Tag Archives: california

Elephant Seals

Earlier in the year, I took a trip to Ano Nuevo State Park to photograph the elephant seals. This was a photo tour early in the morning in the middle of the mating season and you can read more about it here. Nancy and I decided to make a second trip out there more recently. This was a normal day at the park but there were plenty of males back on the beaches including both immature ones and some of the larger guys.

Most of the action was taking place on the beach furthest from the center. While a few seals were dozing on the beaches closer in, a lot had gathered to play. They were sparring both on the beach and in the water. Initially, it looked as if they were fighting but, as you watched further, it became clear that they were really going through the motions. Having seen the real fights, there was none of the true violence in these encounters. Moreover, one of the docents pointed out that males of very different stature were sparring with each other. The large males would never even bother to engage the smaller males if it were for real. However, in this environment, they were all just getting some practice in.

Out in the bay is an island that is no longer occupied by humans. I made a panorama of it but I was hoping to see some of the wildlife that is out there. At that time of year, Steller sea lions were out on the island. Sadly, they rarely come ashore but the males of this species are absolutely huge. We could actually see the outline of some of them out on the island. They looked like huge boulders but then you could make out their shape. Quite an impressive creature! I also shot some video while I was there and you can see the result of that below.

Pig Racing

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I have posted about the County Fair already. Another favorite of the fair is pig racing. This is exactly what it sounds like. A small course is set out with a starting gate in one corner and a series of little jumps around the horseshoe shaped track to a finish line. The piglets and lined up in the gate and released and they charge around the course leaping over the hurdles as they go.

This is a very popular event and I suspect Nancy was a little embarrassed by my enthusiasm for it. Getting a good view was tricky since a lot of people had got their kids to the front and it would have been unseemly to try barging my way passed the children. I took some shots over the top with a certain amount of guesswork and some people left before the last races so I could get a better view for those.

No great assessment of sports shooting technique here. Just something that looks a little amusing. Hope it cheers you up as much as looking back at these shots cheers me up!

Motocross Jumping

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Alameda County Fair is a pretty substantial event and it is held in Pleasanton, a short hop from our home. It runs for a few weeks so we made the effort to get down there during one weekend. It was a hot day but a nice one. There were a number of cool things to see and I shall have some further posts coming up. However, the first post deals with the first thing we saw when coming in the gate. Three motocross riders were performing jumps to entertain the crowd and they were certainly being successful.

When I first took a look at the small area cordoned off for them and the size of the ramps, I figured that things might be quite toned down compared to something like the X-Games stuff you see on TV. I am sure it was a lot less aggressive but I was still very impressed with what they could do. They got phenomenal height from a short run and were able to carry out some quite dramatic moves while airborne.

Initially I sat in the bleachers to watch but, as soon as it became clear how good they were, I got down to ground level to move around and get a variety of shots. (It also happened that they were jumping again as we went to leave so I managed a few extras then. Forget good planning. Go with luck!)

Each guy would do a number of jumps individually. They would be off the bike and contorting themselves in all sorts of ways or back flipping the whole thing. One crowd favorite was the Captain Morgan pirate pose in midair which did look cool. The grand finale involved all three of them coming up the ramp in sequence and providing a stream of tricks together. That was quite something.

Porsche Club

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Weekends are a great time for coming across events that you had no idea about. Our jaunt to Sonoma for the long weekend yielded just such an event when the local Porsche Club showed up in the town square to show off their cars. Nancy had a few things she wanted to see that left me a bit of time to wander around. It wasn’t a huge turnout but the quality of what was there was impressive. The majority of the vehicles were 911s of varying vintage but there were some 928s and a 924 or two. Some Cayennes also showed up but that seemed like cheating to me!’

The owners were generally happy to discuss their cars and what they had done to them. They also didn’t mind the occasional photograph being taken. A number of the cars caught my eye but two are worthy of a special mention. One is the restored racer in a metallic blue which was in beautiful condition and had an interesting racing history.

The other was a 911. The name for this type varies depending on your country but back in the UK they were known as Flat Noses. I wasn’t sure that I had ever seen one other than in a magazine so was really pleased to see it. I am not particularly a Porsche guy (not that I am any brand of car specific to be fair) but I do appreciate a nice car of any sort and these certainly counted. Given that Sonoma has a fairly healthy number of people of means, I had hoped a Carrera GT might be there but sadly not. Only seen one of those before and that was driving down a street in Chicago – a brave thing to do with a vehicle that valuable!

Curtiss Jenny

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There are many vintage aircraft that I have had the chance to photograph over the years. However, I have not had many opportunities to photograph a genuine First World War era aircraft. That was something that I was recently able to address. Sonoma Valley in Schellville has a variety of interesting aircraft as I have mentioned in the past. One of these is Frank’s beautiful Jenny. It is in pristine condition. I had previously been around when it was due to fly but a fuel leak in a line had curtailed activities that day.

This time the plan was to fly a couple of people in the aircraft. Eric Presten was the pilot for these flights and he needed to run a quick air test before taking anyone up so three flights appeared to be on the cards. I arrived at Schellville in the morning to be ready. Unfortunately, the weather was not looking too cooperative. There was a little mist and the cloud base was pretty low with the surrounding hills having their tops obscured. We got the aircraft ready as we waited for the cloud to lift which it progressively did.

Eric was soon able to get up for the air test. While the conditions were better for flying, they still weren’t great for photography. However, while he was up, the cloud was burning off more and more. The result was, by the time the two flights for the guest took place, conditions were ideal. For the second ride, Eric put in an overflight of the field allowing me to get something other than ground running shots, tail end departures or head on landings. The latter two were subject to a lot of heat haze so it was great to get something a little closer in.

She truly is a lovely looking aircraft and an example of something very rare to see. I will enjoy seeing her flying again. What will be even better is getting a chance to shoot her air to air. If the opportunity for that should come up, I will be a very happy boy. In the mean time, I am very grateful to Frank and Eric for including me in this. Great guys and a great plane!

Fireworks

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The timing of this post is probably unexpected. However, I am deliberately doing this since, if I had posted at the time, it would have looked like a lot of similar material from everyone else. Why? Fourth of July fireworks, that’s why. We spent the weekend up in Sonoma over the weekend of the holiday. Sonoma has a nice town fireworks display. It lasts quite a long time with the whole display running nearly half an hour. Part of this is by pacing the show. It is a steady stream of rockets but not too fast. However, at the end, they suddenly go nuts and fire off everything that is left in a mad fury!

As is my usual thing with fireworks, I set up the camera, hold the cable release and then fire away while enjoying the display without looking through the viewfinder at all. I did tweak things once with a change in orientation as a result of the display getting larger than I had expected. However, I shoot almost without thinking about it. Here are some of the nicer shots I got. Nothing of the grand finale since that was so crazy it just turned the images into white expanses in the area of the explosions.

Crissy Field Windsurfers

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One weekend afternoon, we ended a day out by heading down to Crissy Field in San Francisco. With the nice weather on the bay, plenty of people were out making the most of things. This included a bunch of kids paddling in the water and a lot more people out either windsurfing or kite-boarding. At this time of day, the sun is off to the west so backlights anything that is in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge. However, this had a pretty pleasing effect with the bridge both backlit and also in the edge of some fog that was lingering out in the entrance to the bay. The backlight also worked well with the sails and kites that the people were using out on the water.

I wasn’t shooting with the longest lens but it was enough to get a good view of the guys out there. One of the guys had a foil on his board which meant he was well out of the water when he had some speed. Others were getting plenty of air which always looks cool. Having so many of them zooming around at one time looked very nice. I might have to go back specifically to shoot this I a bit more detail. Shortly before we left, we even managed to get a Beaver on floats flying through the scene. I can always squeeze an aviation theme in if I try (as if getting air or foiling wasn’t enough).

Rustling the Ruslan

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A long time holder of the title of world’s largest aircraft (until superseded by the single example of its big brother) was the Antonov AN124 Ruslan. This giant freighter was created in the days of the Soviet Union by the Antonov design bureau in what is now Ukraine. With the thawing of east-west relations, the utility of this aircraft was apparent to many western organizations both civil and military. These days, the operators of the type have a steady business moving outsized freight around the world. There has even been talk of restarting production although that remains just talk for now.

My first experience of the big Antonov came in 1988. It made an appearance at the Farnborough airshow along with a pair of MiG-29s. This was a big deal at the time and I remember being amazed as I stood next to these types that had been something previously unlikely to be seen unless something very bad had happened. The MiGs flew impressive displays and wowed all who were there. The Antonov was not so lucky. On the first day of flying as I stood with everyone waiting for it to take off, it started to roll down the runway before a bang and flash indicated a surge in one of the engines and she stayed firmly on the ground.

That was as close as I got to one for a long time afterwards. I occasionally might see one parked in a quiet corner of an airport and once or twice spotted one flying far off in the distance but I never saw one up close and flying until a short while ago. I have a Flightaware tracker on the movements of these beasts and one of them was due into Moffett Field on a Saturday. I decided this was something I had to do so made the trip across the bay. Everything ran according to schedule and I was there to get a shot as she came in across the fence (a fence that spoiled a nice finishing shot which I include just because it was almost nice.) Not bad after 26 years of waiting!

Artichoke Art

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Castroville CA is the self proclaimed artichoke capital of the world. Given the percentage of the world’s artichokes that are grown there, I doubt anyone is going to try and challenge them for the title. They seem to have it wrapped up. To celebrate the artichoke, the town holds an artichoke festival. This has become quite a popular event and has now migrated from Castroville to the County fairgrounds in Monterey. This seemed like something worth a visit. While you could find all sorts of things at the festival and try artichoke in many forms – artichoke cupcakes anyone – and have your picture taken with Arty the Artichoke, the thing that really caught our imagination was the artichoke art.

People sculpt various installations using artichokes and other vegetables. They may plan as long as they like but they have to bring the raw ingredients on the morning of the competition and create the art there and then. Some of them were really impressive. My favorite was the pig although several of the others looked pretty cool.

Moffett Field Hangar One

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A visit to Moffett Field cannot be completed without reference to the huge airship hangars that they have. Hangar One is on the same side of the airfield as the museum and is right next to it. Hangars Two and Three are of a different construction and are on the other side of the field away from public access. Google is apparently the owner/tenant of the hangars now so they are out of bounds. In the museum, they have pictures of the hangars under construction. However, now you don’t have to imagine so much because Hangar One has had all of its cladding removed as part of its rehabilitation. Consequently, the structure is bare at the moment and you can see exactly how it is constructed. It looks pretty amazing although, given its size, it will always look amazing.