The Station fire is huge: 30,000+ acres at the time of writing. Yet, unlike many of the most recent wildfires in Southern California, access is extremely difficult, both for emergency personnel and media alike. Roads, when existent, are hardly big enough for a single car, let alone a fire engine and two-way traffic, making ground access to the fire line nearly impossible and a possible escape dangerous, at best.

I covered a southern line of the fire, moving through Tujunga Canyon towards a neighborhood near Sunland. Hot shots spent all morning clearing debris from the hillside, but luckily the winds were low and air support was strong enough to keep the fire from reaching the hilltop residences.

On a side note, I stumbled upon a visit by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger while I was at the command post looking for an up-to-date map.

View more photos of the Station fire here.

In the park, they staged another rally, albiet to a lower scale. The light was poor and there wasn’t as much emotion in the protesters, so at this point, most of the media left.

I was waiting around in the crowd when I heard some screaming and saw two police officers carrying away a protester, so I immediately ran over and grabbed photos of the arrest.

The crowd in the park followed and encircled the officers, chanting “Let her go!” As the officers disappeared through a police line, a scuffle broke out and a second protester was taken down. The police moved their line down the street in attempt to contain the now outraged crowd, but they left an opening at a crosswalk. Noticing the opening, protesters poured into the street and headed out on a second, completely impromptu march.

The marchers headed back down Market Street towards the Castro District, snaking through different side streets to further throw off the police.

By the time they reached the intersection of Castro and Market, they had effectively lost most of the police, and so they staged a sit-in at the intersection now famous for Harvey Milk’s gay rights movements.

After a little while, everyone stood up and began marching all the way back to Union Square. However, a few blocks later, a truck blasting music and heading in the opposite direction turned the march around. The marchers ended back at the intersection of Market and Castro, and proceeded to take over the streets in the form of a massive dance party.

Crazy.

More photos of the Prop 8 march, arrests, and rallies here.

The crowd in front of the Supreme Court was lively just before 10 am, demonstrating their support and desire for marriage equality.

Once 10 am hit, there was no general announcement from the court: just a slow trickle of the news through the crowd, after which people shouted out in anger and sadness.

The Prop 8 protesters then marched around San Francisco’s City Hall and formed a circle in the intersection of Grove and Van Ness, blocking traffic from all directions.

After about an hour and a half, San Francisco police began arresting those still practicing civil disobedience.

View more photos from the Prop 8 decision, rally, and subsequent arrests here.

Another rally starts up at 5:30. I’ll update with more photos after.

The Trojans defied all stats and odds by never letting up their lead and holding the powerhouse Bruins to 27% from the field. Here are some photos from the game:

DeMar DeRozan with a massive dunk in the first half.

Alfred Aboya celebrates a three-pointer in the first half

Jrue Holiday, Taj Gibson, Nikola Dragovic fight for a rebound in the second half.

Darren Collison commits an offensive foul on Marcus Simmons in the second half.

Marcus Simmons, DeMar DeRozan, and Nikola Dragovic fight for a rebound in the second half.

Dwight Lewis and DeMar DeRozan celebrate DeRozan’s dunk in the second half.

Taj Gibson celebrates a three-pointer in the second half.

The UCLA bench sits dejected during a free throw late in the second half.

The Trojans face the Arizona State Sun Devils this afternoon in the Pac-10 Championships.

See more photos from the USC–UCLA game.

See the photos from the Washington–Arizona State game.

UPDATE: Defying all odds, the USC Trojans managed to rally back from a nearly-all-game deficit to defeat Arizona State and win the Pac-10 Championship. See photos from the championship game here.

Because of the weather forecasting a severe storm, the coach and my editor both offered to reschedule, and most photographers probably would have done so. However, I figured shooting them in the rain would actually make more interesting pictures, so I stuck with the challenge and I think it worked out for the better (see all the photos here).

The three players I was shooting, Arjan Ligtenberg, Ryan Cummins, and Jovan Vranes, were surprisingly reluctant to stand out in the rain, and they surely weren’t willing to go into the pool. But after a couple of minutes and seeing the photos, they began to have fun with it.

Technical Notes:

To highlight water, or in this case, falling rain, you have to use sidelighting. So, I set up two flashes as rimlights behind the players both to light the rain and to create more dramatic highlighting that would outline the players. For my main light I had wanted to shoot through an umbrella to soften the light, but the high winds forced me to use direct light instead.

As for waterproofing the flashes and my wireless transmitters, I simply rubber-banded clear Ziplock bags over the tops of them. They’re still flashing, so I suppose the makeshift rain covers were effective.

Being in the middle of doing laundry and eating an afternoon snack, I threw on some shorts, put down my hot pocket, and headed out the door with my cameras to find this scene.

Somehow a white car was making a U-Turn, causing the truck to swerve out of the way and roll over onto and off of a brand-new parked Cadillac. Luckily no one was hurt.

Despite the influence and setbacks by war, Vietnam has moved forward—rapidly. Seen in the entrepreneurial spirit of its small businesses and even the intrepidity of its pedestrians crossing effortlessly through the sea of motorbikes during rush hour, resilience and tenacity thrive in Vietnam.

I had the opportunity to welcome the first two weeks of 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

In the picture below, a family of three, possibly four, people cross the Long Bien Bridge into downtown Hanoi. The bridge was originally built by Gustave Eiffel in 1903 (the same architect who built the Eiffel Tower in France and the Statue of Liberty in the United States) and most of the bridge withstood heavy bombardment during the Vietnam-American War in the 60’s and 70’s. To this day, the bridge serves as a symbol of Vietnam’s resilience throughout history. —I was told you can still find bullet holes from the war. I tried looking myself, but I must have been riding too fast on the motorbike to see them.

Note: The picture was actually a “Hail Mary” shot of sorts. The camera was hanging behind me as I was on the back of a friend’s motorbike, and I just hit the shutter as we passed by someone or as someone approached us from behind.

Below, a family of three heads out into the heavy traffic of Ho Chi Minh City on New Year’s Eve. I’ve found from first-hand experience that driving a motorbike through Vietnamese traffic by one’s self is extremely daunting and tiring; I have no idea how they do it as a family of three.

On New Year’s Day, some friends and I rented two motorbikes (only $5 each!) and drove about 50km south of Saigon to the rural district of Can Gio. After a police chase, a ferry crossing, four downpours, and a bike accident, we finally decided to pull over to a roadside stand for directions. Here, we met a comical group of Vietnamese returning from a so-called “Monkey Island” less than 2km down the road. Unfortunately, by this time the park had closed, so we decided to turn around; fortunately, one of them, visiting from Australia, helped us translate from English and Mandarin to Vietnamese for directions back to Saigon.

I suppose life in Saigon can get pretty tiring: a silk shop owner/tailor takes a nap between customers on the notoriously slow-for-business New Year’s Eve.

Anywhere you look, someone’s out to make a living. Below, a few Vietnamese turn a street corner into a shoe repair shop.

It’s always interesting to see the products we consume everyday being created at the source. From the raw cotton thread, above, to the shorts destined for Target stores worldwide, below…

…and of course, the hand-crafted pottery possibly residing in your grandmother’s living room.

Often, people overlook Vietnam as a place to explore, instead opting for Thailand or China. While I’m not arguing against either, Vietnam’s history, people, natural beauty (above and top), and tenacity make it a destination I’d be more than willing to return to.

The moon above the Los Angeles skyline as depicted above is not actually how the scene appeared. In reality the moon rose about 30 degrees to the right of the skyline. I didn’t have enough time in L.A.’s evening commute to relocate to a new location where the buildings and moon would converge, so I figured I would rediscover an old trick I learned back in the film days.

The photo above is actually a multiple exposure, in which two sequential frames are overlapped in the camera. The illusion was created without Photoshop; in fact the deceiving technique has been around long before the existence of Photoshop. Back when I was using my old manual film camera, I would take a picture, press the film release button, and cock the shutter without actually advancing the film. This would allow me to take two (or more) pictures on a single frame.

NOTE: because the photo has been manipulated (despite the use of Photoshop), I would never consider the image for journalistic publication.

Here’s another try from a different angle.

Here are two of the test pictures, one of the moon only and the other of the skyline only. The photo of the moon was taken with a 300mm f/2.8 + 1.4x extender. The photo of the skyline was taken with a 70-200 f/2.8.

I drove down to Orange County to cover the fires and personally found them to be far worse and more threatening than the Santiago Fire in Orange County last year.

I’ve posted a few images from tonight in a gallery, but I’ll show two here:

— Orange County Fire Authority firefighters keep an eye on approaching flames from a home near the Black Gold golf course in Yorba Linda.

— A red moon rises over a fire burning on the Black Gold golf course in Yorba Linda.

I wish the firefighters, police, and homeowners involved safety and luck.

Perhaps it was challenging locals at the Temple of Heaven to games of xiangqi (Chinese chess)…

Of course there was feasting with Chinese government–yes, Communist–officials…

Maybe it was chatting with the engineers who manufacture the world’s PS3s, iPhones, and Wiis…

It could have been living in an apartment only to find a family of strangers sleeping over one night…

Or perhaps it was 18 hours on a train with seven of us squeezed into a row of hard seats designed for five…

All I know is that with a little bit of curiosity and open-mindedness, I felt right at home.

Here are some snapshots from my summer in China:

Art lessons in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.

Gardening in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.

Skinning living frogs for dinner in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

Basketball and ice cream on a hot Saturday in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

More pictures to come…

See the full gallery here.