This past week I have been photographing the NorCal 12 Junior Sectional Championships at the Sunnyvale Municipal Tennis Center. What a challenge! Photographing the tennis is about timing yourself and the player. It has been a great experience. The event director and referee, Brian Garrow and Jean Hassoun respectively, along with all the other people involved with putting on and supporting the event are wonderful.

I want to thank James Maltby for asking me the previous week if I photographed sports and in particular, tennis. From that question and conversation the idea and desire to photograph as much of these young players in action was born.

There is an online Gallery available through July 9th of this event after then it will be taken down.
NorCal 12 Junior Sectional Championships Gallery

Here a few collages of some of the action that I was able to get.

Looking out the sliding glass doors this morning I see all the leaves and twigs that have been shaken and blown from the trees and other plants as a result of the wind. I see a correlation between the wind and fallen leaves with our own lives and the many challenges we face. As we grow we add many things to our lives and become attached to them. At some point what we’ve become attached to no longer serves a purpose or may never have. It is when we face turbulent challenges, where we are tossed about by forces outside our control, that by staying anchored through strong roots we can weather the storm.

After weathering the storm and having been released of the unneeded attachments, you can better withstand more turbulence. Your roots become, through the experience, stronger and know where to go deeper and where to expand to provide a solid foundation.

Here are a few images from this morning. The first is of the leaves on the back deck that helped inspire this mornings observations and the second is of a lemon that hung on through the wind yesterday in a the lemon tree in the front of the house.

A few months back I went to Yosemite to attend some meetings and got to stay a few nights within the park (my first time). I picked up fellow photographer and friend Stewart Schulze in the Central Valley and we arrived in time to photograph in the valley at sunset. There was some nice color but not enough weather to make the scene dramatic. The first night I bivouacked (camped out) and slept under a stand of trees and had a wonderful view of a star filled sky. The higher altitude helps along with a cloud and smoke free sky. The following morning we were off to catch sunrise at Glacier Point. On the drive back to our lodging we came across areas where the Park Services was conducting controlled burns. The smoke, being backlit, contributed to some interesting photographic opportunities.

Later that day I went out for a short hike with Marcy Dugan and we followed the trail up along a creek and had fun exploring the rock formations, trees, and fall colors. Some spots required scrambling along rock edges that had an element of risk and the effort was worth it. I came across a pine cone floating in the creek and proceeded to have fun photographing it along with the reflection of the rock wall. I like this one because of the motion, and the patterns created by the water and rock reflection.