Focusing on the Small Stuff

I was given the assignment to cover the Veterans Day Parade in Salinas, Calif. on November 11, 2012. The amount of participants in the parade was amazing as a variety of groups made their way down Main Street in Oldtown Salinas. The crowd of people lining the sidewalk cheered as veterans of varying ages passed, some walking and others riding on the back of old military vehicles. With the sheer number of people at the event, the scene was a little overwhelming. In these types of situations I find that slowing down and looking for small elements that come together to convey the story is key.    

Near the end of my time making photographs I came across a group of young kids on the sidewalk waving flags. I made some frames of the three of them from behind as the parade passed by. Then the young boy covered his ears as the Patriot Guard Riders roared by on their Harleys. The background, with construction going on in the empty lot behind them, could have been a little cleaner, but I like the way the frame came together. (Photo David Royal/ Monterey County Herald)

A Tough Assignment

Coast Guardsmen run alongside and cover a car containing Jennifer Hipon, in the passenger seat, and her two young children at the Coast Guard Jetty in Monterey, Calif., after they were rescued out at sea on Friday September 7, 2012.  (Photo David Royal/ Monterey County Herald)


On September 7, 2012, at the end of a long day I was called by our assistant city editor with an urgent assignment. The Coast Guard had intercepted a sailboat off the coast with two young children aboard who had been abducted by their father. The father had allegedly stolen a sailboat in the San Francisco Bay Area and sailed it south with the children. The Coast Guard was returning in its cutter to reunite the children with their mother and take the father off to jail.

I have no idea how the father thought he'd get away with it. The Coast Guard had been following him in airplanes, helicopters and boats.

It was a sad story, but in some ways it turned out well that no one was injured and the children were returned to their mother. Regardless I was there to cover it as it was my job.

As I waited near the base of the jetty for the boat to come, more and more news trucks from the Bay Area appeared. Unmarked police-style cars and a South San Francisco Police car entered a guarded gate that led to where the boat was being moored. In the far distance we could see some movement on the boat but it was too far away and too dark to get an idea of what was happening.

I checked my exposures with another journalist who walked through the area where we thought they would drive and then waited. First the South San Francisco police car exited through the gate. Instead of driving the usual route it barreled down a walkway nearly hitting one writer from a local paper and I was only able to pop off a couple of shots as the vehicle took the father off. We later figured out that this car contained the father.

The next car came out a few minutes later containing the mother and the children. Again the vehicle took an alternate route and this time Coast Guardsmen were running alongside, covering the car with a blanket. Ideally it would have been nicer to get a photo of the reunification of the children with their mother, but this was a tough assignment with limited access and in the end I felt lucky to capture a few frames to document the story.

Cross Country meet

Attempting to give the viewer a different look at a event that has been photographed numerous times.  A high school cross country meet at Toro Park in Salinas photographing the start of the boys race with a 200mm lens and a 1/85 sec. shutter speed at f/13.  

Unmanned Surface Vehicles

I shot this photo of a group of young scientists testing their unmanned surface vehicles made from balloons and foam during the Robots in the Roses Research Fair at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey on Thursday May 10, 2012. The assignment created a challenging situation because of the distance between the robots and the students was in most cases quite large. I was hoping to capture the interaction between the young scientists and the things they were building and spent some time looking for these elements.

I was happy when I found this group of the kids testing their unmanned surface vehicles before racing them in The Plunge. To clean up the busy background and create a more interesting frame I jumped up on a chair and held my camera over the kids. I am glad the chair did not break! (Photo David Royal/ Monterey County Herald)

Annular solar eclipse

How do you photograph a rare annular solar eclipse?   It was tougher than I thought.  The sun at the time of the eclipse was too high in the sky to put anything of interest in the foreground.  I ended up going for the straight on approach.  Here's my attempt yesterday using a 200mm lens with a setting of 1/8000 sec at f32 with a iso rating of 100.  This image was captured at 6:34 p.m. on the beach in Rio Del Mar.  (Vern Fisher/Monterey County Herald)

Laguna Seca Raceway

I was assigned to cover a practice session at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Friday May 9, 2012.  In an attempt to come up with something different I forced myself to find a different angle and location on the track trying to get a compelling photo.  Looking down on turn-four from atop the corkscrew hill I used a 300mm lens with a 1.4x converter (420mm) and followed Amadeo Quiros, driver in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge with a shutter speed of 1/20 of a second.  (Vern Fisher/Monterey County Herald)

Salinas High Softball

Concentrating on third base with my 300mm lens during the Salinas High vs. San Benito High softball game on April 24, 2012, captured Salinas High's Marah House as she plays a ground ball in the third inning.  (Vern Fisher/Monterey County Herald)

New Angle

I love shooting high school sports. The variety is nice and as a newspaper photographer the access we get is great. We are able to shoot from almost anywhere we want, while photographers in professional sports are often limited to specific areas.

Even with this freedom I find that some venues are a challenge. Some fields are too tight, some have restrictive fencing and some have busy backgrounds. Sometimes there are only a few positions to shoot from.

For this this angle on Monterey's Daryn Arakawa I was able to climb a set of bleachers at Jacks Park and shoot down as he served against Salinas' Sebastian Pagano during tennis on March 29, 2012.

Right Place Right Time

I came across this scene a few weeks back while driving past Asilomar State Beach in  Pacific Grove. The winter sunset was amazing as a storm headed in from the west. I was on my way back to the office to process photos from a previous assignment when I spotted two young women watching the scene from the top of their Volkswagon van.

Realizing I only had a few moments before the sun dropped, I quickly parked my car, jumped out and grabbed my camera. I composed my image and exposed for the sky. I was only able to shoot a few frames before the women moved and the sky changed, so I  felt lucky that I happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Fort Ord Dunes State Park

A surfer in position at Fort Ord Dunes State Park as a nice set rolls in on Wednesday, March 21, 2012. The swell was about 6-8 feet and rising with a slight offshore wind.

Wild Art, March 7, 2012

Driving back to the office from an assignment I noticed this interesting scene of farm workers in a field against a backdrop of sprinklers. A 300mm lens with a 1.4x converter allowed me to accentuate the heat waves coming off the ground.

Creekside Terrace Trailhead

My assignment was to illustarte a story on Fort Ord Public Lands. I was sent to the Creekside Terrace Trailhead on the East side of Fort Ord. For this image I used my Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a 16-35mm f2.8 lens set to 16mm. ISO was set to 100, shutter speed to 1/15 sec at f22. I picked a nice section of trail, held the camera low to the ground and walked real fast.

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Thanks for looking,

Vern

Future Firefighters Feel the Burn

 I was driving through Fort Ord just after dawn on Saturday Mar. 3, 2012 when I happened upon a group running in formation while singing a cadence call. 25 years ago this group would have been a group of soldiers. On this morning they were cadets in the California Fire Academy at Monterey Bay, out jogging past some of the decaying former military buildings before a day of training.

While I was not on the clock yet for my day, I drove ahead of the group, grabbed my camera and shot a few frames, their song fading as they passed. 

Point of Inspiration

On March 1, 2012 I was assigned to photograph the rebuilding of trails at Point Lobos State Park. A light rain was coming down at the office as I jumped in my car and headed down Highway 1. As I made my way south of Carmel and passed Monastery Beach I started thinking about the area's importance to photography. I was entering the former stomping grounds of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

I entered the park and drove out toward the Bird Island Trail where the work was being completed. On my way I passed a series of amazing vistas which even under the gray, overcast conditions were striking enough to distract me from my mission. I passed Weston Beach, and arrived at the base of the trail.

I had just started out on the trail when California Conservation Corps worker Marcela Medina came up slowly from behind using a mechanized toter to carry granite boulders toward the area where work was taking place. I stopped and shot some frames as she walked above China Cove. "Wow," I said, thinking of the trail workers as much as myself as she passed through my frame. "What a beautiful place to work."