Early calls aren’t my thing. I suppose that’s just one of many reasons I enjoy working for a lot of cycling clients. They don’t like to get up before sunrise either. Most of the work we end up doing together happens at completely reasonable times of the day. Despite my disdain for early calls, every year in mid April I get myself out of bed by 3 a.m. and get on the road an hour later. What follows is a 6 hour drive through California’s Central Coast and a mid to late morning arrival at the Laguna Seca motorway, home of the Sea Otter Classic (or as I heard it called recently, the Ocean Weasel Open). I love Sea Otter. It’s only my third year going, but I plan to keep going year after year. It’s one of the few events where you get both Road Cycling and Mountain Biking disciplines in the same venue. Thus, I get the opportunity to shoot both disciplines which is great for me since I have an equal love for both. Additionally I have a lot of friends in the bike industry and its a great opportunity to see folks from across the country who I don’t cross paths with often enough. This year I’ve limited myself to working for only a couple clients who I’ve worked with before. Both are awesome clients who have athletes completing in various events and both are a dream to work for. They respect and appreciate my creative style and my work flow and I get the opportunity to propose new ideas and concepts to consistently open minds. While I don’t stack tons of cash up after events like this, I’m still pretty blessed to get to work for the clients I do and the format of the event offers me the opportunity to reach new potential clients.

The most difficult task of the weekend though is prepping before I leave. San Jose or San Francisco are still a few hours from my destination so if I’ve forgotten something it’s not an easy task to just roll to a camera shop and get what I need. Additionally since the event is only 4 days it doesn’t make sense to have something shipped in. Basically I have to make sure I have all my S*&t together or else. And this year I have the added task of doing some “Studio” and On-Location work for one of my clients. While hauling studio lights and power up the coast might seem like a chore not worth the pay, I relish it. It’s just another opportunity to show folks how much we love a challenge. I’m excited, but then again I’m usually pretty excited about everything… hence the overuse of exclamation marks in tweets and FB posts.

Here’s a quick sampling of the field equipment that is going with me (Nikon stuff, lots of Nikon stuff)…

And here’s what the back of the car looks like so far… (2 bikes, studio case, moto helmet, sandbags…)

The plan is to drive up PCH this year.  I’ve never been past Cambria on the 1 and I’d like to see the sights.  Even though this is a Tuesday’s only blog, I’ll probably post some pics of the trip up if it proves to be even kind of nice.

Keep up the Awesome!

-Corey