Running Away is FUN!!!!!

I love a good trip to the desert, especially when someone else is driving, and paying the gas (The Scout Troop in this instance) and the guy driving is a photographer who is more than willing to sit and take photos in no particular rush.

I was asked to be the guide for our scout troop, for some camping and hiking during their spring break. Seeing as I have been down to the Goblin Valley area a lot and I tend to try to instigate trips there whenever I can I guess it was only natural that I lead when nobody else associated with the troop has been there in years... or ever!

I am simply going to throw the photos out here in roughly chronological order, with a few comments, mainly because I like them too much to cull them, and... well... I'm lazy!

After going down early to establish a campsite, my buddy and I headed over to Dang Canyon to check-out the feasibility of reversing the usual loop. I was unable to get all the way up to the scrambly bits by myself, and I had already gone farther than he had. Just a little bummed, we started to head back down the canyon focusing more on photography than getting anywhere in a hurry.

In these first few shots, it was a little more overcast. The texture of this tree branch benefited from that, I think it would have washed out in direct sunlight. AS you will be able to see by the titles, I was seeing textures everywhere!

This was a minor obstacle compared with other visits where there was several feet of water to contend with that extended 40 feet down canyon from the rock, necessitating a certain amount of athleticism to not get wet. The roughness of the rock and the patterns (may I say, texture?) always fascinate me.

I loved the sky, but the blue was kinda funky, I was thinking B&W when I shot these, so that is what I converted it to, and I liked it!

I really struggled to find a composition that I liked, despite the fact I LOVED this little channel carved into the rock, my traveling buddy spotted it and I loved that he spotted it!

This is/was a very complicated composition, I kind of think I failed to really capture the essence of the scene, but I got what interested me, which was the shadows on the rock in the foreground. I again converted to B&W because I was looking at textures and I see textures in B&W.

Really wanted this one to look good in B&W but it just didn't have the contrast in the right places. Liked the green of the newly leafed Cottonwood Trees, and the star effect of the aperture too.

Ancient ripples in the sand, turned to rock, and cracked somehow with a spidery intrusion of a slightly harder rock was startling but hard to photograph. Think I did OK though, at least enough to make it a wallpaper on my computer. That is something right?

Sigh, dead skeletal trees, they just make my heart go pitter pat. The clouds mimicking the tree makes the shot, but those twisted gnarled trees just make me happy in a visual feast kind of way.

On the exit route back to the trailhead I saw this nice view of the entry to Ding Canyon, it looks benign enough but hides a truly fun and athletic jaunt through the heart of the sandstone.

The conversion of the sky from solid overcast to partly cloudy made me happy, very, very, happy. I have never had this light with clouds from this vantage point before. David Muench I'm not, but I like it.

The evening light made me happy to be driving behind the reef, I haven't been down that road in a long time, and the view of Temple Mountain is rather nice.

I had to lift the shadow in the foreground quite a bit, but I think I kept it from being too gaudy.

The scouts arrived after dark and were greeted by this sunrise the next morning. It was a blast to see the boys faces as they saw where they were camped.

The foreground rock was a favorite of mine to stand on and survey the sunrise and set light.

Having visited Little Wild Horse and Bells Canyon multiple times I took a few snaps of the boys and some video and called it good. I did take this shot I liked in Bells Canyon. I learned something on this trip about why there are so many dang jets flying overhead. There is a navigational landmark nearby that helps  the jets steer, so that is why I seem to always have contrails in my photos there.

Nice clouds but nothing super special in Goblin Valley photographically, but it was a blast for the boys!

Sunset light on Wild Horse Mesa from our campsite, it was a really really nice one that we likely will use again.

I have been dying to try some astrophotography for awhile. Finally a clear enough night to give it a shot. Tripod, pumped up ISO, 30 Sec exposures. Fisheye lens, lots of fun!

I think I like this one the best, the airplane trails are cool, not so fond of the flare from my headlamp on the bottom left....

Playing with Lasers can be a heckuva good time. Wrote a message to my wife!

My more usual long exposure star trail, moon was rising so it wasn't as dark as I like. Still liked the shot though.

I took this while still in my sleeping bag, just used the tripod I left up from the star trail right outside. That is living I tell ya!

Handheld pictures of the fire, .3 seconds seemed to work about right.

My new most favorite place Wildhorse Window, a.k.a. The Eye of Sinbad, which I like more, sounds cooler!!!! Getting the sky and the inside of the cave is really hard, fortunately I am marginally skilled with HDR and bracketing saved the day. I just love the texture of the inside of this thing. Would really like to find a way to get part of the Milky Way across the "Eye" on a dark dark night.

Take two, almost like the color here better than the first one.

I so totally WANT to rappel from the top of this thing. Just need to get a couple LONG ropes and loop it over the top. Need to find a friend with ropes......

Thanks for sticking along till the end!

Any Sunrise is a Perfect Sunrise!

Need I say more? Different route to TRAX, around the lake, freaking AMAZING sunrise! Not a lot of massaging, some maybe crooked, not too worried about that!

Enjoy!

Conceptual musings...

I have had a hankering to get a photograph that shows the valley spread out with the mountains in the background, I'm just not sure where to take it from. Most of the places that are semi easy to get to are too low, the ones that are high enough I don't want to spend the whole night there.... What to do.. What to do....

Saturday Morning Downtown Salt Lake City.

Dedicated photo time is a rare and beautiful thing in my busy life. As it turned out I got lucky Saturday and got some time behind the viewfinder. I had to take my car in for some warranty service, expecting it to take 20-30 minutes I really didn't think about taking any camera stuff along until I was running out the door and grabbed my older camera body with the lens that was on it. My 200mm f2.5 prime lens. This is not what I usually would take with me for a walkabout. The field of view is narrow, it only focuses down to 5 feet and you have to be careful with the light because you can get some pretty bad Chromatic Aberration at the larger apertures. But it is what I had, and ya dance with who ya brung.

This was right across from the dealership, a warm up shot as it were. There is a different discipline to shooting manual focus, especially with a prime. You have to try to "See" the focal length you are shooting. This is hard with a telephoto lens, your eye doesn't see that way naturally.

I almost deleted this one, I wasn't enamored of the depth of focus, I shot at f4 of 5.6 when I should have been at f11...ish... I kept it because it conveys the cluttery setting of that part of State Street. It is a street of contrasts, parts are very nice and almost ritzy and others are, um, less so.

This is purely about texture, shot from across the street, if I had my 24mm on, this shot would not have been anywhere near the same no matter how close I got.

I'm not sure why these windows were filled in, I would love to have seen the building when they were there.

I have wanted to shoot this painted wall for YEARS! The juxtaposition of the differing ages and styles of buildings was icing on the cake.

The further I walked, the more I saw that "fit" the lens. It is different to see in telephoto, when your eye naturally sees in wider angle. This is why I like to shoot primes, it forces me to look more closely. And the more closely I looked the more I saw. The little bits and pieces that together make the stuff around us, isolated and beautiful in their isolation.

On a Saturday? REALLY? Don't want anybody washing my windows on a Sat. A.M. when I am sitting around in my jammies...

This shot is why I LOVE the rendering of this lens, viewed full size, it is crisp and the textures of the statue just look... 3D. There is just something special, this focal length, and distance to subject.

I almost never take photos with people in them, but I couldn't resist. Something about his contemplative pose and the reflection tugged at me.

Again, details, details, Isolating small parts of the whole, allowing you to see the world in a new way. The symbolism of the carving on the outside of the Salt Lake Temple is always fun to look at. They took their time and paid attention to their craftsmanship.

Nothing special here, except my first flowers of spring. YAY!!!!!

Two shots stitched together, it is my wallpaper at this moment. For some reason it looks cockeyed but I swear it is straight.

Just down from Temple Square is the old ZCMI building, it is some other gosh awful big box retailers home now, but shall remain ZCMI. I have fond memories of the gingerbread houses on display every year at Christmas as a teenaged Choir Boy performing at Temple Square, then wandering downtown, singing Spike Jones inspired versions of Christmas Carols in fabulous harmony.

Need to take a tele on walkabout more often.

Full Moon on the Rise!

Just for fun, I tried to shoot a moonrise, I realized I needed to shoot earlier in the cycle, because when the mountains are dark and the moon is bright, it is just impossible to get both.

This was before the moon came up, Lone Peak illuminated by the glow of lights in the valley.

This was a long enough exposure to get some light on the mountain, but with a LOT of moon movement.

This captured the moon OK, with quite high ISO due to the light loss from the clouds, but left the mountain dark.

Better luck next time I guess.

Downtown after work!

I made a trip to the State Capitol Gift shop to drop off some cards, turns out that the store is closed and I never heard about it! Grumble whine.

To make up for my disappointment I figured some camera therapy was in order. The clouds obliged, and I got not a spectacular shot but just a fun one. No perspective correction etc... just sharpen and adjust the color.

I had a slightly different color balance here still trying to decide which I like better.

This turned out to be one of those moments where you just see a situation and grab a quick shot, not expecting much and when you get home and play with it, you get blown away. This was a 3 shot bracket, and walk away to catch the train deal. My first rough processing looked good and has had 60+ likes on Facebook in a very short period, so I went back this morning to try to optimize the shot for sharpness so I could print it at 16x24. That shot is the one below. I took the RAW files, and processed them in ACR to TIFF files, mostly for WB correction and sharpening.

I then imported the three files into Photomatix, selected a pre-set that got me the closest to what I wanted then continued to tweak it until it looked right. Saving that file I opened it in Photoshop and adjusted the curves, levels, brightness and contrast. Then I upsized it so it could be printed larger, partially corrected the perspective, watermarked it and then saved it.

I'm excited to see it in print!

Long Time No Posting....

Yeah, I have been busy, so what? ;-) Life has a way of giving and taking, sometimes it gives me time to go play but not time to blog. Sometimes I have time for neither, or for both. All you can do is the important task in front of you and fill in the cracks with a little fun as you go along.

Like last weekend, I decided to take my camera for a walk. Put my 24mm on and went around the lake by my house. The clouds were cool and it was nice to walk. Who needs more than that?

I have a thing for perspective, disappearing lines etc... This was the shot I intended to take as I left.

This was serendipity! I have shot this sculpture before, but it has been too long!

I REALLY liked this one, it also got some rave reviews on FB.

Sometimes my photography is limited to what I can shoot with whatever I brought while waiting for the train in the morning. This is why I will never do a Photo-A-Day project. It will be lots of sunrises and the badge reader for the light rail.... Pretty sure these were with my 200mm lens.

Ha! Sunset!