Boot Camp Graduation

Images © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

While I was in San Diego last month for the U.S. Open Championship (won by Tiger Woods), I decided to attend a graduation ceremony.

Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) is know among Marines everywhere as Boot Camp. This second week of June at MCRD San Diego, 330 young men of Golf Company officially graduated from eleven weeks of training under the close unyielding eyes of their DIs or drill instructors, known by their campaign hats, unofficially called Smokey the Bears (top photo).

Family and friends make up the majority of the crowd. But there are always a contingent of former-Marines (myself included) in attendence; we're never called ex-Marines because "Once a Marine, always a Marine. The former Marines come to get a taste of the brotherhood they've long since left, but which will always leave its indelible mark.

The graduating Marines march past the crowds in the grandstands before they're dismissed and reunited with their families and loved ones. They'll receive ten days of leave before they report to their next duty station. Most of these Marines will go on to serve in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I too marched for countless hours of close order drill on this parade deck, or grinder, over eleven weeks that felt like eleven months. In August 1986, I, like many before me and many after me, marched down the grinder one last time and earned the title, United States Marine.

Semper Fidelis.

US Open Golf - Torrey Pines

Images © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

I spent Tuesday at the US Open practice round with my camera. I am now a big fan of the practice rounds at major tournaments. I got very close to both Tiger and Phil Mickelson, both of whom came out to practice on the Torrey Pines Course, San Diego.

Happy Memorial Day

Photo: That's me in the lower right corner of an AAV-7, an amphibious assault vehicle.

Image © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

Wishing everyone a great Memorial Day Weekend. Recall that this is a time of remembrance to honor those who sacrifice to serve the greater good; not just a long weekend to get away or BBQ. I ran into some sailors in uniform last night at my local bar; they were in NYC for Fleet Week. Chatting with them, their professionalism, commitment, and patriotism was evident. The couldn't have been older than 25 - the same age as me in the photo above.

Anyway, the bumper sticker flag lapel pin jingoism that passes as patriotism today may be cheeseball and easily scoffed at. But as someone who has led young men into combat, the true virtues of sacrifice, commitment, morality, integrity, and service to the greater good continues in those who go into harm's way for us.

As Admiral Nimitz said of the Marines on Iwo Jima, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." The same is true today, bumper sticker or not.

Fleet Week in New York

Images © Copyright 2008 Michael Seto

Good morning. Yesterday, May 21st kicked off Fleet Week in New York City. Five US Navy warships, including the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) cruised stately up the Hudson River in a parade of ships that included US Coast Guard and Canadian Royal Navy vessels. A flight of four F-18 Hornets buzzed overhead as well.

I took up a position on the Hudson Riverwalk and shot some pics using my Nikon 70-200 VR lens, arguably one of their best zooms ever made. I tacked on a 1.4x teleconverter to give me a bit more reach, a equivalent of a 420mm lens at the long end. With the aperture stopped down to f5.6 (from f4) I got some sharp images, above. I used a Nikon D2x at ISO 100 giving me a shutter speed of 1/500th.

I posted a few photos on flickr and immediately had a news blog ask for usage of the photos. News at light speed.

Last night I ran into a couple of sailors at my local bar, Thom's, and chatted for a few minutes. They were from the USS Monterey, CG 61. I told them I was a former Marine (we're never ex-Marines) and we talked about life aboard ship. Whenever I see a Marine in uniform, I always buy them a drink. Sorry Navy, close but no cigar.

Organic Food Shoot

This past week I was hired by Kopali Organics to take basic photos of their products as well as shoot some more styled magazine type images showing their snack items and raw materials.

With the basic product shots, one wants to focus on high key, good visibility on all items, labels, product, etc. This is not the time for fancy lighting or shallow depth of field.

The styled shots followed the standard food mag approach, tight, shallow focus, dappled light, shadows to reveal texture - and the two photos above what we came up with. I'm not showing the product photos since they're not quite as dynamic - a shot of a plastic bag.

Fortunately, all their food items were raw or dried or chocolate covered...mmmm...chocolate. This makes managing the food a lot easier than trying to partially cook a burger so it looks finished but does not dry out. Or the shoot where someone put brown shoe polish on a frozen turkey to give it that "just out of the oven" look.

Eddie Adams Workshop

Thank goodness, I finally sent in my Eddie Adam's Workshop application. The workshop is a three-day intensive for aspiring photojournalists, set up by Pulitzer Prize winning PJ, Eddie Adams - you know the photo of a South Vietnamese Army Colonel shooting a VC prisoner in the head. It's meant as a springboard and intensive immersion course in photojournalism, something I find myself drawn to more and more.

The hardest part was editing and submitting up to 20 photos. Choosing one's best work to show is extremely difficult, just as in writing. It took me two weeks to weed myself down to sixteen images. You can see my submissions at:

http://www.michaelseto.com/Proofs/EddieAdams/

And once submitted, there's no turning back. So if they suck...oh well.

I've been super busy otherwise, shooting some products for a small organic food company, my on-going work for City Harvest, and some jewelry photos. I hope to dig myself out from under all the post-processing required over the weekend.

Torrey Pines Here I Come

Well, a nice little package arrived today from the USGA - my pair of tickets to the U.S. Open. I'll be staying with a close friend, Joanna, who lives like 10 minutes from the course. I plan to bring all my photo gear and shoot the practice days - not quite an accredited US Open photog just yet - but I'm hoping to meet and chat with a couple of the SI guys through a friend's intro.

Anyway, I'll be out in San Jose seeing the folks then down to San Diego for the entire week. I'm bringing my clubs as well; man cannot live by watching golf alone after all.

Let me know if you're going to be out there.