another weekend, more events

So this weekend we had a lot on our plate and had to decide on what to do. As usual, we wanted to shoot a day at Palomar, but then this weekend had two special events lined up on the same day. AMGEN, which is the tour of California, or shoot a drift event at a venue Ive never been to, hosted by a team I don't know, in San Bernadino.

We ended up shooting Palomar on Saturday because South Grade Rd. was closed on sunday for the AMGEN race. On our way up we drove past the usual photographer. We got up to our spot and started shooting. I was testing out a 10-22mm Canon lens and it had its pros and cons. One thing I should have expected, but didn't because I shoot so much with my 70-200 is how wide 10mm really is. I had to practically get on top of bikes to get a photo of them. About half way through the day, one of the guys that has been going up and down the mountain comes past me going to the top, I pan and snap a shot of him as he passes. Right after I take my shot I turn and then hear the sound of scraping. I turn back to see his motorcycle sliding towards the guardrail with him in between. The guy knew what he was doing and was well prepared wearing full leathers and his bike was equipped with extended sliders. After it all slowed down we helped him up and off the road, he gathered his thoughts, started his bike and he was headed home. It was a first for me, but Im just glad everything worked out and the only things damaged were his leathers and a little bit of scraping here and there on his bike.





More Photos can be seen and purchased at:
1904Photography.com
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Right after Palomar we had to start getting ready to go to San Bernadino. We had planned to stay the night in a hotel and watch the free fight on Spike. When we get to the La Quinta we made reservations for, we see that they don't have Spike TV... so no fight for us. Instead, we sat around and watched Taking Chance, which is a fairly good movie if you are into military movies. We Get up in the morning and head out to the track for the drivers meeting that is supposed to start at 8:00 but doesn't happen till some time around 9:00 which made staying in a hotel pointless cause we didn't need to get up there as early as they said. Once the drifting actually started, the day started to move along nicely. Then the rain kicked in and started making it hard to shoot and not get wet. once I got a hang of the track I tried to move to a different spot, but it seemed everywhere I tried to shoot from, there was someone saying I can shoot from there. This was a quote from a thread on Zilvia about why the Thurs Knights events sell out so fast:

"9. probably the best media coverage around now that media crews have the ability to take a full 360* angle of the cars on the track by shooting from almost any location we have designated, making pics and videos look awesome."

If by "... any location we have designated..." they mean the straights of the track and that's all, than wow do they have an awesome media section. Any time I tried to move to the beginning or end of the bank, I got asked to move. My favorite was when I was shooting from the beginning of the straight on the dirt mound that supports the track wall, I was asked to move down, but 10 feet further down the straight, was a camera guy hanging over the wall, but no one ever said anything to him.

All in all it was a good event. Thanks to Steve and all the Thurs. Knights guys







More photos can be seen and purchased at:
1904photography.com
or
Flickr

Salton Sea again!

But this time we found SALVATION!... Mountain that is.

After our trip to Salton Sea, and my little knowledge of what was out there, we decided to make another trip out there and find Salvation Mountain. Boy is it a trip. It is built by one man, Leonard Knight. It has taken him the last 2 plus decades to make his masterpiece. this is his second try at spreading the word of god. He initially spent 15 years building a hot air balloon with god is love on the side in big red letters. In 1984 he had to admit defeat with the balloon and decided to leave his mark on the desert in Niland, CA. What started as a small cement "monument" turned into a mountain after a few years of a little cement here and a little cement there. This is what has become of his "mark" on the California desert.

We were trippin'

So on fairly short notice we decided that we wanted to go camping. So Sean and I start looking at where to camp. We end up settling on Angele's Crest. But seeing that neither of us have ever been up there and know if the campground is even open, we decided to change up the plan last minute to go camping at Joshua Tree National Park.

We didn't do much shooting because it was Sean's first trip out and we just did a lot of hiking. We did find a spot that had a intense view.



Other than a few photo stitches and some shots of our campsite, we did not shoot much.







On the way home, we decided to follow my GPS which had us going a way I have never taken. It pulled through in the end, because as we come around a bend we see the Salton Sea and figure we have to stop and shoot some stuff since we were there. We end up driving around the north shore and then back down the east side to Bombay Beach. The whole area is just so different than what I'm use to. But it did have the opportunity for some great shots.