Wednesday, November 18, 2009

La Jolla Tidepools

In early May, 2009, I was down in the San Diego area covering a track and field event. After the event I hooked up with my friend Jimmy and he took me to this small stretch of beach in a residential area of La Jolla. There were only approximately 10 other people on the beach for this magnificent sunset. Captured with a Hasselblad 500 series, CFi 50mm on Fuji Velvia 100.



Also, a few digital images taken in mid November during low tide. Shot with a Nikon D700 at 24mm.






Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Volleyball

In my opinion, volleyball is one of the most difficult sports to photograph. Typically, games are played in gyms where the ambient light is terrible. Add to that a fast paced game with a fast moving ball and I rest my case. When I was tasked to cover a game, I took the opportunity to travel to UCSD and took my lighting gear. Rimac Arena has a catwalk that allows you to mount strobes and cameras about 30+ feet above the court. I used this opportunity to capture all the images I needed for the entire season in one night. I also mounted a remote camera on the rail to get a different angle from above.






Kodak Tmax 400

This is one of my favorite films. The grain is so very fine and it scans like a dream. Below are a few samples.

The first one is Jessica in front of her favorite chicken restaurant shot with the Rolleiflex 2.8F.


The second one was shot with the Yashica Mat 124-G.


A family portrait at El Matador State Beach with the Hasselblad CFi 50mm.


 
A portrait with the Hasselblad CFi 50mm using ambient light from the window and a Sunpak handle mount for fill flash.


A shot from the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine, CA. Shot with the Hasselbald CFi 50mm.



The Boardwalk

This is one of my favorite images of the year because of its simplicity. It was captured at the Bolsa Chica Wetlands on a cool and frosty late March morning. It was captured with a Canon EOS-1v HS with an adapted Zeiss Distagon 28mm f/2.8. Shot on Kodak Plus-X, developed with Kodak X-Tol and scanned.

Street Performer

In late August, 2009, I took the Rolleiflex to downtown Seattle outside Pike's Street Market. My goal was to capture some stealth street photos. I was trying to be invisible, but the camera drew a huge amount of attention. Most people were amazed that film was still available! I walked to the center of the crowd and sat on the ground to capture this shot of a street performer. Shot on Fuji Acros 100 (pushed to 400) and developed at home with Kodak Xtol.

South Bay Yellow Pages

In early October, 2009, I was contacted to publish some of my images for an ad in the AT&T Yellow Pages. Much to my surprise, the current issue not only included the internal ad, but also the cover!


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Mono Lake

In early October, my friend Bryan and I took a road trip to the Eastern Sierras. My goal for this trip was to capture images on film. I took two film cameras, the Hasselblad 500 series with a CFi 50mm FLE and the Pentax 67II with a 55-100mm. The weather was clear, cold (~19 degrees in the morning) and windy. Definitely not ideal, but we managed to capture some great images. All transparencies were scanned on a Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED.

The first one is an early morning shot with the Hasselbad, CFi 50mm on Fuji Velvia 100.



















The second one is a shot in the afternoon with the Pentax 67II on Fuji Velvia 100.
















The last one is a shot at dusk with the Pentax 67 II on Fuji Velvia 50.




Summer surf

The weekend of the Hurley US Open of Surfing finals, a west swell brought double over head sets. This almost never happens. Because of the swell, the projected attendance at the US Open was 500,000! HB is a parking nightmare, so we decided to head south to the Wedge in Newport Beach to avoid the crowd. Because the Wedge is essentially a shore break, I decided to leave the still cameras at home and shot video. The early weather was pretty socked in, but the waves did not disappoint.

fyi, if you look closely, some of the surf footage features surf legend Tom Curran. Turn it up!


The Wedge from Michael Foo on Vimeo.