KGB? In the USA?

Yeah - if you count radio station KGB, San Diego, CA. For the last 35 consecutive years, they have put on a pyro event called the SkyShow at QualComm (old Jack Murphy) Stadium, usually after a San Diego State football game. I know a few of the folks who work on the show (it's invitation ONLY to work on it!), and the show I was going to shoot that night was shot by another company, I decided to hoof it down to San Diego to see what all the hubbub was about. My son (Kyle) came along (his first try at shooting pyrotography), and the two of us headed south. Before the trip, I scoped out the area with Google Earth. There was a very promising spot to the north up on some hills overlooking the whole stadium area. "That would be cool!" There were even some bike tracks through the area so I knew it was used. Well, right before leaving, I tool a closer look and realized those weren't bike or motocross tracks - they were for utility trucks to service the high-power electrical lines in that area. Site B (a bit to the east) looked the same way. Nuts! Well, how about Plan C? Put the stadium between me and the pyro? There is a shopping center due to the immediate west and what looked like a truck/fire access across the back. Looked like that was open.

Armed with this knowledge, we headed south and made sure that when we got there, there was enough light to scope out the sites. Yup, Site A was gated and razor-wired off. (Kinda expected that after Sept 11...) Site B was the same way. Oh, we could have hiked around some nasty looking brush, but I didn't relish doing it at night, especially with some weird drop-offs. We went over to Site C, and it was PERFECT! Almost - where I wanted to go was blocked off, and there were trees in the area. The access road was wide open, but the way to the stadium was blocked with a 6' fence covered with thorny bushes. And there were also some young trees - that left two spots to catch all the action. I had one, Kyle had the other. For me, I had to prop my camera as high as it would go on top of a curb. The legs were only spread about 6" apart, and the post was all the way up - but the view from the camera was great. Kyle forgot the tripod, so he found a spot along a fence where he could balance his camera on his camera bag. And there was about 4 hours until the show. Sooooo.....

We went to the local Fry's, got something to eat, took a nap, he scoped out a Borders, and slowly cars started showing up. The locals knew this was a good spot. I got my place on the fence around half time and waited for the show. The SkyShow does comet launches from the light ring, so putting the stadium between me and the pyro got me some great 3-D kind of images. It was a LONG trip home, but it was well worth it. Hope you agree!

http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p1040203286

WinterBlast, 2010. It remains for me the most I've driven over two days in a *very* long time. I showed up on Wednesday, and three hours later my laptop bricked. (I could not log into it - my own freakin fault.) It was a company computer, and they said that they need to have it plugged in to a company network. Since there was a marketing terminal in Phoenix, I thought that I would be able to drive down there, get in around 7:30, back by midnight. But - it was not to be. I had *really* bricked it and it could not be recovered. So, off to L.A. I went. I arrived in Blythe around 11 p.m., found a nice little Route 66 Motel, back on the road by 4:30. Dropped by home for a quick shower, hit the work place at 9:30, back on the road by 10:30, in Havasu at 4 p.m. 1200 miles in 2 days. But I had a working laptop.

On the first night, I set up around show central for the display, but folks will drive up in golf carts and park wherever. They also grab chairs and set up right in front of me, so it's a laugh to try and get a clear view. I usually camp out by Eldon Hershberger by turn #4 on the track, so I was there for the rest of the times. The problem was that the shows were quite close to the audience which forced a distortion with the wide-angle lens that I don't like. Couple that with smoke blowing right in my face, and it was sub-par (to me). But it's a great event and I love being there. I wouldn't have driven 1600 miles (for the whole thing) if I didn't!

I put the pictures both on my domain and on my Zenfolio account. My acocunt will allow you do download (for your personal use) or to purchase high quality prints.

http://www.thecalderwoods.org/wpa/WWB-21/index.html

http://tccphotography.zenfolio.com/p278473441

Hope you like the shots.

Hail to the Queen!

Jeff Pardee, from PyroInnovations, also told me of a New Years Eve fireworks show off of a barge near the aft end of the Queen Mary. The problem was (and it was a good problem indeed!) my daughter, who is currently teaching down in Honduras, surprised us and showed up on our doorstep! We thought she was going to have to spend the holidays down there, and it was a HUGE surprise to see her. That was COOL! The problem was, that she booked her return flight for 12:20 AM on Jan 1st. She did what I've also done - thinking that was the night of the 1st, not the wee hours of the morning of the 1st!

It actually worked out to our advantage. My wife and I took my daughter to LAX around 10 PM. We made sure she cleared ticketing and the TSA check point (with a few tears thrown in), then got into the car and headed to Long Beach. I had planned to set up across Long Beach Harbor by a 'light house' (a prop, really) near the Aquarium of the Pacific. But as we were on the freeway heading into LB, there was a sign about parking for the "Red Bull Event". I learned later that they did a monster car jump, and the city turned it into a huge event. Traffic was *insane*. There was no way I was going to be able to make it to the light house. We pulled an illegal u-turn (right in front of a police officer - no worries, I wasn't the only one), promptly got lost, got back to the freeway and headed towards the Queen Mary.

There was a party on the boat, but the parking was plentiful. (For $12 per car, it had better be!) We were in the area a bit after 11 p.m., and I found a nice spot on a walkway towards the Catalina Express dock that allowed me with a chance to get some reflections as well as the whole front of the ship. I also knew I was in a good spot when another photographer came along, saw where I was at, then decided to get down on some of the boulders around the waters edge. (I don't think this turned out too well as other spectators were able to get right in his way.) If he had asked, I would have gladly shared some of the space.

Since the QM was in the foreground, and because I was dealing with reflections, I put on a graduated neutral density fiter to calm down the pyro, set the camera for f/8 (about f/14 for the space in the sky), then did some timing experiments and found that 4.5 seconds would give me a well lit foreground.

Well, the show went off without a hitch right at midnight. They had good product and it was well choreographed. I kept with my 24-70 lens and zoomed in as far as I was comfortable. The show lasted about 20 minutes which gets me a LOT of opportunities for great shots. It took a while to get out of the parking area, but I think it was worth it.

You can see the results here on my Zenfolio page.

In the future, I'm thinking I need to try that lighthouse again. I'm also curious if I can walk across the QM bridge (I don't think I can), but that would be a very interesting and unique spot as well. We'll see......