Restrained|| Canon40D/EF28-135@90 | 1/250s | f11 | ISO400 | Handheld

First place! I’m a member of the Wasatch Camera Club and we meet in downtown Salt Lake City once or twice a month.  We also have competitions every couple of months and this past Thursday was one. I submitted this picture and took first place in the advanced open division. I’ll upload the other pictures I submitted also over the next few days (even though they didn’t place).

This image was taken in the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park at Fisherman’s Wharf. They had some very neat old ships that were mostly closed by the time we got there so we didn’t pay the fare to get on (the one remaining open ship). I found this chain very interesting. Particularly I liked the lighting, the texture, and how the webs are intermingled with these strong chains.

Post processing done in lightroom (black and white/vignetting) and photoshop to remove a disctracting string and light spot. Original here, scroll down to Advanced category, and you can also see some of the other winners of the night.

Pyramids || Canon10D/Tokina12-24@12 | 1/125s | f11 | ISO100 | Tripod

This was the first place we came after getting off the airplane, I was amazed at how close it was to Cairo, how the city surrounds the pyramids and how close our hotel was to them.

I learned a lesson about circular polarizing filters and wide angle lenses in this shot. The one I had doesn’t work so well the wider you go, if you go wide (12mm here) it provides some rather deep dark vignetting (the unnatural blue here). If you’re interested, here’s some good info about polarizers.

Update: Ok, ok… so I can’t believe that I double posted an image already. I’ll try to better about that

Football || Canon40D/EF28-135@50 | 1/100s | f4.5 | ISO1600 | Handheld

First let me state that I am a BYU fan. Some may say that I’m not a true fan because I enjoy watching Utah on occasion and even cheer them on (as I will be doing so for the Sugar bowl). But, recently Coach Whittingham did something that I thought was very classy. At Elder Wirthlin’s funeral, they said that the team would be wearing his initials on their helmet. Last saturday they invited the family up to practice for the unveiling of the helmets with the initials. I was invited but told “I was not to wear blue”. I had a great time taking pictures of the team at practice and am particularly pleased with this one.

Post processing done in Lightroom.

I was asked recently to do some Christmas family photos by my brother Tim and I like the way they turned out. For anyone who has tried to take a family photo with a little girl who wants nothing to do with sitting (let alone smiling) mad props to you. My daughter and one of her stuffed animals were critical in keeping her attention and happy.

If you’d like to see more of their photos they can be found in the new gallery section of my site (specifically the family and kids sections).

Light Painting || Canon 40D/Tokina12-24@14 | 30s | f8 | ISO100 | Tripod

This is from my trip to New Jersey. One of our stops was at Duke Farms. We were told that we were going to go walk the grounds at sunset and do some photography at the old hay barn . In my mind I was picturing an old wooden barn, this was nothing of the sort. The ruins were the stone remaining from the fire, and is now used to house several marble statues. We stayed quite late, experimenting with light painting. This one was done using a flashlight, a red gel, and a blue gel.

For those unaware of what light painting is, the idea is to leave the exposure open for a long time, and then paint with various lights what you’d like to show up in the photograph. So in this case, this is a white marble statue, painted with red and blue light.

Ankh at Philae || Canon10D/Tokina 12-24@12 | f4 | 1/180s | ISO100 | Handheld

One of the stops in Egypt was the temple complex of Philae. This complex was flooded frequently when a dam was constructed, and in order to preserve it, the entire temple complex was moved piece by piece over the course of three years (1977-1980) to an island at a higher altitude where it rests today.

I used a graduated neutral density filter horizontally to provide the shading on the front column.

Wolf Cub on a rainy day || Canon EOS 40D/EF70-200mm f/4L USM | 1/400 | f/4 | ISO 1600 | Handheld

The weather was pretty miserable here, I had my camera wrapped in a shower cap with rubber bands holding it to the edge of the lens, hoping that they really had made the 40D to handle wet weather. Every time I look at this image, it takes me to that point in time, feeling wet, cold, and I imagine this wolf cub had a similar thought “Why am I out here, I should be trying to find cover!”.

Shot at the Lakota Wolf Preserver in New Jersey.

Pyramids || Canon10D/Tokina12-24@12mm | 1/125s | f11 | ISO100 | Tripod

As mentioned earlier in my blog, I had the chance to go to Egypt, and I think the next series will be from that trip.  This was the first day, shortly after we landed. I was experimenting with my new wide angle lens and my polarization filter, this is an example of what happens when you use a polarization filter on a wide angle lens and shoot wide , very deep dark in one corner. Not the best of lighting conditions for photographs, but they were simply incredible.

Eensy Weensy || Canon40D/EF100 Macro | 1/250s | f5.6 | Handheld

Earlier this month, Lisa was fortuitous enough to run into a black widow and captured it to show the kids (very brave). I thought it would be a fun one to post for halloween today. While this one was taken with my macro lens (yes she had already passed on), I wasn’t THAT close.  I cropped and sharpened so that the detail would come out.

Happy halloween!

Schwabacher’s Landing || Canon EOS 40D/12-24mm | 1/8 | f/11 | ISO 100 | Tripod

One of the things you learn quickly as a photographer, is that if you want good pictures, you don’t get to sleep.  This one was taken at Schwabacher’s Landing and it involved waking up when it was still very dark, stumbling over Lisa trying not to wake her and the kids (although just the act of getting up and letting the air mattress bounce around was much like a 7.0 earthquake), driving 30 minutes and moving quickly along the trail repeating I should have gotten up 15 minutes earlier the whole time.

But, once there, I was really able to appreciate the beauty of the location and the peace of the morning.  There’s a neat trail to walk along at this boat pullout location. I loved how clear the water was, and how the smog wasn’t as visible.