Oxnard, CA

The unofficial motto of Oxnard, CA is "not just a beautiful name." I think that goes without saying. I was swimming around in the archives today and found these images from 2009 taken at the tail end of my Venoco shoot for Hispanic Business. These were shot from the helicopter as we were descending into the Oxnard airport at the end of a very adventurous shoot.

Goletaville-Day 14

Day 14 was a gray and foggy morning, see bottom picture. Truth be told this is what Santa Barbara/Goleta looks like most times in the summer, but it makes for a beautiful soft light and there are still images to be found.

Goleta Project- Day 3

This is "Old Town Goleta" near my apartment. It has more of a downtown feel than the strip malls and box stores of "new town."

In and of a Butterfly Preserve

Near where I live there is a butterfly preserve. The winter is the time when thousands of Monarch butterflies flock (if butterflies "flock") to this area. They can travel as many as 3,000 miles as part of their migration. And they always come back to the same spot every year. It being "winter" I went to check it out. To get to the butterflies you walk deep into a densely wooded area over muddy paths, sun rays streaming through the leaves of the trees, and then across a rickety one foot wide board which serves as a bridge over a small creek. You know you have arrived when you hear the distant chirping of the butterflies or you see people randomly spaced throughout the woods gazing upward, almost zombie-like, in dumbfounded awe. Overhead, way at the tops of the eucalyptus trees, the butterflies fly back and forth creating a living fluttering canopy. It is almost mystical or like something through the cupboard. The difficult thing is the butterflies are so high up it does not make for great pictures. So, I took these pictures of things closer to the ground, instead. The funny thing was the next day outside of my apartment there was a Monarch butterfly feeding from flowers. I watched him for a little while, as he was probably less than a foot away, until he flew off directly into my face! So, I believe it only goes to show that butterflies are spies and very very dangerous.

Bringing the Outside In

Calming things down a bit from my recent experiments. The idea behind this abstraction is to quietly capture natural objects I find interesting, and have character, outside of their usual context of the outdoors. These are all things I find as I am, again, walking the walk from where I park my car to my apartment. All and all I think it is a study and documentation of where and how I currently live. Goleta, CA July/August 2010. More of the series can be found here.

Venoco

Many times photography can lead to unexpected adventures. I've shot politicians, sports stars, and musicians from the front row of concerts. These are some images of my biggest adventure to date. They are of an off-shore oil rig I shot this past summer. I was working for a magazine at the time and they were doing a story on a company that operates oil rigs just off the Santa Barbara coast. I gave them a call to see if I could come down and take some pictures. It just so happened that later that week they were giving a tour of one of their rigs as well as doing some aerial photography, so I asked if I could come along. They said yes. So, a few days later I found myself riding in a boat at 5 am and then hanging out of a helicopter taking photographs. This was both my first time taking a boat out on the ocean and riding in a helicopter. I thought there was a possibility that everything could go terribly and I might just wind up being sick the whole time. Luckily, that was not the case. I wound up getting the cover shot and the images were featured on the magazine's web site.