Newbury Park High School Varsity player Eric Muller (8) is normally a defender, but moves up to the net on corner and free kicks. On Friday, he scored a header, and celebrated big time. On Saturday he again scored and again celebrated big time, losing his shirt and receiving a yellow card.

The newest DotPhoto album is from boys Varsity matches Friday against Beverly Hills, won 4-0, and Saturday against Agoura, lost 3-2.

Enjoy Scott

12/26-27/08 DotPhoto Album

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!

From Scott Harrison

But before I was allowed to post this greetings, I had to promise the attorneys that I would include the fine print:

Merry Christmas in Legal Terms

Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, and gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures). The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).

I heard this on a podcast Wednesday, googled "lawyer Merry Christmas" and came up with multiple sites with the text. Enjoy. Scott

Moorpark High School Frosh Soph player tries a slide tackle during match Monday, December 15th that ended in 2-2 tie.

I posted three photo albums at Dotphoto this morning from Newbury Park High School Boys soccer action during the last week. I was sick most of last week and missed the varsity matches. But on Saturday and yesterday the boys JV and Frosh Soph team were playing in the Las Virgenes-Conejo Classic Tournament.

Dot Photo Albums:

12/15/08 Boys Frosh Soph

12/20 & 12/22/08 Boys Frosh Soph

12/20&12/22/08 Boys JV

The annual Christmas Tree outside of Los Angeles City Hall was lighted while I was on vacation earlier this month. Tonight I had the time, and the camera and walked over to City Hall. Needless to say, the 50 foot Christmas tree is spectacular.

In addition to photographing the tree, I tried some ten second exposures, left, turning the rotating aircraft warning light into a star on top of City Hall.

I wish you have a wonderful Merry Christmas and spectacular New Years!

Happy Holidays!

Scott Harrison

I walked outside this morning and was greeted by Woody and his version of a White Christmas. Our ten-month old golden has been pretty good about chewing stuff, but a brand new holiday pillow was a goner. Woody's Christmas present is enrolllment in a dog traiining class.

Sunday afternoon I spotted Surfer Dude - blog from July 20th, 2008 - VIctor back on Wendy Drive promoting the Revolution Surf Company. So I stopped said hello and snapped a photo. Once the shopping center was finished around September, I have not seen Vic on Wendy Drive. Well, with Holiday sales so important, he is back. Now I call him the Surfer Santa Dude!.


Late Sunday afternoon I was cruising around Camarillo giving up on any sunset pics when wham, the already set sun got underneath the clouds. I only had time to snap frames while waiting for a traffic light. In five minutes the red clouds were gone.

One of the joys of watching high school soccer is seeing how fast the jerseys become untuck. Here are two examples from Wednesday's JV game at Valencia High School. I was not able to shoot the Frosh Soph as they played the same time as the JV.

JV won 6-1. Varsity lost 0-2.

Dotphoto albums: NPHS JV vs Valencia NPHS Varsity vs Valencia

NPHS Varsity players, left, celebrates, a goal. JV player, right, celebrates a goal.

JV won 2-0, Varsity 4-1.

As you can tell, I am falling behind on posting soccer images. Here are images from Tuesday night's girls Varsity and JV wins over Camarillo.

Girls JV Dotphoto album. Gilrls Varsity Dotphoto Album

I am in the middle of a two week vacation and doing photography for Newbury High School Soccer program. During Monday's match at Camarillo High School, I looked up and photographed this jet landing at sunset at Camarillo Airport. Tuesday night while at NPHS stadium, I looked up and the slow moving brush fire flared up just in time for a couple photos.

I still remember my Cal Pole SLO photojournalism professor saying, when covering sports, be sure to look around, I don't think he was talking about activities outside of the stadiium.

Monday night Newbury Park Boys soccer played at Camarillo High School. The Varsity won 2-0, JV won 1-0 and Frosh Soph tied 0-0. The Frosh Soph and JV played at the same time, so I shot JV since most of their matches this season are under the lights. Photo below from JV match. Photo on left from Varsity. Enjoy. Scott

Dotphoto albums: JV vs Camarillo and Varsity vs Camarillo.

You may notice that the Zero flyby photo in my Pearl Harbor blog post has a antique look - its deliberate.

When a new photography trend becomes standard, its time to go in the opposite direction. Today numerous photographers are over-saturating and over using the High Dynamic Range trends in their images. So instead of making blue aircraft look very blue, I used the Lightroom Aged Photo preset on my Pearl Harbor photo gallery.

Here is an example from two nearly identical frames:



The Aged Photo preset desaturates an image about 70%. It looks black and white, but contains a hint of the original colors. It's a similar process I used on the Civil War photos from last month.


Link to my Pearl Harbor event photos.

Smart photographers look for a counter-trend to stand out. Has anyone noticed that current images shot with wide aperture 50mm lenses now look attractive. Twenty five years ago every camera came with a 50mm. Today all come with small zooms and very few images are shot with narrow depth-of -field 50mm lens.

A Mitsubishi A6M-Zero, left, is chased by two Grumman fighters during flyby Saturday at Camarillo Airport.

Saturday the Commemorative Air Force Southern California sponsored a Pearl Harbor event at its Camarillo Airport facility. The highlight of the event was flybys by World War 2 era aircraft including one of only flying Zeros.

First up though, was a very educational talk to the crowd of almost 150 by CAF member, retired Army Col. Jim Hinckley. Then we all got to tour the Museum and its collection of aircraft and watch the flybys.

Retired Army Col. Jim Hinckley

Links: Photo Gallery

June Blog entry Scroll down to Air Museum

June photo gallery

Commemorative Air Force Southern California Wing

Ventura County Star story on Pearl Harbor event

Soccer on Saturday was Newbury Park High School Girls Frosh/Soph vs Moorpark in the Simi Valley Tournament. NPHS won 11-0.

Dotphoto Link

Lately I have been blogging on various Thousand Oaks traditions. One holiday tradition has moved from Thousand Oaks Blvd. to Newbury Park.

Since 1975, Zender's Patio, BBQ and Fireside store, has emptied their window display installed a wonderful holiday model train exhibit that attracted both young and old. This year Zender's moved next door to Wendy's in Newbury Park. The Holiday Trains are up and running in two large display windows. Drop by and take a photo.

Zender's address is 2810 Camino Dos Rios, Newbury Park, CA 91320.

Tuesday evening was Newbury Park Boys Soccer vs Saugus High School. For NPHS, it was a good start of the season. The NPHS Frosh Soph won 3-0, the JV tied 2-2 and Varsity won 3-0. The most exciting match was the JV. NPHS was behind 0-2 until the last five minutes, scoring two goals to earn a tie.

Dotphoto Links:

Frosh Soph action

JV action

Varsity action

Photos from Frosh Soph game top, Varsity left, and JV below.

Monday evening was spent shooting boys high school soccer between Monrovia High School and Oaks Christian. The Monrovia JV won 2-1 and the Varsity match ended in a 1-1 tie. Lots more high school soccer during the next couple months.

Here are the Dotphoto albums links: Monrovia vs Oaks Christian JV. and Monrovia vs Oaks Christian Varsity.

Enjoy.

Scott

Header by Oaks Christian #5 scores in first half.


Monrovia players celebrate 2nd half goal.

Monday I dropped by Pro Camera Service to check on some photography gear I'm selling on consignment. Pro Camera was gone!

My first thought was not of my gear, but the Hungarian Folk Dance photo was gone! Its been a Thousand Oaks icon for over 25 years.

Pro Camera was on there in 1982 when I started working at the Thousand Oaks News Chronicle. They fixed all our camera gear. They were located a short couple blocks away on Thousand Oaks Blvd. And there was the historic Hungarian Folk Dance photo.

During my many visits, I often heard the snickering of kids viewing the Hungarian Folk Dance photo, while busy parents tried to get their broken cameras repaired. It would be missed.

Around 1985, Pro Camera moved to their permanent location off Hillcrest - that is until recently. In their place was Precision Business Machines, who until about two months ago was located on Thousand Oaks Blvd. The gentleman behind the counter pulled out a business card for Pro Camera. They are back on Thousand Oaks Blvd. Now I am really confused. So off to 710 Thousand Oaks Blvd, and there was Pro Camera Service!

And better yet, the Bare Butt Hungarian Folk Dance photo was there (in photo above on right.) And yes, they owed me some money for a sold camera. Monday was a good day.

Check out this video:


There are several videos on YouTube showing Bob Staake at work. He is using Photoshop 3, not CS3, but version 3 released in 1994. MacWorld has a great article on Staake titled "If it ain’t broke, don’t upgrade it." Lesson is results count, not the tools.