Capturing Moments

 

On twitter today a friend posted a link to a news article that got me thinking. The article in The Dallas Morning news talked about a Cancer victim that was trying to spend as much time with her kids as possible before she was going to pass away from Breast Cancer. You can read the story here.

The article got me thinking about the pictures I take as a photographer I’m always trying to get that perfect shot. Chase Jarvis has taught us to realize that the best camera is the one you have with you. I would add that you need to use the camera you carry.  Take lots of pictures!

Don’t stress out about everything looking perfect or being perfect. I’m talking about being out with the kids and family and perhaps you don’t have a reflector with you to get the shadows out of the subjects eyes or maybe you just did a long hike and everyone is tired and it’s hard to show everyone happy. In your head what are you going to remember? The number of times the kids asked are we there yet, Or looking at the kids all standing on top of a mountain.

 

The article reminded me to capture those moments no matter how imperfect they are. Life was not perfect for this mother but she made the best of it and took pictures and made memories as many ways as she could. I’ll try to remember that as I take make pictures in the future.

WorldWide Photowalk

WOW it’s only one week away! 

Photowalk location and time. 

City Creek Park: Corner of State Street & E North Temple (07:00pm - 09:00pm)

300 N State St, Salt Lake City, UT- USA

Last year I got to attend both WorldWide photo walks in SLC.  One was in the morning with Nicole Young( Blog|Twitter) leading us through the downtown area.  This was one of my favorite shots of her taking a picture of my daughter. 

The second walk was a Scorcher at around 5:00 out in West Jordan with little to no shade.  Rich Legg (blog|Twitter) was our walk leader for that one.  We did all we could to stay in the shade even creating our own tree’s.  :) 

This year I will be at memorial grove in Downtown SLC.  I’ve only been here a few times and never when the sun is going down like we are planning to do this year so I am really looking forward to it!  Once again Nicole will be leading the walk and I’m sure we’ll get lots of people out.  So even if the event says it’s full please come out and join us for a great time and lots of good learning about photography.  I also learned there is another photowalk going on the same time at the International Peace Gardens.  I’ve included the link below so you could also joint that walk!   Here are some links in case you have never been on a photowalk. 

WorldWide PhotoWalk 2010 Link

Video for First time Photowalkers. 

Link to the Memorial Grove  Photowalk

Link to the Peace Gardens Photowalk 

PhotoWalking Utah Site with most awesome information about Photowalking in Utah. 

My Flickr Album from last years Photowalk. 

I hope to see you out at the photowalk! 

Mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon Part 2 (Dogwood)

Ok I have been away from the blog far to long.  Work  has been keeping me away from my photo blog so  hopefully I’ll have some more time in the future.  Without further rumblings here’s the info on the next Part of Cottonwood Canyon. 

This site is called Dogwood it is really easy to get to it’s the first picnic area up the canyon on the right hand side of the road.  There is parking around the sign on the road or if you choose to pay they have parking inside the day use area.   This is run by a property management company that runs several day use area’s up big cottonwood canyon.  Most of these area’s you can walk through without paying if you indicate that you are just walking through  and you don’t use the parking area.

If your planning on doing photo’s up here or if you are going to use any of the services please check with the on site range/manager for possible fees.

There are some good spots for pictures at this location.  Right next to the sign on the road there’s a little path where you can get down to the river and get a good shot of a couple/group of people up on the bridge. 

This is where you would stand to see the bridge. 

The part I really like is towards the east of the campground its a small trail that leads to a climbing area.

Start of trail from parking lot.

On trail.

Rocky section of trail.  (Trail = 2 minutes walking)

The area is fairly open and leaves a lot of open places for portraits.  Places to sit down and have the river as your backdrop.  You may want to be careful depending on the day/time this could also have a lot of climbers.

If your interested in getting some climbing pictures this could be a good spot as well as It should be fairly easy to go around on another trail to the top of the climbing area and be able to look down. 

Overall this is a good spot here’s some pro’s and con’s. 

Con’s

Can be costly if you park inside. 

Some of the trail is quite rocky if your carrying lots of gear keep that in mind.

Can be lots of people around. 

Pro’s

Very close in the canyon.  Less than 5 minutes up the canyon.

Plenty of parking(see con about parking fee)

Lots of great spots for river pictures. 

Good spot to setup for a bridge picture. 

Very easy walking no Hiking/Climbing or experience needed.

Here’s a site you can also find some images and information about the day use campsite. 

DogWood

My flickr album that has all of these can be found here.  You can also click on any of the pictures to see them on flickr I have them mapped out in flickr so you can see the exact location. 

Mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon Post 1 (First passing lane)

This is continuing my series on mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon.  See this post for all details of this series. 

I’ll start the series off with a site without a name. The location for this is the big turn right after the power station where the first passing lane appears. This is about 2 miles up the canyon from the entrance.

If you’re heading up the canyon the turn off is on your left right before the concrete barrier and right where the passing lane starts. You can see my car in the picture to see where you would normally park. Since this can be a bumpy area for a car to pull off I typically go up the road and turn off on the right and flip around and take a right into the area to park. I find that it’s less bumpy.

From here you’ll see a path. During the fall and when there are lots of leaves on the trees this can present some nice photo opportunities. The path goes back towards the river it is wide and very accommodating no special hiking or outdoor skill here just a simple walk. It’s a very short trail and takes less than 5 minutes to walk all the way through. If you have lots of gear or you have subjects that don’t want to do much walking this is a good spot.

 

 

There are some spots to the right of the path to get right down to the bottom of the river. Word of caution during spring this is a VERY fast moving river. Please be careful around it. If you’re down here in fall or in very early spring you can easily get very close up and personal with the river without much concern.

 

 

 

 

To the left of the trail I found a nice little out cropping that has some sheer rocks and good shade. This could make for some interesting photos and it seemed like it’s in the shade even in the midday sun so you wouldn’t have to worry about too much sun on the subject.

 

 

 

 

At the end of the trail there’s a concrete outcropping on what appears to be an old bridge or some sort of walkway across the river. You have some room to position yourself here by the river and get good shots of subjects with the river as a background.

 

 

 

 

 

Back at the beginning of the trail if you don’t go down the wooded path and instead you venture under the road you can find some interesting graffiti and underpass area. Be wary of how soft the sand and rocks are here it’s easy to slip down the slope. But this could also make for some urban graffiti type shots.

Overall this is a very quick and easy trail to get to. It’s not long and it’s got plenty of good spots to shoot at. Check it out some time and see if it will work well for you.

Link to the Flcikr Album with all these photos. 

Link to my Flickr Map with these shots on it.

Link to the Utah Portrait Map Where I have Added these pictures and linked back to this post.

Mapping Big Cottonwood Canyon

Taken at F22.0/.6 Exp/ISO 100 Nikon d80

So I’ve decided that since I’m up the canyons almost every day for lunch I would start sharing them with my fellow photographers and helping them to find places to take clients for rocking photos. This will be the first in a series of blog posts on Big Cotton Wood Canyon. I will be profiling different spots I have found that would work well for photos. Here are a few ground rules.

1. I’m going in no particular order.

2. I will post locations on my Flickr Map and on the Utah Portrait Locations map.

3. The pictures I take are snapshots. I am not trying to be artistic or show you how great my photography is I am merely there to take a picture so you know where to look before you spend the time to go up there.

4. I am more than happy to give more details about any location. I spend much of my time up here during lunch hours and early in the morning don’t hesitate to ask.

5. For this first series I will focus on everything

from Moss Ledge picnic area and lower. This is what I call 15 minutes up the canyon. Basically you can get to any of these sites in no more than 15 minutes even if you’re stuck behind this guy.

6. Right now all the pictures I am taking are  during spring time. I hope to update with winter/fall shots but we’ll see how the series goes.

I’m here to help and would even be happy to scout out some locations if you need and take some snapshots. Just drop me a line and let me know.

Now that we have that out of the way what should you take when doing a shoot up here in the mountains? Sure your normal gear is going to be fine but I would suggest a few other things that might help as well.

1. Reflector/lite disc I’m sure we all have this with us for shoots. It’s equally important in the mountains. Although you would think the mountains or trees can provide some shade sometimes there will be rays of sunshine coming through the tree’s that can either help or hinder your shot. Reflectors/lite disc are good for dealing with these.

2. Towel. As they say in Hitch Hikers guide to the galaxy. Your towel is important. If you’re shooting near rivers you never know when someone or something (like your camera) might want to take a dip. Towels are also great for sitting on rocks that are not so comfortable for your subjects. A blanket can work here as well but it’s bigger doesn’t absorb water as well.

3. Lightstand / Mini stand for your flash. My Nikon Sb600’s come with little stands that I can use to stand the flash on. If you want to use off camera flash in the mountains you either need a Lightstand of some sort or some mini stand. Sandbag can work here as well but most won’t have a good way to make the flash stand up so some creativity might be needed.

4. Dress appropriately if you don’t do much hiking or working up in canyons/mountain area’s you should make sure to have a light jacket with you and some decent walking shoes. A first aid kit is not a bad idea as well if you’re planning on leaving the designated trails.

I hope you can use this information to get out and enjoy the Canyons and take some great pictures.

Look for the next post and first location in the next few days.

Pat

My Lunchroom

 

I spend most of my lunch hours up in Big Cottonwood Canyon taking pictures.  Some of my shots never turn out and some are just way to bright since it’s the middle of the day and we all know you shouldn’t do Photo’s in the middle of the day.  But many times it’s just about getting up and away from everything.  Not worrying about the stress of everything down below and just relaxing. 

This picture I took today and I haven’t edited yet.  But i liked it enough to get it up on here and will probably edit it later this weekend. 

If your in the Big Cottonwood area some time come join me for a lunch time photowalk.  There’s nothing like being up here and relaxing by the river.  :) 

Making Pictures

--This is one of the first pictures I took from Sketch to reality.  

I figured I would get this blog started off with a great comment from a great photographer and speaker.  I got to hear Scott Bourne (blog|Twitter) speak last year in SLC and it had a wonderful effect on my photography. 

He posted a wonderful blog post today which I’m going to steal a paragraph from. 

“For me, all that matters now, all that has ever mattered, all that will ever matter going forward is the picture. What someone thinks of it, how they interpret it, whether or not they think it’s real, fake, art or science – none of that is in my control. I can’t control what anyone else thinks, nor do I want to or would I try. My images are simply representative of what I personally happen to think of a given moment in time. “   --Scott Bourne Photofocus.com

AMEN!  That’s all I really want to say.  Right now as a photographer I take pictures because I want to make a beautiful image or I want to remember a moment.  I do it because I love it and I am trying to “Make” that photo that I have in my head. 

Now I’m off to go sketch a picture that I have stuck in my head.  Thanks Scott.  :)