Rainy Day in Banff

I took a little last minute trip to one of the most beautiful places in Canada – Banff National Park.  It truly is stunning however I seemed to have arrived just as a big rain storm brushed through the area.  There were periods of snow and of rain.  The snow was hard to believe as I just left San Diego in what appears to be an Indian Summer with nice weather.  Banff is a very large national park here and it is quite popular but it is virtually empty this time of year given the fact that most people do not take their vacations now and kids are back in school.

This photo was taken during one of the very brief intermissions of rain which seemed to constantly fall every time I exited my car to take a photo.  I am looking forward to taking much better pictures tomorrow and thursday as the rain is supposed to leave the region. It is beautiful regardless.

Helicopter Shooting

My brother owns an R22 Helicopter, a 4 seater which can prove quite handy for getting a unique vantage point for activities below.  Every so often he invites me up to take pictures of yachting and boating events that are happening off the coast of San Diego.  A few months back he invited me to shoot a race that several of his friends were participating in.  The day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and the ocean was a deep and rich blue.  It made for a spectacular day of shooting.  He even took the doors off the helicopter to reduce the glare on the photos.  Have a look.

San Diego has Architectural Genius

Many people say San Diego lacks culture. I always laugh when I hear this because San Diego has large Latino, Filipino, American Indian, Asian and Hawiian influences which can be seen in many parts of the county. Check out a San Diego Chargers game at Qualcomm on any given Sunday in fall and you will see that the predominant makeup of San Diego is people of color and not surfers as most people would imagine.

San Diego also has one of the most influential and masterful pieces of architecture in the world in a place called the Salk Institute.  The Salk Institute was designed by Luis Kahn and it consists of two symmetric buildings with a stream of water flowing in the middle of a courtyard that separates the two. The buildings themselves have been designed to promote collaboration, and thus there are no walls separating laboratories on any floor. There is one floor in the basement, and two above it on both sides.  Talk about “open plan” in today’s business world – well this is it.  It is a tremendous location and believe it or not sits right above some of the best coastline in the world.  If you look beyond the infinity water flow that goes through the building it seems to flow directly into the Pacific Ocean.

This is a magical and wonderful place in San Diego.

Patrick Jumps

I have 3 brothers – Bill, Danny and Patrick.  We are all pretty close and we all live together here in San Diego so you can imagine the good times that we have.  My brother Bill used to be heavily into Martial Arts and was actually a Black Belt and expert at fighting.  He took a picture in the 80’s which my brother Patrick wanted to emulate.  It is a pretty dramatic picture, I guess you should judge for yourself which person would fill you more with terror if you came at them.

This is the original picture of Bill

The new picture of Patrick

The Lady in Red

I took an interesting shot I liked this weekend.  The picture of course if of Tu and she is sitting on a red couch wearing a beautiful red dress. I liked the shot a lot because it seemed dramatic to me and I liked the colors and contrast.   Las Vegas can be an interesting place to photograph if you are looking for dramatic scenes.  There are lots of them.