Temple Trip

Dacia decided she wanted to go hike to a waterfall a little while back. Never being one to turn down a hike i was more than happy to go along. First, however, Dacia wanted to swing by Temple Square to get a particular picture of the temple. So i went a picked up Topher and Grace (because they and Alysia wanted to go hiking too) and met Dacia (and later Alysia) at Temple Square.

The flowers were all VERY nice!

No, not nice like that, although i'm sure that, if they could, they (the flowers) would only have had the nicest things to say.

Now, you all know that i've never been one to prefer posting less pictures than more. And normally i would LOVE to post ALL of these photos of Ellie, but hey, i didn't want to make my own kids jealous. So i opted for a little collage instead. But it should still be very obvious that Ellie is SUPER cute! i just loved all her little expressions.

And here are some more flower pictures from Temple Square...




Little Grace-asaurus wore her self out, but she was super cute too!

I think this is the closest i got to the picture that Dacia was looking for with the temple framed behind the tree blossoms. Unfortunately, i think the recent rains and storms may have made most of the tree blossoms fall off - doh. But it was still pretty anyway.

Well, we took so long taking pictures at the temple that no one was up for hiking anymore afterwards. Well, that and apparently they were all going down to Capital Reef for the weekend - yes, without me! But i guess i had to work anyways... I was going to the Real soccer game later that night and still had some time to kill so i decided to go "hiking" by myself.

Yeah, it wasn't really a "hike". This is Hidden Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The trailhead is located at the upper parking lot at the 'S' Curve in Big Cottonwood. And it's maybe a 100 yard walk, if that. The only "obstacle" is crossing the stream to get better views.

With it being partly cloudy it was the perfect light for longer waterfall shots. It actually is really pretty back there. You can actually walk all the way up to the base of the falls but your feet will get wet, so plan on that.

This is how i crossed the stream, on the fallen log. It doesn't look that bad, but once you're up there and carrying all of your camera gear, it's a little tricky! Go figure on the way back i realized i could walk across the smaller log below the bigger log just as easily - MORE easily. Maybe next time, but it's much more exciting to go across the BIG log!

Las Vegas: Macro Fun

I mentioned i got a new lens before leaving for Vegas, it's a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro and is generally regarded as the best Canon lens under $600. It's a prime lens (that means it uses "sneaker zoom" - which means your sneakers do the zooming). But prime lenses also produce much sharper images. Anyway, i'm not much of a macro shooter, i prefer lanscapes and portraits - but once you get a macro lens you'll find yourself wanting to take a picture of everything (especially small things) simply because you can! It's fun. Anyway, i do hope to incorporate it into my portrait shooting but until then i'll have a little fun too. Maybe i'll make it a regular feature, "guess what i took a picture of"? The last two are obvious, but can you guess the first two? They're the same thing, but from different perspectives, the photos were taken in Vegas in Emily's backyard...
At f/2.8 it's not super fast, but as you can see, the depth of field (the part of the picture that's in focus) is razor thin sometimes. In this particular image, the sharp part of image is only about a quarter of an inch wide! Obviously you have to be careful or you'll only get a very small part of your image in focus.


In this image you can see how the depth of field brings only certain parts of the flower into sharp focus, but i still think it looks cool. To decrease your depth of field use a larger aperture (the smaller f-stop numbers), to increase the depth of field (you want everything in focus), use smaller apertures (the bigger f-stop numbers). Keep in mind that using a smaller aperture lets less light in and requires more time and thus usually a tripod.

Summer Mountain Biking

Shortly before leaving for Williamsburg (i know, that was over two weeks ago), i decided i wanted to get a last mountain bike ride in before leaving. But by the time i got whatever done i needed to get done that day (actually, i probably didn't get anything done; it's more likely i just messed around all morning) it was already late into the afternoon and sweltering hot in the Salt Lake Valley. Something was going on that evening, and if i wanted to go riding i needed to go now, but where?

Enter Solitude Mountain Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon. Although you have to drive up the canyon a ways, the cooler temperatures are definitely worth the extra 15 minutes you have to drive. And not only was i rewarded with much more pleasant temperatures, but a blanket of wildflowers as well!

While the resort does offer lift-served hiking and biking, i didn't see enough trails to justify the cost of the lift pass. Besides, i got more exercise biking up anyway. But it was a great ride that i'll definitely revisit to escape hot afternoons in the valley. Plus, they had frisbee golf up there too! I need to go check that out as well.

Overall, a great 6 mile bike ride!

Fast forward to this past weekend (i know, i know, you still want me to rewind to the Grand Canyon and even Williamsburg, and i will, but these are short easy posts)... On Friday Jared, my bro-in-law, Bill, my biking buddy, and i went out to Deer Valley in Park City. Deer Valley is one of Utah's premier ski resorts in the winter, and it definitely lives up to its rep in the summer as well. Bill and i typically try to get out here at least once every summer for our birthday presents to eachother. But i definitely need to get out there again before the end of the summer, what a blast!
Here i am cruising down from the top of the Sterling Express Lift to the trail hub in the Meadow. If you watch closely you might see me catch a little air. Well, actually you won't, Jared was standing in the wrong place, but i did get some air i tell ya!

Here's Bill rocketing through some Aspens on Deer Camp.

Here's Jared on Deer Camp. Although this was Jared's first lift-served downhilling experience he wasn't near as entertaining as Topher, another bro-in-law, last year. Granted, Topher may have been so "entertaining" last year that he opted out this year. BTW, if you don't know, the real entertainment from these rides comes from spectacular wipe-outs. But you can see all the Aspens, they get pretty close to the trail and Jared did show me one wound that came from getting a little too close to one of those trees. And don't get me wrong, he was still real entertaining, he was the only one gutsy enough to try a lot of the freestyle features. more on that later.

Here i am cutting a turn one of my favorite trails, Deer Crest. Man that trail is FUN!

Although Bill and I have been moutain biking for MUCH longer than Jared (over 15 years vs. maybe 5 for Jared), Jared, as usuall, put us to shame. I'm ashamed to admit in all my years of riding at Deer Valley i've never bothered trying any of their freestyle features. i just figured they'd be too hard-core or something. But Jared got us all excited to try a few of them out, and they were actually pretty fun!
Here's Jared's first attempt on the Teeter-Totter.

Although he does end up making it on his first attempt, as you can see, it almost got REALLY entertaining at the end - almost.
Here's Jared's second attempt (his third attempt was basically the same as the second)...

Jared's fourth and fifth attempts were succesful (although he almost got bounced off on the fourth), but i think you get the point. And besides, don't you want to see me try? No? Well too bad, it's my blog.

I think i would've made the first attempt if my bike hadn't decided all by itself to shift gears at the last second - go figure i had perfectly tuned it the night before, but nooo, get it on the trail and it all goes to pot!
Here's my second attempt:

Right after the Teeter-Totter was a little raised platform with a narrow entrance. I, uh, have really fat tires, and couldn't get up the narrow entrance, but i told Jared i'd tape him doing it. Of course, he hadn't actually seen it yet...

Naturally, he made his second attempt, although he did almost endo coming off the drop at the end (he hadn't seen that either...).

And here's Jared catching some air off another freestyle feature on on Homeward Bound. Bill got some air here too, but my camera didn't quite catch him in the air, doh!

But here i am getting some air off the jump too...

I know it doesn't look very big, but it was really HUGE! ... or something.

Overall, we biked over 26 miles - granted, most of it was downhill (and by most, i mean 99%). But what a blast! And downhill or not, by the end of the day, we were all beat! We were at Deer valley from about 11am when we got on the first left until about 6:30pm when we got back to the car (after two flats, three if you count the one Bill had when we first got there), but go figure our actual riding time was under three hours. Don't ask me how that works out.

Amanda Bridals

A couple of weeks ago i got out and shot Amanda's Bridal photos.

We started fairly early at the International Peace Gardens in Salt Lake City.

It was actually the first time i had been there while the flowers were actually in bloom, last time i went everything was dead - i guess it was winter.

Please check out the complete photo shoot here: http://alanjphoto.com/danielamandab/dandab.html. No, i'm serious - please check it out. I really need some honest feedback on these photos.

One of my top priorities has always been to make sure the bride is happy with her pictures, and i got the impression she may not have been too happy with her bridals. i wanted to get some input from everyone else on whether as a bride-to-be you'd be happy with these bridals if you had paid $400 for the complete package (engagements, bridals, wedding and reception). Please feel free to be honest.

I think there may have been a couple of other factors that influenced the pictures that day... That morning i know she forgot her flowers and earrings, but those are things i don't have any control over. Later that evening i got the impression she may not have been feeling well and asked if she wanted to reschedule, but she wanted to continue. Again, out of my control - and i almost feel i can't be responsible for those factors. What do you think?

Overall i thought the pictures turned out great, but then i looked back through them again and now i don't know. i'm too biased either way - either too critical or not critical enough.











After the International Peace Gardens we took a break and agreed to meet later on and drive down to American Fork Canyon for the final shoot. Amanda had actually debated between AF Canyon and the Great Salt Lake for sunset. Unfortunately, at the time of the discussion the skies were clear and i indicated that the sunset would probably not be that spectacular - yeah, i was wrong.

We ended up wrapping up right before it started pouring rain. And on the drive back to SLC the sunset was just awesome! Doh!

I really love these falls (you may have seen them before here and here), but it's kinda funny because while we were shooting, someone had setup their campsite right here - tents and everything. It was actually kind of a pain keeping all their stuff out of the photos all of the time.




Anyway, please let me know what you think. i had indicated that if she wanted another shoot that she'd have to give these pictures back and not use them. Obviously though, if i get enough negative feedback i'll just do another shoot. I naturally want all of my clients to be happy, but at the same time i don't want to be taken advantage of. While it may sound bad, there's a reason some of my packages are $400, $500 and more and there's a reason that they're NOT $3,000 (i wish).