Cal Bear Trax

Today I headed over to Cal to shoot for the Cal Sports Quarterly, this will be my 2nd cover for them =)

The story is about Cal Bear Trax which is a program for Oakland YTA students. They come to Berkeley ’s campus for academic tutoring and tennis instruction. It was estbalished by Cal Men’s Tennis Head Coach,Peter Wright and is maintained by a whole group of wonderful people.

So I showed up to photograph the students in the classroom and on the court. With the vision of Cal’s Publications Coordinator, Evan Kerr.

My burden here was having a light set that slave off each other. This is great for indoor shoots, but shooting outside, under harsh sun, I am limited to one strobe because it’s too bright for the other one to slave. Someday I hope to have fancy pocket wizards so I don’t have to worry about that, but for now, gotta work with what I got. They aren’t my proudest images, I definitely need to work on my creativity and direction for big group shots (and even portraits) but I’m learning.

The students, tutors, and coaches were all great and I hope the program can continue to grow!

San Jose Earthquakes Season Opener vs Real Salt Lake

Whoa! Immediately after covering UAA at the Chabot Relays, I headed over to Santa Clara to shoot the San Jose Earthquakes season opener. Unfortunately they lost 3-0 to Real Salt Lake, but it was still fun.

The assignment for me tonight was to focus completely on the El Salvadorian players on the team Ramon Sanchez and Arturo Alvarez. Unfortunately, Ramon didn't play and Arturo didn't score, but still got some shots off. Were sending images to a newspaper of some sort in El Salvador.

Since we were communicating with various Latino people who were emailing in Spanish amongst themselves, I asked John if he thought it would be ok/a good idea to correspond with them in Spanish. He thought it was a great idea, so I wrote them an email in Spanish... Not realizing that after my first email, the contact would reply with a more elaborate response during the game with requests while I was on the field and not having access to an online translator in case I didn't understand/know how to reply. Thankfully my Spanish is decent enough to understand his requests and reply... sent about 12 emails throughout the night. All in Spanish! This makes me want to become more proficient in Spanish, I'm excited!

After the game I went to grab In-N-Out with ISI photographer and friend Don Feria, and guess who was there.... Ramon Sanchez!! Ha! What are the odds?!

UAA at Stanford Invitational & Chabot Relays

Went to the Stanford Invitational for the first time yesterday. After covering Tamar just for fun, the Alaska Anchorage SID passed along my information to another SID up there and he asked me to cover them when the track team had events in the bay area. How cool for that to come out of a fun trip to visit my buddy!

Was great to shoot. Stanford has an incredibly nice facility with a giant board that lists the players in the heat and their school/professional affiliation so it's easy to follow the action.

Then today I headed over and covered them at the Chabot Relays, a lil more relaxed and less organized. But the benefit to that is being able to shoot from almost anywhere.

Also shot quakes but that's going in it's own post =)

Women's NCAA Tournament- Baylor

Yikes! My apologies to the two people who read this blog, I haven't updated in quite some time!!

I ended up being very fortunate and getting a chance to cover Women's NCAA Tournament for the regionals at Berkeley. On Friday I photographed Fresno State's practice, on Saturday I shot for Marist (vs Georgetown) and then Fresno State (vs Baylor). Unfortunately both of the teams I was covering lost so I thought my weekend was over. But then Baylor asked Herb if he knew of any photographers who could cover the second round game for them, and he forwarded her on to me! It worked out great and I'm so thankful for him passing on my name.

For those who don't kno, Baylor has the famous, or maybe infamous, Brittney Griner. Brittney is a 6'8" player, with 88-inch wingspan who gained fame in high school for a youtube video of her dunking.

This season she gained a little more notoriety after punching a girl in the face during a game.

I must say, watching her play, is exciting. She plays like a boy, and that's a compliment. She is tough, tall, and aggressive. At the same time, during the post game press conference she comes off as shy and almost timid.

What's crazy is, she got into some early foul trouble in the first half and didn't come back. She ended up being on bench almost the whole first half, and it was as though Georgetown had put their mental game into blocking her, that with her out, they didn't know how to stop the rest of the girls. To make matters worse, Brittney came back for the second half and ended up with 14 blocks, NCAA record. So loco!

AND SHE CAN DUNK! She didn't dunk during the game but she did during warm ups. I am so excited to watch her career develop, I think she might be what it takes to popularize woman's basketball...that is, if she doesn't find around the rules to play in the NBA =)

Drive to Lake Solano

Went for a drive with my parents yesterday because the peacocks were supposed to be out at nearby Lake Solano. We didn't see that many peacocks but we did see some pretty blossoming trees, cat tails, and California poppies =)

What a fun day to make me really appreciate being back home!

Cal defeats UCLA 85-72 in the Pac-10 Semifinal

What what?!? Cal down and look less than great in the first half came back to beat UCLA 85-72 and are headed to the Pac-10 finals tomorrow playing

Jerome looked like a balla again

Jorge made some free throws!

Jamal had his usual intensity.

Theo kept it together.

Bench got into it

I ran around and shot more than just the game

Montgomery got a technical

And we won!!! Yay!!! Go Bears!!!

Pac-10 Tournament Cal defeats Oregon 90-74

Wooo! So after my extra time staying here, it has been so far worth it because Cal won their first game at the Pac-10 Tournament at the Staples Center. 90-74 over Oregon.

Wasn't a stressful intense game, Randle score 22 points the first half without missing a single shot.

Mary who was at home watching it text me that the announcer said "Jerome is making this game like a contest for himself to see how far he can shoot a 3 from"

Starters were on the bench just relaxing and being goofy at the end.

Great game, they now play UCLA in a few hours.... Go BEARS!!!!!

Blackout 2010

Currently, I am in a camera blackout... but there was a much more significant "blackout" this week. Blackout 2010.

On facebook popped up a photo taken by my buddy Nican Robinson. It was so moving, that despite not wanting to get too political on my blog, I just had to post. A lot of news outlets which covered the event, made it look like your typical directionless extremist protest (like the random guy who sat in a tree near Wheeler last year) or the other end, a boring group photo of people dressed in black. Nican really captured this, I thought it was such a powerful photo, and important issue, that I wanted to share.

This is from Blackout 2010 where over 200 African American students gathered at Sather Gate in Berkeley, dressed in black with black tape across their mouths: "Listen to the silence - Blackout 2010... We are brothers and sisters in a nonviolent, silent demonstration, standing in SOLIDARITY with the UCSD student who have been affected by blatant acts of ignorance and hatred... The UC Berkeley Black community stands here silent. Silent because we fear for the future. Silent because the past is prologue. Silent because there is nothing left to say. Our silence then, is your opportunity to act."

Mexico beats New Zealand 2-0

Am currently down in LA for two very good reasons 1) to photograph the Mexico vs New Zealand game 2) to visit my friend Mary

Had a chance to shoot Mexico vs New Zealand at the Rose Bowl. It wasn't necessary that I cover it considering ISI already had great shooter Michael Janosz down here to cover. But I couldn't pass on the opportunity to catch a game at the Rose Bowl (since Cal hasn't given me that opportunity! haha) especially Mexico. I have covered Mexico games in Oakland and San Francisco and thought it was crazy... I hadn't seen nothin!

SF and Oakland both fill the game with only Mexico fans, games are announced in Spanish, the whole bit. But this was crazy, 90,000 people! It was A-team guys, that will more or less be the roster for World Cup this summer, with the exception of my favorite, Memo Ochoa, who apparently, is so secured to start, he didn't even need to play this friendly to prove himself... I'm happy for him, but boo! haha)

I was getting emails from the communications director throughout the week, "expect heavy traffic"... "limited seats remaining, expect heavy traffic, arrive early"..."sold out, expect heavy traffic, arrive early, parking lots open at 2"... the game was at 8. That means the parking lot was open 6 hours before game time... talk about a tailgate party! This got the best of Mike left his house at 4:30 and couldn't even get to the stadium with all the traffic, let alone worry about where to park! Poor guy.

I on the other hand, arrived there at 11:30. They ran out of parking passes when I picked up my credential the night before but the woman told me, if I got their early they might let me in the lot with just the credential... so I got there before they were even monitored and saved myself the $20.

The game was GREAT... first half I shot Mexico after learning my lesson, but half ended 0-0... second half I still shot Mexico, and I was rewarded! Two goals... one had jube in the other direction but the other one was in front of me =)

In the end it started raining (I had checked the weather 12 times before coming out, no rain) so I had to take off my jacket and put it over my camera... I know that after getting wet, I will be completely functioning, my camera... not so much. Gotta have priorities. Thankfully it was pretty warm outside.

Didn't get out of the stadium until after midnight and had to wake up poor Mary who I'm staying with. Despite having to be up at 6 the next morning she didn't seemed too bothered... she's too nice!!

This one is for my roommate who is very happy to have Giovani Dos Santos playing for his Turkish club team... silly face =)

Today I took both my cameras and one lens into CPS to get them fixed/cleaned so I am without! Good thing I didn't have to turn in my phone or computer, I wouldn't know what to do with myself!! Haha ;-)