VC Star Photo Blog

It's always a thrill to see how high the water polo players can lift out of the water as Chris Fiala of Oaks Christian School takes a shot on goal against Rio Mesa in a CIF playoff match at CLU.
                              

Professional tennis player Sam Querrey arrives at Venice Beach as part of an advertising promotion.

 

It was quite a sight to see so many kids practice heading the ball in a drill at the Aggressive Futbol Camp  for youth soccer players at Fremont School.

 

Corey Becerrio looked quite fashionable when he dribbled the ball as he went through a drill at basketball camp at Camarillo High School.

 

Marvin Millikan didn't want to tell me his name for my caption. He was having lunch at the new Chili Hut Cafe in Santa Paula and was a touch camera shy. The location has been a restaurant for 69 years, all of which Millikan has lived in the town.  He said he was even alive when the Saint Francis dam broke and flooded everything in 1929, though he was a baby back then.   Millikan was a perfect personality for the story on the cafe that displays photographs of places in Santa Paula. Millikan eventually told me his name and I'm very pleased that he did. That day's shoot flowed so well, like a good day at the Mountain Workshops. Through the set of images I was able to capture a piece of Americana. I liked that Millikan had a bowl of chili and ice water.

This morning I had a business shoot at an indoor trampoline recreation center in Camarillo.  I thought the best photo was of an adult man with a prosthetic leg jumping from one trampoline to another while his young son threw a ball in the foreground, but then I came across this one. Bernay Hanson has a physical disability but when she gets to Sky High Sports, as her mother put it, "she can play like a normal kid". 

Michael Stockdill, grandfather of 8-year-old Alaina Stockdill, looks to her casket coming into the sunlight as her memorial service concludes at Sacred Heart Church on Saturday in Ventura. Blair Stockdill, the child's mother, has been arrested on suspicion of the child's death at home on September 20 at the Peppertree Apartment complex in Ventura. 

It was good fortune that nobody was injured and quiet a sight to see the end result of a Northbound freight train that collided with an unoccupied car that was stopped on the tracks, at Rice Road and Fifth Street. The train pushed the car about 400 feet before it came to a halt.