Fuzzy slippers are on my feet below my big baggy sweats
as I sit here listening to some COLD wind blow through my back yard.

Luckily, I have some warm and sunny beach images
to remind me that cold weather never sticks around for very long in San Diego.

Last week's weather in La Jolla took my breath away with its big puffy clouds,
blue sky, and and beautifully clean beach.

La Jolla is always pretty, but this day ranks up there as one of the prettiest I've seen.

Having such beautiful families there was a dream come true (corny, but I'm serious!).

Here are three siblings having fun in the sand:

These are the toes of the cutie who gave me my awesome Easter Card last week:

Another family was a part of this perfect day, too,
with kids who loved the water.

The little sister was a bit more timid than her brother,
so she always seemed to stay near an adult when she'd test her bravery against the crashing waves:

On that last one, I intentionally tilted my camera to add some drama.
When I teach workshops, I talk about how if you're going to tilt your camera,
make sure it's done so that it doesn't look like a screw-up.
I try to keep the horizons in most of my images straight, so when I go for camera tilt,
I don't mess around with subtlety!

Near the end of the session, once I knew we had all the pictures the mom & dad would want,
big brother was getting pretty brave as the waves crashed around him up to his waist.
I asked, "Do you want to take your shirt off so you have SOMETHING dry to go home in?"
A quick glance to mom confimed that my idea was a good one,
and she helped him take off his shirt.

I think his remaining timidity was removed along with his white polo,
because he darted into the water with never-before-seen courage.

Years of creating family pitures in La Jolla has taught me to be very aware of waves, sets, and shorebreaks.
I told the mom, "The next set is about to come in, and it's going to bury him -- head to toe! Is that ok?"

She laughed and waited for the waves along with me...

Let's just say....

I know my La Jolla waves!

The very next wave to come was this one:

I didn't stop shooting...
here are the next two frames (proving my "head to toe" prediction)

We all laughed SO HARD, and I think he was laughing the hardest!

Exhilerated is an understatment for the look on his face as he climbed out of the ocean soaking wet & smiling ear-to-ear,
but I can't think of a better word right now,
and I'm getting hungry for lunch, so "exhilerated" will have to do.

Enjoy!!

~Carey

Do you remember the cool shots I created so that Mat's soccer team
could win their trip to the David Beckham Academy?

I've decided to donate shots like that to a lucky (and generous) Eastlake Little League family!

If you've got a player in Eastlake Little League down here in the south bay of San Diego,
you know that Opening Day is tomorrow! (Saturday, March 7th)

I've had a lot of interest in cool sports shots of youth athletes,
so I decided to donate a "YouthProShots" session to the ELL silent auction.

Each team had to donate a basket of goodies to the ELL silent auction,
so if you're there at Opening Day, look for the basket from a cute little T-ball team
that has a goodie in there from YOUTHPROSHOTS!

The winner's team will get an action photo session where I'll take action shots of every player
with the uber-cool snazzy lighting.
I'll use those shots to make a SUPER COOL 3ft x 5ft team full-color team banner!

(We're not talking the air-brushed felt things, people! You know I wouldn't do that!)

I've already heard that lots of folks want to win this,
so my recommendation is to get together with fellow team parents and pool your money
so you can WIN this for your team!

Good luck!!

~Carey

PS: If you want something like this for your team,
check out YouthProShots.com