Freeway Complex Fire

So there is a fire currently going on very close to our house. This morning (Saturday) upon our arrival to the Living Desert we got a call from Bryan’s brother telling us there was a fire in Corona. This information had me a little worried throughout the day. We got a few updates from other family members as we made our way through the Living Desert which seemed to calm my nerves a bit. On the drive home from Palm Desert on the 10 freeway I got my first glimpse of the smoke. It was quite large; it looked like a mushroom cloud. The fire started at the river bed where the 91 and 71 freeways meet. This is VERY close to our house. We live just off Green River. The fire has currently spread to Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills, which means it is blowing away from us. Unfortunately though people have already lost their homes in this fire which is absolutely tragic. The fire line near us is currently burning up the plentiful fuel that is in Chino Hills State Park, one of Bryan’s favorite places to mountain bike. It looks like the firefighters are confident in this fire line as it is right next to the 71 and there are no homes in this area. So I assume it will continue to burn north into the park. We were supposed to hang out with our friends the rest of the night but we decided to head home to make sure our condo was okay. We drove up to the multi-million dollar homes above our house to get a better view of the fire. We stopped at the end of a cul-de-sac and walked along the side of a hill that dropped off just below these homes. What a view! I have never been to that spot that is so close to my house. I could see everything; the homes below us, the 91 and 71 freeways, the beautiful San Bernardino mountains and of course the fire line at Chino Hills park. I was awestruck, it was the most horribly amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The hills glowed with flames, the smoke blanketed the sun and there were dozens of water dropping aircraft flying in and out of the rugged terrain. As close as this fire is, it is amazing we haven’t been evacuated, but that could always change. I will keep you all posted.

We have posted a few images from this fire from our vantage point in the gallery. Also you can view the fire map here.

UPDATE 11/16/2008 7:50am: Well the fire is definitely burning into Chino Hills State Park. Just look at that fire map. I believe they are now calling this fire the Triangle Complex Fire, at least that’s what I got from news reports. I don’t know if it was the firefighters plan to let it burn that much; there is a lot to burn in that park. Here is a picture that we took this past spring of Chino Hills State Park. It was abundant with wildflowers which means there is now a lot of dry brush out there. It has also been quite windy lately; not good firefighting weather. Hopefully our firefighters can get this under control soon.

UPDATE 11/16/2008 9:30am: I decided to go out and see what our fire is looking like the morning after. As I walked outside this morning you couldn’t have guessed there was a fire blazing just north of us. The sky was perfectly blue and it was lightly breezy. A beautiful day by all accounts. I went up to the spot above my house that we went to last night, on the the side of the hill next to the ritzy homes. The smoke cloud was massive. My picture doesn’t even due this thing justice, it looks frightening. The hill that was on fire last night in the above post is completely charred. As far as I can see the hills are black and smoldering and they let the fire burn up to the 71 as I suspected. I feel so sorry for these people who have lost their homes, this fire was very erratic but it looks like we dodged a bullet as the fire is steadily moving towards Chino Hills and Diamond Bar. Hopefully those residents are prepared. After leaving the spot above my house I drove down Green River to the entrance of the 91 freeway. The wind was very strong as I stood out there and I realized there is still a long fight ahead for our firefighters. So far we have 5% containment.

UPDATE 11/16/2008 11:00am: There is a fire adjacent to the our fire, the Triangle Complex Fire, that has been burning since yesterday as well. It is called the Brea Fire. As you can see on the fire map this fire is moving quickly towards Diamond Bar. My best friend Tara’s aunt actually lives there and is currently under a mandatory evacuation. I’ll post some of Tara’s photos if she takes any. Judging from the fire map it appears that our fire and the Brea fire are dangerously close to merging, hopefully that doesn’t happen.

UPDATE 11/17/2008 9:00am: Well there is some more good news,

Photo by Tara Bell

Tara’s aunt didn’t have to evacuate after all but all the streets near her house were shut down. She still hasn’t dodged the bullet yet, the fire is still inching closer to her area but I’m confident the firefighters will stop it. The winds have died down significantly. Here is a picture Tara took of the smoke cloud near her aunt’s house. Yesterday when I was photographing at Green River and the 91 freeway entrance I took this picture below of a hill on our side of the freeway (south of the 91). As you can see in the picture half of the hill is obviously burnt up to a line of Phos-Chek. Bryan and I have been looking at the fire map constantly and at no point did we ever see that the fire had made it’s way to our side of the freeway. Upon our usual drive to work this morning on the 91 freeway not only did we notice the fire had burned up to the 91 on the north side, severely damaging the guard rail, but we also noticed that the hills south of the 91and east of the 241 toll had burned. Thankfully the firefighters got that fire in check quickly or else who knows what would have happened to the houses near us. I can say this, if the hills next to the toll road burned who knows how long it would have taken to put that fire out. We happen to live right up against the Cleveland National Forest and there is definitely a lot of fuel to burn. I took a few photos as Bryan drove along the 91, it was very sobering to see the burnt trees at the golf course, Featherly Park burnt beyond recognition and the median of the freeway blackened. I had to roll down the window to get a few shots and that was the first time I actually smelled the fire or more accurately what the fire left behind. We are hoping that when this fire is over Bryan and I will be able to ride down the bike path near our house, which takes you along Green River and Anaheim Hills, so we can see the devastation first hand. We also plan to go to Chino Hills State Park once it opens again and see what is left. Check back for those photos in a few weeks.

UPDATE 11/17/2008 12:00pm: It appears the fire map has finally been updated to reflect what we saw this morning, i.e. the hills on our side of the freeway had burned. As you can see on the map the fire has covered a substantial area. Worst of all the Brea fire and the Freeway Complex fire have merged. I assume that’s why they renamed it the Triangle Complex Fire. The thing that frustrates me about this map is that it doesn’t distinguish what is currently burning from what has already burned. It’s all just one big red spot. I fear that one of the spots that has already burned next to my house could flare up again and I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.  It’s hard to sit here at work and not know what is happening in your area. I will hope for the best.

Living Desert

This past Saturday we got to visit the Living Desert. My friend and I planned this trip a couple of months in advance, we figured that mid-November would be the perfect time to visit the Living Desert because the weather would be cool. Well despite the fact that we had many cooler days last week, Saturday was freakin hot. Did I mention this place is out in Palm Desert? Bryan actually brought a Camel Back filled with ice water along with our cameras. The Living Desert is out in the middle of nowhere; you could easily pass it on the road. When we arrived we immediately lathered on sunscreen; this is the desert after all. We walked in and the first exhibit we visited was the giraffe and ostrich exhibit. I love these animals. Giraffes are so impressive to look at and they are amazingly beautiful. There are four giraffes and one ostrich in the exhibit. It took us about half an hour to move on from that exhibit because we all couldn’t stop photographing.

 We ate soon after entering the park. I have to say, even though the Living Desert is considered a “theme” park you definitely don’t pay theme park prices for food, which is always good. After our meal we moved on to zebra exhibit. Zebra’s have always been one of my favorite wild animals, probably because they resemble horses so much, and because they have really cute floppy ears. Next to the zebra exhibit is the cheetah exhibit. We spent a lot of time photographing the one cheetah we saw. It kind of just laid there lazily as we took it’s picture, we actually called out to it to do something but all it did was get up and walk to some tall grass and laid down so we couldn’t see it. Cheetah’s don’t seem to take direction very well. After giving up on the cheetah we moved to the gazelle and oryx exhibits. Next to them was a large rocky mountain where the bighorn sheep were. Standing out there for that short time to photograph the bighorn sheep really reminded me that I was out in the desert, the heat was unbearable.

 We then made our way over to where the mountain lion exhibit was. We didn’t actually see any mountain lions but we saw a lot of other animals including meerkats, some animals that looked like domestic house cats and a really cool bobcat. The bobcat had the biggest feet I’ve ever seen. I was amazed how big the cat actually was. The last thing we got to see while we were there was the Mexican wolf. Even though they were sleeping when we saw them we still got some pretty great photos. We left around 2pm, we didn’t want to be there when it got really hot. Even though the trip was short it was a lot of fun and I would definitely want to go again. Hopefully when it’s actually cooler.

Digital Scrapbooking

Traditional Scrapbook

I want to take a moment to talk about a hobby of mine that I think goes hand in hand with my photography. I am talking about digital scrapbooking. I was first introduced to scrapbooking a little over three years ago by Bryan’s former employer. She invited me to a scrapbook party, at the time I honestly didn’t know what scrapbooking was. She told me to bring over some photos that I wanted to make into an album. The albums that I was used to before were the regular cheap store bought albums with the plastic sleeves that you would slide your photos into and my personal favorite, those adhesive albums where the photos stuck to the pages. I found out later that those are a scrapbookers worst nightmare. I soon learned about terms like “acid-free” and “archival” and truly how important they are when preserving your memories. That’s what scrapbookers call album making, preserving ones memories. After completing my first album I was hooked, I had to make more. I invested more of my money into my habit…I mean hobby. I bought papers and embellishments and albums and many other scrapbooking must haves, it became quite an expensive habit…I mean hobby. I even became a consultant for Creative Memories, one of the leading scrapbooking companies, just so I could take advantage of the discount they offered their consultants. After that I was using their stuff exclusively, but I was growing tired of traditional scrapbooking. Traditional scrapbooking is actually a very time consuming process, it requires printing photos, buying papers, cutesy embellishments and gadgets that are designed to make your life easier. However, for someone like me who takes a lot of pictures, it was hard to find time to do this. 

Storybook Plus Software Layout

Luckily with the popularity of digital cameras came a new way of scrapbooking. Many companies have started their own forms of digital scrapbooking and I’m sure most of them have a great product with excellent results. However, being a former Creative Memories consultant I’m going to talk about their digital scrapbooking software because that’s what I know. So I apologize in advance if this sounds like a promotion for Creative Memories, like I said I’m only going to talk about what I know. Digital scrapbooking to me is a very convenient way for me to preserve my memories. It really is a hassle to print out so many photos all the time. With digital scrapbooking you just use the photos you already have stored on your computer to be printed into an album. The software I use to do all my digital scrapbooking is CM’s Storybook Creator Plus. It was about $60 and came with a few digital papers. You can buy more digital papers from CM or you can search online for other companies that offer digital papers and embellishments and use them in the CM software. I have made over 20 digital scrapbooks, all of them with CM software and 4 specifically with Storybook Creator Plus. I usually make a scrapbook for the whole year, I just add events to the album as they happen. And yes I actually do plan things around scrapbooking them later, I visualize what my scrapbook pages are going to look like before I actually go to the event…scary huh? With digital scrapbooking I don’t have to do prints anymore, I simply design my pages, drop my photos in and it is done. I’m currently working on my 2008 album, I have provided some examples of the pages I created. I predict the album will be around 100 pages when completed. One fun thing about these particular albums is that you can design your own cover which I have shown an example of for my 2007 album.

2007 Storybook Cover

After your album is completed, you just upload it onto the CM website and it ships directly to you. A 100 page album like the one’s I make usually costs around $250 but the albums are a standard 20 pages so you can get one for much cheaper. I tend to go a little overboard. The print quality of the album is great but it’s not fantastic. I print a lot of my enlargements at Costco and when you compare the print quality there to the actual albums you can see the difference. This slightly lower quality printing in the album does not bother me at all, but for those who are perfectionists there is a way to still have fantastic prints of your designed pages. The Storybook Plus software allows you to save the pages as high res jpegs or tif files. You can always save these pages to a CD or flash drive and bring them to your local lab to print. I have a friend who saves two 12 x 12 pages on one page and prints them side by side at Costco on a 12 x 24 size print. But where do you put all these 12 x 12 pages? Ok now this is really going to sound like a CM commercial, but like I said it’s what I know. CM offers an album called the Picfolio Max, it’s a high quality 12 x 12 album with sleeved pages inside so you can just slide in your 12 x 12 prints. Amazing right? 

Storybook Page-I created this page with Storybook Creator Plus. This is a fairly simple page design and I used non-CM digital papers. I also scanned Bryan's race bib so I could incorporate it into the page. A scanner is a digital scrapbookers best friend.

Muddy Buddy 2008

This past Sunday we had the opportunity to cover Muddy Buddy. For people who are not familiar with this event it usually takes place in many different cities all over the United States. This weekend’s event happened to be the last Muddy Buddy event of the year. It took place at Bonelli Park in San Dimas, the same park where we covered the Renegade Adventure Race. However, this event is even more popular than Renegade so the park was packed full of participants and spectators. We chose to park in the park-and-ride area just outside of the park which we highly recommend because the line of cars going into the park was crazy. The parking inside was beyond full, they were actually parking cars in the picnic areas on the grass, we had never seen Bonelli so full before.

 

Muddy Buddy requires a team of two to race around the park by either running or biking. The teams constantly switch off running and biking and also have to complete several obstacles along the course. The finale of the race has the teams doing an army crawl in a mud pit before crossing the finish line. Did I mention the majority of the teams are in costume? That’s right, you have teams of cowgirls, milkmen, bunnies, Crayola crayons and even John McCain and Sarah Palin look-alikes competing against each other making this event all the more entertaining.

Muddy Buddy Spectator

Watching these teams crawl through the mud looked like so much fun, you could tell some of the spectators wanted to jump right in, especially the kids. Many of the spectators didn’t need to jump in as they got covered in mud just from watching. Just in case things weren’t already muddy enough for the event it started pouring rain outside. It was the first rain we had gotten in a while so it was nice but it made photographing just a bit more difficult, as the equipment I was using is not sealed. I think we both got some pretty hilarious shots and we learned an important lesson for next year: bring a poncho!

To see more race coverage check out Amateur Endurance and of course to see more photos from Muddy Buddy check out our GALLERY.

This is Halloween

Last night was Halloween and for the first time in about 6 years I got to dress up. We decided to hang out with our good friends Claudia and Jimmy while they took Jimmy’s younger siblings out trick-or-treating. I had a costume that I bought 3 years ago from Hot Topic that I had yet to wear, so I was very excited to finally get my chance. I bought Bryan a Dark Knight costume this year and I think he really enjoyed it. While trick-or-treating, he was constantly on the look out for trouble so that he might swoop in and save the day. We walked around a few blocks in Chino, there were a lot of nicely decorated houses, it’s always nice to see people in the Halloween spirit. I remember back in the day when I used to trick-or-treat the whole neighborhood would be decorated, it was like Christmas, but with monsters. We walked around for about an hour and then all went back to our place to watch Diary of the Dead, a great zombie movie by George A. Romero. We even got a couple of trick-or-treaters at our condo! It was an awesome night and so much fun to dress up. Happy Halloween from Shez Photo!

Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin Festival 2008

Each year for the past 3 years Bryan and I have attended the Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin Festival. This year it was held on October 18th and 19th and as always it was a festive event. This year marked the 16th anniversary for the event which takes place across from the Cal Poly Pomona campus on the corner of South Campus Blvd and Temple Ave. The field that they use for the pumpkin patch is quite large, however, I don’t believe all the pumpkins are actually grown there as the field is usually empty all year until about two weeks before the event then the pumpkins magically appear. And there are a lot of pumpkins to be had so it must be quite a feat for the people who are trucking them in and spreading them throughout the field. The event is put on by the College of Agriculture and the Ag students volunteer in every aspect.

Bryan and I got there later than usual, around 11am. We usually like to get there when they first open the event at 8am. The reason for this is because this is a very popular event, literally thousands of people attend the Pumpkin Fest every year and this year was no different. When we got there it was very crowded but we made or way through towards the other side of the field. We took a few pictures of the beautiful sunflowers that they plant every year and then began the task of finding our pumpkins. For the first time this year we brought a wagon. In years past we were limited in the amount of pumpkins we could get because we actually had to carry them back to the car. In case you didn’t know this, pumpkins are heavy, so we usually only got two. This year Bryan went to Home Depot and got a nifty little garden wagon and we took full advantage, we got five pumpkins this time around. This may seem like a lot but there are people there who get up to ten pumpkins, it’s crazy. The admission and parking for this event is always free and the pumpkins are usually $4 a piece and slightly cheaper if you get baseball sized ones. This is one of my favorite events to take pictures at because of all the beautiful autumn colors.

Galvan Studios

Photo by Yvette at Galvan Studios

This past Tuesday, Bryan and I visited Galvan Studios in Whittier with our Portrait Photography class. Galvan Studios is owned and operated by the husband and wife photography team of Yvette and Roman Galvan. It is located in Historical Uptown Whittier set among unique shops and boutiques. Yvette and Roman welcomed our 20+ student class very graciously. They began by showing us some of their work. Their work consists mostly of portrait and wedding photography. By viewing their photographs you can tell that they have a very unique style. They specialize in capturing real moments in their images. Upon discussing this in further detail, they revealed that they rarely pose their subjects but instead observe their subjects interacting and shoot when the moment is right. They also have mastered the art of composition and using available light. Because of this, their pictures are usually always perfect straight out of the camera and very rarely need tweaking in Photoshop afterwards.

Photo by Yvette at Galvan Studios

Following their work presentation, they answered a lot of the classes questions and showed us their equipment. They shoot with all Nikon equipment and have been for the majority of their career. The important thing they said that I thought I would mention is that the camera you own is not the most important thing when taking good photos. They said that you do not always have to have the most expensive, high end camera to take great pictures. The most important thing is knowing your camera inside and out and also understanding composition and knowing how to take advantage of the light that is available to you.

They also showed us how to set up a portrait shot of a couple with their studio equipment. Of course being the photogenic person that I am, I volunteered Bryan and I to be the couple. Now of course Bryan and I didn’t exactly dress to have our picture taken otherwise we would have worn more neutral colors, but I really thought the bright colors that we were wearing really made the photo pop. We’ve never had professional portrait photos taken in a studio so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I think Yvette did a fantastic job. Not that I would have expected anything less of her, I mean look at their site, their photos are amazing!

Photo by Yvette at Galvan Studios

Listening to Yvette talk about how she and Roman run the business, especially about what has been successful and what has been not so successful has inspired me to try new things with Shez Photo. One thing I hope to do is to blog more about what’s going on with Bryan and I and our photography. This will coincide with our articles that we normally write with events, I hope to at least have a new entry every week even if we are not covering an event.

Once again I would like to thank Roman and Yvette Galvon at Galvon studios for allowing our class to visit them. I hope to one day do a shoot with them again. If you would like wedding photography, great portraits done of you or you just want to check out their work, the website is www.galvanphoto.com

Mission Bay Triathlon 2008

This past weekend we helped cover the Mission Bay Triathlon. Mission Bay is a very lovely area of San Diego that includes lovely beaches, Shamu and lots of triathletes. We had another very early morning photographing this event. It was a lot of fun, as usual, but San Diego is always a great place to be. Our friends at Amatuer Endurance have provided an excellent race report and as always check out some of our photos in the gallery.

Orange County Triathlon 2008

This past Sunday we went to the Orange County Triathlon. This event happens to be a fairly short drive from our house. We left our house at about 5am, we were met with a very dense fog on the drive over. It was actually frighteningly dense, we couldn’t see 2 feet in front of our car. When we got to the course, which partially took place on beautiful Lake Mission Viejo, the fog was settled on the lake. It was amazing that the athletes were able to find their way through the fog while they did their swim. You could hardly see the buoys. Luckily, the fog started to burn off by the time the first few swimmers entered the transition.

Long Beach Triathlon 2008 and What I’ve Learned

This past weekend was the Long Beach Triathlon. The event took place where most events take place in Long Beach, off of Shoreline Drive near the convention center, aquarium and the Queen Mary. This particular event is our fifth triathlon that we have covered and their are a few things that I have learned since we started.

In covering a triathlon you must first be prepared to wake up early. We arrived at 5am to this triathlon, before most of the athletes even arrived. The picture to the left was taken of the Queen Mary somewhere around the time of 5:30am. Why wake up so early? Well if you want to cover an event, particularly if the event has a course of some kind, it is a good idea to stake it out first. Whether this be the day before the event or in the hours before, this is a good way to find where the best place for good shots are. Bryan and I walked down to where the run course would be and found a great spot for him to take shots of the runners with the Queen Mary in the background.

The second thing I learned; be prepared to risk your life. Now obviously if you have to choose between getting the shot or possible death, please choose life. However, don’t let a little danger get in the way of a good photograph. For example, I staked out a position on a road just ahead of the transition. It was a 2 lane road that was coned off for the event, it was also on a steep incline. People transitioning would ride up the hill to the bike course on Shoreline Drive and when they finished their second loop they would come to a sharp turn which led right back down the same incline. I positioned myself between the cones near the the top of the incline. This was not a problem when bikes were coming out of the transition, as they would have to had taken a wide line to come anywhere near me, however, the bikes coming back from their second loop into the transition for the run almost always took the line of the cones. I want to make something perfectly clear, I was NEVER in the path of an oncoming cyclist, I don’t recommend that. That is not only dangerous for you but very dangerous for the athlete, and the last thing you want to do is put the athlete’s life at risk. There was a chance though that if one of the cyclist didn’t take the turn right and crashed I would have been crashed into. I always tried to have an area that I could move into if that happened. Fortunately that didn’t happen and I came away with some great shots even if the other spectators thought I was crazy.

Usually events such as triathlons are covered by photographers hired specifically by the event coordinators. These photographers are usually given access to the best spots along the course. Don’t think that because you are not the official event photographer that you can’t take the same shots in the same places. At this particular triathlon I got to take almost the same shots as the “official” photographers because I strategically placed myself in these areas. As long as you are not blocking these photographers shots than you can usually get away with being in the same spots. At the finish line there were two “official” photographers sitting at either side of the gates. I simply placed myself behind them, I stood in the middle so they didn’t block my view of the incoming runners and I snapped away. As long as I moved out of the way when the runners came closer to me no one had a problem with me standing there. Don’t assume that everything is off limits, unless the race director tells you otherwise, don’t be afraid to get the shots you want.

Overall, this event went very well. We got a lot of good shots out of the event that we have posted in our gallery. Check out Bryan’s race report at Amateur Endurance.

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