Amgen tour de California 2008

When Christine and I got back from Mammoth I ended up staying in Sacramento to photograph the 2nd stage of the Amgen tour de California. They started in Santa Rosa and end the stage in Sacramento with a 4 lap circuit around the capital. The stage was 115.8 miles long and they got to ride most of it in the rain. I was so stoked to see all the top pros in the world in person riding their bikes. Most of these teams and riders ride in all the top races like the Tour de France. The first place I was taking photos at was the town of Winters and then I drove as quickly as I could without breaking any laws to Sacramento to take the final photos of the race.

Here's a photo of all the people I got to hang out with for 2 hours in Winters while waiting for the riders.

I forgot this riders name, but he had an 8 minute lead on the racers when he came by us. His lead didn't last though.

When the rest of the racers got to Winters I was taking some photos in one spot and then was running to another spot to take some more photos when all of sudden one of the riders crashed right in front of me!!!

The rider was Tom Danielson who is a big name US rider who use to ride for the Discovery Team.

Radioing to the team car for an new front wheel.




And he's off again to catch back up with the pack.

Now at the capitol in Sacramento. If you look closely you can see George Hincapie on the right of the front rider. He's also a big US pro who use to ride for the Discovery Team.



The sprit begins for the finish line.

And then the break away begins.

Mark Cavendish sprinted away with a big lead!! I love this photo, it shows the pain of riding almost 115 miles and then giving it your all to try and win.

Mark Cavendish ended up getting caught and placed 4th, while Tom Boonen won the race.

I had a great time a will be back next year for sure. For all of you that live in So Cal the race ends this Sunday in Pasadena. If you love to bike ride I would say this is a must see event.

Anika & Luke Engagement Mammoth, CA

As I promised here is Anika and Luke’s Engagement photos from Mammoth. This is part 1 of their engagement shoot; I’ll be doing the second part back up in Reno soon. Wow, well I’ve been friends with Luke since I was 3 years old and have known Anika since Jr. High. I’m so stoked to be shooting their wedding up here in Tahoe in June; it’s going to be a blast!!! Luke and I use to ski race together, so I thought it would be a cool idea to do part of their engagement shoot at a ski resort. I had a blast shooting the engagement shoot. Come on, how many people get to go skiing and work at the same time. I can't wait to shoot part 2 of the engagement session. Click here to see the slideshow.










And no Anika didn't get hit by the snowball.

Skiing down in Mammoth

I just got back from Mammoth last night. I was down there taking a break and skiing it up. I was also down there to do part of my good friend’s engagement shoot for his wedding that I’ll be shooting in June. I’ll post some of the engagement photos soon. The weather was super nice and the snow was even better. Here are some photos that I took with my point & shoot camera, while skiing around.



Had to take a photo of this guy. He was straight out of the 80's with his mullet and Porsche ski coat.

A self-portrait before skiing Hole In The Wall

My last run of the day on Friday was "Hole In The Wall" which is just out of bounds at Mammoth and is super fun as you can see by the photos. It's not everyday that you get to ski through an old lava tube.

Mistakes are good sometimes.

I've started to shoot with a Holga camera again for fun. A Holga is a toy camera that shoots on medium format film. There's no thinking involved at all, you just point the camera at something and then take the picture. But with this camera if you don't pay attention you can make double exposures and that is what happened to me when I finally got my film developed. Which turned out to be a good mistake. One was of a Lake Tahoe sunset and the other one was of Waylon my #1 baby model. So as they say sometimes mistakes are good.


This one wasn't a mistake, but Waylon looks so cute in the photo I had to post it up.