Rainy Day Photo on SF Gate

With the rainy weather in the Bay Area recently had a chance to grab a couple of shots of the weather while working.

It appears on the SF Gate Weather Story for today

Tis the Holiday Season!

Covered several holiday stories this season. One was about families spending more quality time together during the holidays. In this photo Ella Slatalla, 18, plays around with a whisk with her younger sister Clem, 12, after they helped their mother Michelle make a meringue crust for a lemon meringue pie.

Another was about looking for more inexpensive gifts to buy this holiday season. Jan VanVlaenderen, an employee at Two Neat, a Mill Valley store that sell inexpensive fun gifts, models a large size t-shirt that Amy Yoger (2nd from right) and Sophie Newman (far right) were looking to buy as Louise Satterfield looks on.


And I covered a story about Hanakauah celebrations as well. Shelly Sagy of Concord, Calif. puts the finishing touches on her flower menorah at The Festival of Lights at the Jewish Community Center in San Rafael, Calif.

Happy Holidays!!!

The fun of photographing high school sports

Over the past month I have been photographing a lot of the playoff volleyball and soccer for the Marin IJ high schools. Its been a great time, with pulsating games, exciting finishes, great action and amazing celebrations afterwards.




All I can say is I wish playoff season lasted all year...

My photo, not MY photo in the NY Times

I always wanted to have my photograph appear on the cover of the NY Times (or its website) and I finally made it!

But not exactly as I thought I would. Its actually a photograph of me cheering the World Cup Draw (I'm the guy jumping out of his seat on the left) at Danny Coyles on Haight Street in SF which has a World Cup Draw party.

Well I must say I really do like the photograph and I am really looking forward to photographing the World Cup this upcoming June!

USF vs. Dominican

The Dominican Univ. team played USF on Monday evening and it was a great game. This year is the first year Dominican has become a NCAA Div-2 team and gave USF, a Div-1 team a scare for a half until they pulled away in the second half. A great showing!

Al Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore made a stop in Marin county at Dominican University on Monday evening to talk about his new book "Our Choice."
In the book Gore argues that every one of us are responsible to stop climate change and global warming.
Compared to how Gore was portrayed in the 2000 Presidential election, he was a good speaker who convincingly and strongly argued his point of view about climate change and threw in good nature barbs and ad-libs about himself that made the crowd laugh out loud several times.
Since this was a guy speaking on a stage photo shoot, I tried to get several different angles for the article and hopefully some good expressions of Gore speaking.
I also tried some other shots which I am not sure totally worked but was worth the chance.

Afterwords, Gore signed books for the overflowing audience.
There actually was too many people to fit into Angelico Hall on the university campus, so they had to watch via television at an nearby building. The line for people waiting to have their book signed by Gore lined clear outside the building.
In the end I tend to agree with Gore. Climate change is a huge threat and it really is up to all of us to become active and combat it. And we need to start now.

You can read the story about it here.

Marin Triathlon

I guess I must really like sports that test the character and endurance of the athletes; in particular amateur athletes.

On Sunday I had a chance to photograph the second annual Marin Triathlon at McNeer's Beach and China Cove State Park in San Rafael.

Although the event features several world class professional athletes at the top of their game...
...the amazing part of the event is watching the amateur athletes who have spent months of time getting ready for the event and having their family and loved ones nearby the whole time cheering them on. That for me is why I love covering this race.

The festivities started out with a bag piper leading the spectators and athletes to the start of the swim.
Its always a lot of fun visually to see everyone dressed the same in a wet suit entering the water to take part in the 1.5 km swim.
After a desperate scramble out of the freezing bay water...
...the athletes switch to their bicycles to start a punishing 35.4 km bike race with a steep uphill at the start.

Then, as if that was not enough punishment, the athletes have to run a 10 km cross country course race.
But as they get close to the finish line the families are there to take photographs, cheer them on..
Possibly even run with them to the finish line...
Where big hugs await them.
As you can tell I wish I could do what these athletes do. I have modest goals though. For me I just hope to be able to run a 10K or half-marathon soon again. A triathlon will have to wait.

You can view a slideshow of all my images from the triathlon on the Marin IJ Website