Featured on Hostess with the Mostess!

I had the pleasure of photographing a beautiful party for my friend Lindsay of Banner Boutique and my photos of her party are being featured on the Hostess with the Mostess!!

We're Famous!

I was sought out by the talented Kristie Stuckel of Bella's Bowtique to take photos of some of her new hair accessories. Avery and I have been featured on the Bella's Bowtique blog, as well as her Etsy shop. Check it out!

Male Bonding

I'm very fortunate to work at a company that gives paid time off to fathers when they have a new baby. I was able to take Trent down to Tucson to spend a little time with my mom on a Friday. We went to the Tucson zoo for a few hours. The weather was great and we had a lot of fun.




Here's one of Trent recently at the dinner table. When he doesn't get an early nap, you can never tell when sleep will strike...


This is probably one of those photos that can be pulled out when he's a teenager and his female friends come over. I'm sure we'll archive this one for just the right moment.

Over the past year, I've been working with Jake Johnson, another local photographer, to take action photos of kids playing various sports. We've got a deal with the city for all city-sponsored sports. We've done flag football, soccer and basketball. Right now is spring soccer and tackle football season. I've spent about half a day over each of the past four Saturdays taking pictures.



I think baseball is next, then another basketball season, then we start over again. It's been fun, and a little extra money on the side makes it worthwhile.

Assistant Photographer

I recently had the opportunity to assist a real photographer on a photo shoot. He is a friend of ours from church and he was taking photos of a jazz pianist for Desert Living Magazine. It was a very interesting experience which I hope to be able to have again. I basically gave my input on set up, posing, and lighting, held the reflector, and helped with various equipment. Ok...so I was more of a hindrance than a help with the equipment. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not very mechanically minded (that's why I have my assistant, Kris, handle all that kind of stuff). Here is the link to see the final product. It's on page 46.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/city/dl0508/

Road Trip - Temple Photos Commentary

For the rest of our trip we spent our time photographing all the temples in Utah (except Vernal), with one final stop in Las Vegas. With the exception of St. George and Vegas, it was very cold and we got caught out in the snow several times. But over all, we were fortunate to have pretty good picture taking conditions. FYI - Kris took about 99% of the temple photos...with my input, of course. I'm so bossy like that.

We had tried to plan our trip for early spring so all the flowers and trees would be in full bloom, but with all the cold weather, the flora thought it was still winter. We did get a few flowers, but the trees were pretty much bare. We'll probably try to go back next spring.

We spent the last night of our trip in Vegas, and since Kris had never been there before, we did a self-guided walking tour of the strip. We are both big fans of the Ocean's 11 movies, so a highlight for us was the Bellagio. We walked around on the casino floors and got some nocciola (hazelnut) gelato, which was awesome. We hung out on a balcony over looking the pool area...it was beautiful. It must be nice to actually be able to stay at a place like that. Topping off the experience was the fountain show out in front of the hotel. We liked it so much, we stayed for the next one.

On our way out of Vegas we made a brief stop at Hoover Dam. The drive home seemed very long, and it was great to get back home to the Trent.

Road Trip - Natural Bridges and Arches

The next leg of our journey brought us to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah. Neither of us had ever been there before so we were looking forward to seeing something new. The park basically consists of a canyon where water has eroded holes in the sandstone, creating three rare natural bridges. We enjoyed the small visitors center where we were able to learn all about the geological forces that shaped the area. Even though it was still extremely cold and windy, we decided to take a six mile hike down the canyon, passing under two of the bridges along the way. It was a really nice hike along the river and the temperature was actually pleasant since the canyon blocked the wind.


This is Sipapu bridge. In this picture, I think it looks like the shoulders and neck of a giant dinosaur.

The trail down the canyon here was the steepest in the park and we had to go down a couple of wooden ladders. I thought this was a pretty extrodinary feat until I saw the pictures of the hike that Kathi Griffith's family took this week. Those ladders kicked our ladder's butt's!



We also took pictures of interesting things we saw along the way.




The second bridge was called Kachina Bridge and it was much more massive. It is considered the youngest of the three because of the thickness of it's span. While we were there we encountered a professor and his class. He told us all about the pictographs on the side of the canyon there. They were pretty faint and located high up on the wall of the canyon, so we might have missed them if he hadn't been there to point them out. He asked us if we noticed anything unusul about the drawings. After examining them for a moment, we noticed what seemed to be the picture of a dinosaur. He went on to explain that such primitive drawings have been found in many places throughout the world, and that he doubted the current theory that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted. I don't know about that...


Next we made our way to Moab and Arches National Park. There we hiked to Delicate Arch, made famous on Utah's license plate. I had never done that hike before and I really liked it, but I was definitely glad we didn't have Trent with us. A lot of the trail was bare slickrock sloping shaply down into the canyons. The Arch was awesome - a lot larger than I had envisioned. There were about a dozen photographers there to photograph it that evening, along with a couple who got engaged. The guy got down on one knee under the arch at sunset and proposed. Everyone cheered and clapped when she said yes. It was so cute!


The next morning we drove to Double Arch and the Windows.



Next on the agenda - temple pictures!

Road Trip - Monument Valley

This post is the first of many from our road trip. We took over 1000 pictures over the 10 day period, so it's going to take awhile for us to go through them all. Consider this a small taste of what's to come!


Kris and I embarked on our little trip last week while Trent stayed home with my mom. The main purpose of the trip was to take pictures of as many temples as possible (we are going to offer them on my photography website) but we also visited a few National Parks and Monuments.

The first place we stopped was Monument Valley. It's located on a reservation right on the border of Arizona and Utah. Most of you probably recognize it from the opening scene of the second Mission Impossible movie where the guy is rock climbing without ropes on an impossibly high precipice.

The first thing we noticed about the area - besides the stunning natural beauty - was the cold weather and bone chilling wind. We had come totally unprepared since weather.com had predicted temperatures in the 60's. Have any of you ever camped in 24 degree weather? Well we did! Kris braved it out in the tent, but I sought refuge in the car. I was actually pretty comfortable temperature-wise, but a reclined passenger seat is not the most comfortable place to sleep.

We woke up before dawn and that's when Kris took this awesome photo. It really is an impressive sight. We drove around all morning and the whole valley is pretty amazing.

Report on Alaska

Jessica told me that I should post some photos from Alaska since I recently returned from a trip up there for work. I actually didn't take a camera with me the last time up (2/18 - 3/5) since everything is all very white at this time of year and starts to all look the same after a while. It's also very miserable to even go outside for any period of time and not too conducive to taking pictures.

I will go ahead and put up a few photos from the previous time I was up there (July/August 2007).

One of the cool things about going to Alaska in the middle of the summer is that it's light outside until late at night and you can still see all of the amazing landscapes and wildlife until at least 10 p.m. no problem. I went out driving almost every day after work - probably put a couple thousand miles on my rental during that 2 week period.

The picture below is of the fireweed flower. Very common up there. With this picture, I was also lucky enough to get a shot of the state bird perched on the leaf directly below the flower (I didn't find the mosquitos to be nearly as bad as people said they would be). This one was on a hike that I took to Gulkana glacier.


This next one is a self portrait on Matanuska glacier. Not an easy thing to do when all you have is a telephoto lens, by the way. The time I spent hiking around this glacier was probably one of the best outdoor experiences that I've ever had. After signing a waiver, you are free to roam around and explore wherever you want to go - the mouth of the glacier is 4 miles wide, so there is plenty of room to venture. During the summer, the ice on top melts and carves streams over the surface of the glacier. The "landscape" changes every day depending on how warm it gets and how much melts off. Absolutely phenomenal process.


On the way back to Delta Junction from Matanuska, I stopped off on the side of the road and took this shot. Not sure what glacier it is, but the view was incredible. This is pretty typical of the drive between Glennallen and Anchorage on the Glenn Highway.


I got bored one Sunday afternoon and decided to drive to Canada. I'd never been to the Yukon before, and I can honestly say that I will probably never go again.


One Saturday we weren't assigned to work, so I took a jaunt down to Valdez. It's not a very exciting town in itself, but the last 60 miles of highway before arriving there are amazing. I was exploring a bit and saw this guy in Valdez bay just hanging out. The salmon had just spawned and there were dead fish everywhere. I'll spare you those photos.


On the way back from Valdez, I stopped on the side of the road and took a picture of this dormant volcano in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Never heard of it? Neither had I - but the park is the size of New Hampshire and Vermont combined.


I lost track of how many moose I saw as I was driving around the state. This was the biggest one that I saw, and the one that I could get closest to.


This bird was dive bombing me for no apparent reason. Seriously.


This one is from another previous trip to Alaska. I drove up to the Arctic Circle just to say I'd been there, and to take a picture. Very long, fairly scenic, 120 miles of dirt road, probably wouldn't do it again. The Dalton Highway may or may not be one of the roads that it states you are not supposed to travel on when you sign your rental agreement (I can neither confirm nor deny that I went on that road on the way to the Arctic Circle...).


Anyway, I've got lots more photos if you're interested. Alaska has been a fun experience - this last time up was trip number five for me. If you ever go to the inland areas on vacation, I've got some good suggestions for you.

Pima Air Museum

A few weeks ago, we went to the Pima Air Museum in Tucson. We met Kris' mom there since we hadn't seen her in a while, and it is pretty close to where she lives.

The museum is pretty amazing - they have several hundred planes that you can look at up close. Several are in hangars and others are outdoors. They had planes ranging from the World War II era all the way up to ones that are still used today. The history was pretty interesting, and a lot of the docents had flown missions on some of the planes that were in the museum.

Trent had a great time wandering around and exploring all of the airplanes they had on site.



In the photo below, we were coming off of the Air Force One that was used by John F. Kennedy. Somewhat "sub-luxury" by today's standards (it reminded me of my mom's camp trailer), but probably pretty nice for that time (as I'm sure the camp trailer was too).



Kris is hoping that these are the first signs of Trent's career goal of becoming a mechanical engineer. We'll see...


Kris used the museum visit as an opportunity to take some pictures - something he hasn't been able to do in quite a while. The rest are some of the shots he took - his way of "exploring" the museum.







We would definitely recommend going if you are ever in the area. It's certainly worth the visit.

New Toys

No, not for Trent. These toys are for me! I got some new stuff for photoshop so I just had to try it out on the favorite photo from my recent senior shoot. There are a lot of other things I want to get too, and then I'm going to start offering embellished portraits and some cool collages to my clients.