryan will probably be participating in a few of those tours as well. We will continue to post more info and photos on any upcoming bike tours we participate in.

For more pictures from the Acura L.A. Bike Tour please visit the Gallery.