Her expression says it all.

Ponto, May 22, 2009.

Similar to my Lawn Bowls and RC Glider projects, the Grygera and Sons project will create some great material for my new portfolio. But these images will also be used as part of Grygera’s new website, which is being built as we speak. I plan on heading back a few more times to get some stuff I missed and to shoot some portraits of Jeff Grygera and his son, Jay.

I recently picked up some new gear–a D700 and a D3, as well as a 17-35mm. The best thing about these new bodies is that they’re full frame, meaning the images are recorded at exactly the focal length of the lens. With my older bodies, the sensors had a 1.5x crop factor, so it was hard to get REALLY wide shots.

Shot these with the D700 on a rainy day in Cardiff with a super low tide.

Having grown up surfing in North County, I can’t count the hours I’ve spent driving the stretch of Hwy. 101 between Del Mar and Oceanside in search of surf. There’s a relatively sparse section of the coast in south Carlsbad, just south of Palomar Airport Road, where a small group of remote control glider enthusiasts fly their planes. I’ve always taken note of them as I sped by, paying little attention as I scouted for surf, but I’ve always been slightly curious about them. Then I got the idea that they would make great subjects for some new portfolio pieces.

So one day I stopped by, camera in tow, and chatted with one of the guys flying a glider. He was the only one there on this absolutely gorgeous Santa Ana day, and it turns out he was alone because the conditions weren’t ideal for flying. The fliers favor more normal wind patters, with the winds blowing off the ocean. As the wind comes up the cliff, it creates this big updraft that makes flying the gliders pretty easy.

Much like my lawn bowls project, I plan on developing a series of images over the next few months. Stay tuned.