Sacramento Summer Open Table Tennis Tournament

Saturday, Aug 22, James Therriault held the Sacramento Summer Open Table Tennis Tournament at the Folsom Sports Complex, home to Jian Zhaung's Folsom Table Tennis Club. It was the only tournament I've competed in this year, mostly because of conflicts with wedding photography, both occuring on weekends. From the "About Me" on this blog readers can see my hobby is table tennis, although I rarely post photos of table tennis play. That's because I have a big time problem switching my mental focus to playing the game after wearing my photography hat. That's just me, something I need to work on. So, felt there was a big enough break between my matches to take a few photos of two of the top players in the open bracket, Shashin Shodhan and Anh Nguyen, both, I believe, from the S.F. Bay Area. Anh upset Shashin and went on to place 2nd in the Open category. The winner of the Open was Arthur Breton of France, now living in the S.F. Bay Area. These guys are good!
How did I do? OK, but I'll do better next time! Great fun! Great tourney!

Kristi and Kyle's Wedding

Kristi and Kyle were married last Saturday, before many friends and family, in a beautiful outdoor ceremony at the Lake of the Pines clubhouse in Auburn, CA. Kyle, his dad, and the groomsmen arrived at the venue by party boat from his dad's house across the lake. Kristi and her bridesmaids were gorgeous, getting dressed in Grass Valley and arriving along with a huge busload of guests. This was a destination wedding for Kristi and Kyle as they are from San Francisco, and many of their friends came up from the Bay Area. It was great fun to go out on the party boat after the ceremony with the wedding party and get some awesome photos. Everyone had a fantastic time! The food was wonderful, the toasts were amusing and moving, and the dancing and tunes (provided by Bobby G. Productions) were all out hopping. My assistant, Sorena, did a great job as usual (5 of the photos below were taken by her).
I'm posting some selected shots for previewing below while the processing of the tons of photos continues. All of the photos will be available for viewing online through my association with Pictage.com in about 10 days. Anyone pre-registering to see all the photos will receive a $5 gift certificate from me, if purchasing any prints. Click on photos below to see a larger image.
Love this job! Wish all the very best to Kristi and Kyle, a super couple!

The Infrared Look

Do you like the look of infrared photography?
Thanks to Kevin, Karen, and Patti for inspiring me to experiment with the infrared look. There is a beautiful display of infrared photography at this website http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/11/40-incredible-near-infrared-photos/. I use the word "Look" in the title because the photos shown below were taken with my normal digital cameras, and digital cameras have filters in place to screen out infrared light. These photos were edited in Photoshop CS2 to simulate the infrared look in monotone. If you are interested in doing this, and are familiar with Photoshop, here is a link published by Ken Rockwell showing how http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/ps.htm#ir. I re-edited the 1st photo below to add faux infrared color. Only some photos lend themselves to the infrared look so choose carefully. In infrared green turns to white so make this work for you.

I photographed Kristi and Kyles beautiful wedding yesterday and haven't processed their photos yet, but thought it approriate to use one of their engagement photos to an infrared edit. I think it looks fantastic!

Here's a stark monotone of groomsmen and their shad0ws from a Anita and Barry's wedding last year that looks super with an infrared edit.

Mazatlan Fisherman

The cool thing about photographing destination weddings is that before and after the wedding a completely different and wonderful culture and geography is right in front of you to experience and capture in photos as well. And the cool thing about this blog is that I get to show these scenes/photos, that I love to shoot, to more people. Wedding photography is somewhat seasonal here in N. California, slowing down in the winter months, so I combine my love of Mexico, and traveling in general, to seek out weddings in warmer climes.
In February of this year while in sunny Mazatlan to shoot one of my destination weddings there (Dan and Alisas, and you can see the pics of their beautiful wedding on my website or earlier blog entries) I strolled along the beach, near my hotel, with my cameras, just before sunset (and almost all of the sunsets there are gorgeous) and came across this local fisherman. A photo op, if I ever saw one! He was standing on an old concrete embankment jutting out from the rocks about 30 yards offshore and casting out from there. The clouds were so low that you could not see the sun until just before it sank below the horizon, but gave me ample time to get some good shots. In all, I watched him and took photos for over 1/2 an hour. After the sun had set I moved in closer staying just out of range of the occasional spray of the waves. Then his rod bent over as he hooked one so I dared to get right up behind him as he reeled it in. It was a nice looking fish, a type of snook, I think, and he was proud to show it off.
I moved back to a safer position (for my cameras sake) up on the sidewalk above the breakwater as he continued to fish. The sun had already set but a hole opened up in the darker clouds closest in and the light reflecting off of the clouds behind them came through and reflected once more off of the ocean. An unusual and stunning occurance I hadn't seen before so I composed the fisherman into that shot that came out very nice. It appears that the sun is still in the sky breaking through the clouds.
Now, it was getting darker and the ambient light of some of the breakwater lighting became more prominent and began to turn his white clothes an orange hue as a cruise ship passed by in the background. Love it!, .. another day in paradise. btw, you can click on the photos below to see a larger image.