Balboa Pier, Newport Beach, California.

Thanks to the month or so that we spent in the area, we now have an entirely updated section of Orange County photos on our website!

Since we had extra coverage of two of the communities, Janine also added completly new sections of Newport Beach photos, along with Huntington Beach photos.

A surfer checking out the early morning waves, Huntington Beach, California.

It feels good to be done with the processing, captioning and key-wording our photos from last winter’s travels.  Now we can send them off to agencies and update our website – finished just in time for summer, so we can make room for a new batch of photos!

Palm Trees at sunset, Newport Beach, California.

Let me start by saying, you shouldn’t get your legal advice from friends and fellow photographers.  Having said that, let me offer some advice. 

The place I turn to when I have questions is the Photographer’s Legal Guide by Carolyn Wright.  The book covers most of the legal issues one might encounter when dealing with photo business and photography issues such as copyrights, model releases, insurance and paperwork.  I think most photographers will find it very valuable. 

I have known Carolyn for a number of years now and consider her a friend – she is a wonderful person, and as a fellow photographer, she understands the industry and issues photographers face.  We have hired her on occasions when we needed large contracts reviewed, and also successfully used her for a copyright infringement suit – who better to hire then the person who wrote the book! 

In addition to the book, Carolyn also maintains a blog dedicated to photography legal issues;  Photo Attorney.  There is also a lot of valuable information on that site as well.

In addition to these resources, there is one bit advice I would like to offer to serious photographers; register your photos with the copyright office!  Having your images registered gives you far more options when pursuing infringements because you now can pursue statutory damages and attorney fees – in short, you can now pursue these issues with a much bigger hammer.  Want more details on how to register and what that means – well, it is all in the book!

Newport Beach Pier, California.

This was captured just 14 minutes after yesterday’s post – amazing what can happen in just a few minutes!

Newport Beach, California.

A 4 second long exposure turned the waves into a soft blur on this stormy evening.  You can see Catalina Island on the horizon.

Dana Point, California.

I meet up with Richard Wong for fun a evening of photography down in the cool Orange County coastal town of Dana Point.

Balboa Pier, Newport Beach, California.

This was captured during a beautiful sunset last week.

The finals of the Katin Pro/Am in Huntington Beach, California were amazing as the surfers continued to throw down huge tricks as they out did each other.  Above is a 9 frame sequence that caputures Brett Simpson’s winning wave as he came from behind to win the title.  I wish I could have had a lower perspective, this was shot from above on the pier, and the high perspective tends to minimize the appearance of just how high he was on the maneuver.  What I thought was cool, but may not be visible in the small version I posted here - in the second to last photo where Brett is completing the landing, he already has a huge smile on his face.

Here are a couple more photos of the Katin Pro/Am.

The 14 year old surfer Kolohe Andino emerging from the "green room" during the Katin Pro/Am surf tournament, Huntington Beach, California. His young age and amazing abilities have already earned him appearances on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The surfing conditions have remained great, and the addition of some of the best surfers in the world thanks to the Katin Pro/Am surf competition keep me busy.  Watching such phenomenal surfing was a real treat!  I may have to go back for the finals today.  Here is a post of the winner of the Katin Pro/Am.

 Below is surfing vetran Rob Machado who has twice finished ranked number three in the world.

Rob Machado

With big waves hitting Southern California yesterday, I had to go to the place known as Surf City USA – Huntington Beach, California!

Water is one place that seems to consistently fool in-camera meters.  What I usually do when photographing around water is switch to manual mode.  Here, I set my ISO at 400 because I needed the speed.  I then set my aperture wide-open, which was 5.6 with my lens, because again, I needed maximum light.  I have my camera set to blink when I over-expose and blow out any whites, so I began trying different shutter speeds until I blew out the whites, and then increased the shutter speed just slightly until I didn’t have any “blinkers” , in this case, 2,000th of a second.  This method gives me the maximum possible exposure, so that the surfer doesn’t turn to a black blob, and yet the whites don’t get blown out and lose detail.

Had my shutter speed been a number below 1,000 – I would have increased my ISO setting a little more in order to get a bit higher shutter speed to help freeze the action.

We hit the road yesterday for another photo trip.  We will spend some time in Anza Borrego in California.  This puts us close to family for the holidays, and gives us a fun place for photography and office work.

After that, we plan on spending a month in Orange County doing some travel photography.  My coverage of that area is fairly limited – it is a place I have been intending to spend some time at for awhile now.  We are kicking around some other ideas, our plans always seem to change, but hopefully I will have some fun stuff to post here!