How do you like my new ride? The only problem? A Ferrari should be "Arrest Me Red".

Thanks Kaitlyn, great breakfast and motorcyle ride on Father's Day at Alice's Restaurant.

Some animal photos that I shot yesterday while on safari. Deb wrote a blog about it, with her videos. Here we are at Grizzly Gulch:



Now, for some other animal portraits that I shot:

On Saturday 5-10-08, Deb and I attended Kaitlyn Sierra Wong's graduation ceremonies from Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, CA. She surprised us with her Summa Cum Laude honors and on another page in the program earned "Outstsnding Undergraduate Academic Excellence" in Communication (highest overall GPA). She had never been the greatest student in elementary or high school but I suppose since she is paying for her own education she took it very seriously.

This was a really big outdoor production. They had erected a giant canopy for the stage with Frank Sinatra playing through the huge speakers. People scrambled to hold seats for relatives and I felt like we were getting ready for a rock concert. After many honored speakers that spoke of helping to preserve the earth and making money, we finally witnessed Kaitlyn receiving the sheep skin. I did my best to try for a photo of my daughter from about a 80 yards away:

 

This blog is in honor of Kaitlyn Sierra Wong for this major landmark in her life. So now daughter, it's your turn to try to save the earth and make lots of money!

Deb & I went to the San Mateo County Fair on Friday to see Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and also the fair. Here are a few of the many that I shot. Joan Jett is an American icon: " I Love Rock and Roll, Put Another Dime in the Jukebox Baby". Those guys were awesome, they kicked ass!! :

The Concert:

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And the Fair:

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It comes to the bay area once a year, the International Motorcycle Show. Nobody that reads this is interested in motorcycles, but I don't have anything else to blog about other than how hard I'm working to complete frame jobs for my clients before Christmas.

Imagine something that you really love, now imagine 5 huge halls filled to the brim with them. OK, in my case motorcycles. They have all of the latest creations from all the major builders:
Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Harley, Ducati and many other brands like totally exotic bikes like MV Agusta. They also showed many show bikes along with beautifully restored vintage machines. Back in the 70s I owned a Kawasaki Mach 3 500cc two stroke rocketship. I sold it to a friend but it was caught in a flood and sat under water for a week. So there it was in front of me, a white 500 with blue stripes on the side of the tank. A flood of memories came to me.

The finest racer in the world is Valentino Rossi from Italy. He had a specially painted yellow bike that raced in Monterey in '06. Deb and I witnessed his talents in person. My friend Bob shot this of me with his famous race machine, by the way, it tops out at over 215 mph.

I have some tricks when visiting the San Mateo Fairgrounds. They always flag you to turn into their parking pay booth. I always drive straight into the horse racing parking area. We drove staight in, parked behind the main hall, said hi to the security guy and walked into the hall like we owned it. No parking fee, no $13 entree fee, we knew it was going to be a fun night. I ran into some friends that got me to Belgium in '97 to tour motorcycles into Germany, Belgium and race at Assen Raceway in Holland. We all watched some stunt riders go crazy inside a steel ball. They then did jumps and and full flips, amazing kids.

Two years ago I spied some deer skin riding gloves, $180.00. This year I found a beautiful pair of deerskin gloves. I asked her if she would take $30 cash...she said yes!! OK, they aren't as nice as the expensive brand but not far off.  Here are a few pics from the event:

Bob, on the MV Agusta:

Ben Spies bike:

Well not exactly. The current politcally correct title is "Manufactured Home", which used to be "Mobile Home" and used to be "Trailer". Home is what you make it, we have cable TV and DSL, what else does a home need? Real homes with property have to be maintained, and property taxes are always due around Christmas time and tax season. Taxes on our mobile home is much like registering a car - I think ours was $160 for the whole year, cheaper than most newer cars. We own our home outright, and theoretically we shouldn't have to have home insurance if we don't want it, but of course we pay space rent in a park and they require it. I suppose in case our home catches fire and the house next to us is damaged. So the downside is we own our home, but we still pay rent.

I suppose we can say: "Yeah, we're homeowners", on the other hand when we need to show we're poor we claim that we're renters. The later is what we are claiming so that we can get our county-funded health insurance back, another story. There are so many expectations from people that own real houses. People think if you own a house that you're loaded, organizations ask for money, people try to sell you products. I always find it fun to reply with: "We live in a trailer" and watch their faces for a reaction. I'm at the stage in life when I don't have to impress anyone with my financial status, been there, done that. It's totally liberating. Nobody expects anything from us, so we have a freedom in that. We still donate money and products to worthy causes of our choices.

What "Great Living" means for us is having each other, staying healthy, being debt-free, and being able to travel and have fun. Ok, we don't always have these things all at once but we do pretty well overall.

We have a picture frame shop and it does pretty good most of the time. The problem is that every job has material costs not to mention the rent for the store, so this brings down the profit margin. My other occupation is studio and wedding photography. Up to a year ago it also had over head costs such as film and process. Medium format film was especially expensive. What's really weird is my occupation and hobby are the same. I'm always looking for beautiful scenery to attempt to capture and as you know the photos never look like we think they should. Of course we get lucky and make a beautiful image, sometimes it's not the one we thought it would be.

I've looked at all of your photos in my friends list, some of you gals have some real talent. I've seen some creative ideas and unique poses. The question is: Can you imagine getting paid a lot of money to shoot pictures? Wedding photography is wide open. Brides are always looking for cutting edge talent or traditional photographers. I'm more of the later but am trying some new stuff that I've learned from other wedding photographer's web sites. How much money do I make for a wedding? They start at $500 for small garden weddings that take as little as 1 hour (with more time with Photoshop). Big church weddings pay much more but you have to put in the hours at the reception also. The wedding photographer is one of the most important elements to a sucessful wedding. It always amazes me about how much power I have and how I can set a mood for the event by just being friendly. One of my talents is scoping out the envirorment and using it for portraits. I'm pretty good at coming up with poses and trying ideas on the fly. Not everything works but I know it right away so we can try something else.

Of course one must know their equipment inside and out. When I get a new camera I'll sit around at night practicing switching modes and making sure I know how to change focus points and all that stuff. I don't use a tripod when shooting weddings but my lenses are "Image Stabilized" But we always, always use a tripod for portraits and studuio work and you should too. It's a very important tool, try it, set the self timer for your self portraits. I'm getting older and am always willing to share what I've learned in the last 30 years of photography.

The camera is such a powerful tool. It doesn't care what you shoot pictures of. Find a nitch, animals, kids or portraits, these kinds of services will help pay the bills. Fine art photos are the toughest and most expensive to make money from and they take up lots of wall space if they don't sell.