The Amgen

100% back. Hope rides again. Live Strong.

Lance is back, and I got a chance to see him (3rd picture, first rider in blue) at the Amgen Race. Biker or not, you've got to understand how awesome this is. Lance is super human. Scientific studies have proven that he has a naturally oversized heart and lungs. The chances of that happening to a person and not having serious life threatening medical problems is so incredibly slim. He always talked about how he just wanted to break the record of Tour de France wins, and then he would be done, but I like to believe that once he got that record breaking 7th win and retired, he soon realized what a miracle he is, and decided he should get 110% out of his body. So now he's back. 

He was using the Amgen race as a warm-up/practice. Yea, about a 900 mile race was just "practice" for him. I could only dream of pulling off that kind of milage in just a few races. Not to mention that these guys hit 60+ mph down hill and average in the mid to upper 30s around the Rose bowl.... my top speed down hill is 45 mph, and my average at most is around 22... they're FAST.

I also got to see a few other world class bikers such as Levi Leipheimer (2nd picture), Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, and George Hincapie. These guys are the best of the best, and to have them grace our local roads with their presence is a treasure in its own. I will never look at the Rose Bowl the same way again. 

Blake's Ghost

Kinda creepy huh? I was assigned a new project for my saturday class at Art Center where we had to study lighting and blur in black and white. We were given specific settings for shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, but everything else was up to us. My friend Blake and I spent quite a while trying different rooms throughout the house testing the light and seeing which rooms provided the best contrast. I finally had the idea to try the bathroom since it only had one window that was facing away from the sun which provided a very gentle and controllable light. As we shot different ways to get cool blur effects, each picture became more and more creepy. This one in particular came out like something from a horror flick.

Discovery

My brother and I took a drive up Angeles Crest the other day. We only intended to stop at a few look outs and see the scenery. What we didn't intend of doing was pushing the limits and driving hours and hours into fog that was so thick we couldn't see more then 10-15 feet in front of the car at times. What was fog quickly turned into a white out blizzard. We pushed the limits even more and drove up further to the point that we were the only people on the mountain, the roads turned from black to white, and we slid more then drove. Eventually things got too crazy and we decided to pull a U-e (which turned into a scene from 'Tokyo Drift') and head back down the slopes. On the way down, we ran into a clearing in the snow and fog and caught this scene. Surrounded by at least a couple feet of snow and ice, i set up my tripod and set my camera on high exposure and a slow shutter speed. Who would've known that such a sight and such extreme weather was just right in my backyard. 

SG

My other guitar. Cherry red mahogany Gibson SG Special. 

I was just messing around with a spot light I got from my friend Chloe and some colored tissue paper. I set up my tripod and played with some camera settings and snapped away. Enjoy!