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I babysat tonight and pulled out my camera to take some photos. After I took them, I edited them on my computer and she helped choose certain things. Making the photo black and white was her idea, and I think it worked!
I had to include this one too because he's so cute:
My mom is visiting Utah and she brought my nephew Brock over to the house. She had been cooking cinnamon rolls and dinner for us during the day, so when we got home, she was in the front yard pruning our flowers. She put Brock in this baby thing on our front lawn.
Later that night, my mom was changing him and when she lifted his legs, he released a large poop. This is reason #142 why being an uncle is better than actually having my own kid. I don't deal with poop.
I haven't posted daily photos for the weekend because I was in a cabin at Strawberry Reservoir. While I didn't have an internet connection, I took lots of photos throughout the weekend. Here are some of my favorites.
This little guy named Oliver crawled under the table and started doing this. I got as close as I could to the floor and snapped this one. I didn't realize at the time how cool the reflection on the floor would look. I hate to toot my own horn, but I could see this photo in a baby magazine.
I was going to throw this photo out because it wasn't in focus, but before I did, I converted it to black and white and loved what I saw. Even though it's out of focus, it doesn't matter that's now what you notice. I also love the composition on this one, with a tree on the right balancing Leah swinging out of the frame. I honestly didn't plan this one, but a guy gets lucky sometimes.
I must have looked really odd taking this one as I held the camera in my right hand and the rope swing in my left.
This photo was not photoshopped at all!
Zeta is one of my favorite subjects to photograph because she's beautiful and so easy to work with. She stays when she needs to!
Isn't this guy sexy?! He doesn't believe it when I tell him, but I think he's one of the hottest guys on the planet.
I had to edit this one in photoshop because the lighting was bad. The background was overexposed, so I exposed it correctly in photoshop. Then I had to correct the exposure on us. You can notice a bright line around Brian's arm; that's from not being great a photoshop. ;)
Admittedly, I didn't take this one, but I had to include this one of myself.
I love that this shot of Frodo looks like it was produced in a studio because of the white background. In this case, it was simply shot at a 1.8 f/stop.
You're probably wondering why I'm holding the camera on my shoulder. It simply acts as spot I can rest the camera body on so the photos don't turn out blurry.
Because I took photos on all three days, these pictures count as my photo of the day for the weekend.
The Student Bar Association at the law school bought a new microwave for students to use. To welcome Microwave #4, a third-year law student gave a great dedicatory speech. I only wish I had recorded it!
While we were in India teaching at a law school, a teacher bought this for me. It's hanging up in my office and always reminds me of India.
Brian took a nap in the SBA room and he found someone who wanted to cuddle with him.
After doing laundry tonight, we realized that we don't own enough hangars for all of our shirts. These are the unlucky shirts that didn't make the cut. Three shirts were from our trip to India and we're getting rid of them because they don't fit (I was about 20 pounds heavier). Most of the rest were old or dirty or ugly.
I did find out that we own 78 t-shirts (mostly from Threadless).
Shot this last night at a boxing match.
I hung out with my nieces and nephew for most of the day. Hannah started dancing and stopped mid-dance while I caught this pose. I love it because I captured a moment in the life of a carefree child.
He strikes again. I walked into the SBA room and found him like this. He pulled some of the books off of the chair in the right hand corner of the photo and started chewing the corners. We have a solution in the works to fix this behavior, but until then, he'll be closely monitored.
I started working in the Salt Lake City Prosecutor's Office through the law school's criminal clinic. This is what I wore. Tie is courtesy of a friend's visit to New York.
As always, we went to vote early in the morning.
Even though he's chewed through many, many things, I still haven't learned.
This day was different because we knew that we'd be entering water that we'd have to swim in, so we kept navigating the river to avoid those places. We weren't successful.
Around 1pm, we stopped for lunch, rested, and enjoyed the small waterfall. Up until this point, we saw less than 10 people on our hike. Our map said that after this point, we'd see more people because hikers can hike from the bottom of the Narrows to the point where this waterfall is located.
Knowing that the end was near, we started having goofy fun again--the same kind we did when we started the hike. We also tried to enjoy the spectacular scenery even more than we had the first day.
Finally, the end came and our hike was over.
Actually, it wasn't quite over. I teased Matt and Brian and said the hike from the end of the Narrows to the shuttle bus was about a mile. I was joking, but it turned out that I was correct. By this time, our feet hurt badly, looked like raisins, and were ready to be done.
We finally got to the shuttle bus which took us back to our car that we had parked the day prior. As we were getting off of the bus, the Dean of our law school (and Matt's boss) and his family were getting on the bus. This strange happenstance made Brian and I laugh, while Matt cursed at his funny luck.
Looking back, the entire hike was worth it--even the exhausting times. I'd like to hike it again knowing what I know now, but it will have to wait. I have many more new adventures to go on.
At the beginning of the year, I decided that I wanted to do something different during the summer--something adventurous. As Utah has some of the best locations for adventures, I decided to hike the Narrows at Zion National Park in June.
"The Virgin River has carved a spectacular gorge in the upper reaches of Zion Canyon: 16 miles long, up to 2000 feet deep, and at times only 20-30 feet wide. The Zion Narrows; walking in the shadow of its soaring walls, sandstone grottos, natural springs, and hanging gardens can be an unforgettable wilderness experience." (source)
I invited our friend Matt to join along in the fun. There are three ways to hike the Narrows: bottom-up (from the end of the Narrows to the middle, then back to the end), one day top-down (the entire 16 miles starting at the top and finishing in one day at a fast pace), or two-day top-down (starting at the top, but camping for one night in the middle). We chose the two-day top-down to get the full experience. We didn't want to feel rushed.
I brought along my SLR camera in a waterproof casing. I'm glad I brought it along because I got some great photos, though if I were to hike the Narrows again, I'd leave it at home and bring a point & shoot with advanced features. I was always afraid of breaking or damaging my nice camera.
We started the hike in great spirits. The three of us were excited to finally get started on our adventure.
Although we had a map, we got lost in our first hour of hiking.
We unfortunately took the long way which added about two hours on our journey. At this point, we didn't know that this delay would become a burden at the end of the day. Luckily, we found a cabin that served as a sign that we were on the right path.
After passing the cabin, we entered the water where we would stay until we finished our hike. Like a child first entering Disneyland, I was immediately awed by the scenery and started taking pictures.
For the longest time, we thought we were lost because we didn't hadn't gotten to the place where the map said we should be. I was privately worried that we had taken a wrong turn and were walking to our deaths (or at least to the middle of nowhere). It didn't help that our map said we'd reach a point in 3 hours and it took us 5 to get there. We eventually realized that we WERE on the right path.
And then we hiked. And hiked. And hiked some more. We started getting tired and fatigued.
To pass the time, we played a game I invented called, "Jurassic Park." Basically, each person quotes or re-enacts a line from the film Jurassic Park. Brian won because he literally quoted the entire movie verbatim ("God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs... Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth"). Matt got second place with his reenactment of Laura Dern limping/running with a broken ankle to get to reset the power to the park.
Then we hiked and hiked and hiked.
We finally reached a waterfall that indicated that camp was only about 2 miles away.
Brian and Matt wanted me to stop taking pictures because they felt I was slowing us down, but I didn't listen to them and was able to get this really great shot:
Notice how I don't have a backpack on? It's because my camera is leaning on a rock and I was afraid it was going to fall in the water. This picture was taken at 8:18pm, the time that we were supposed to be at camp. Yet we weren't.
Brian was extremely frustrated and started to complain. Matt stayed about 50 feet in front of us, anxious to find the campsite and rest. I was also stressed, but my coping mechanism is to sing showtunes. So that's what I did. The walls of the Narrows were serenaded with various songs from High School Musical, Grease, Miss Saigon, Rent, and Hairspray.
Because of the earlier detour and our leisurely pace, we finally got to our campsite at 10pm and after the sun had set. We had to use flashlights to find our campsite and we almost missed it were it not for me saying, "We should use our flashlights."
We made our boil in a bag dinners. The chicken and rice was actually amazing, but the lasagna was disgusting.
We went to bed that night more exhausted than I probably have been in my whole life.
I've done what I can to prevent Frodo from finding things to chew on. I usually push my chair under the desk to prevent him from jumping on the chair to the desk. He's so smart that he found a way to get onto the chair:
In the upcoming West Valley City Council and Mayoral race, I hadn't received any campaign literature and candidates haven't knocked on my door. I was truly an undecided voter before I went. But not anymore.
I went to our Meet the Candidate night to find out more about everyone. I took my camera along to disguise myself as a photographer and not an interested voter so candidates would hound me. It was interesting to see the quality of candidates in this race as opposed to other political races I've followed. They were more unpolished and not quick on their feet. I guess that is a municipal race for you.
However, I was impressed with a few. The question I asked candidates was, "Salt Lake City has a mutual commitment registry so couples can go register with the city. Do you support this?" Candidates who weren't opposed but wanted to learn more about the issue or candidates that supported this got my vote.
This is Phil Conder. He's a nice guy who I probably has my vote.
One guy I was impressed with was Kevin Fayles who is running for West Valley Mayor. He didn't hide the fact that he believes that gay couples should be recognized by the city in some way. He showed his sense of humor, which I liked because it differentiated him with all the other candidates who tried to look like politicians.
For an example, here is something that both candidates for Mayor wrote about campaign signs. One is stereotypically political candidate like, and the other shows personality.
If you know people in West Valley, let them know about Kevin Fayles!
I attended the West Valley Meet the Candidate night and found this little boy excitedly waving his flags.
As President of the Student Bar Association at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, one of my goals this year is to have a photographer at all student events. So I hired one to take photographs at our annual "Welcome Back Students!" The great thing is that he comes at a reasonable price and takes decent photos. And it's great that he's always available whenever I need him to be.
If you haven't figured it out, I've hired myself to photograph all our SBA events.
For the picnic, I decided that I wanted to play with a new lens instead of using one of mine. I went to Pictureline with the intention of renting the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM lens because I wanted to photograph people from the sidelines so they wouldn't notice me. Plus, it's the lens that I want to buy next and I thought the picnic would be a nice excuse to test drive one.
However, after I thought about it more, I decided that I should go with a wider angle lens because I might have to get group shots. I talked to a guy at Pictureline who agreed and I rented the Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM. As an L series lens (top of the line AKA expensive), I could immediately tell the difference between it and my lenses. It was solidly built and quiet. As I used it throughout the evening, I liked what it could do but I didn't fall in love with it. I'll have to try out the other one to see if true love exists there.
The entire set is here, but here are some of my favorites that I took:
This one turned out way better than I could have imagined it. A friend told me that he thought this was a stock photo.
I wasn't going to publish this one because of a distracting light that ruined the photo, but I decided that it could be saved. I'm glad I did because she looks beautiful.
Babies seem so easy to photograph because they naturally look great. This little guy has some great eyes.
The sun rays were not intentional. I found them while I was editing.
Favorite part of this photo are the eyes from the kid in the back.
He walked right up to my camera and I snapped away hoping to get one in focus.
I had to include one of my little guy.
She did not want me to take her photo, but I convinced her that I could take a good one of her. Although she didn't believe me, she relented and let me take a few. I'm glad she did because she's stunning and she should never hide from any camera.
I didn't take this photo, but I had to include one of me. I'm doing a "I'm next to a celebrity" post because the guy to my right is the Dean of the law school.
I embarrassed to admit that I only published 80 photos. For a three hour event, I should have more. I'm not that concerned because these photos were for my pleasure and I wasn't being paid. Here's what I learned:
1. The lighting was terrible because I had to deal with harsh sun and shadows. It was so bright that I wish I would have put a filter on the lens.
2. People eating food do not make good photos. Neither does the trash left on the table. I found it difficult to take pictures of groups of people without including the leftover food and empty soda cans in the shot. That's why so many photos are tight shots of faces.
3. That said, I should have asked people to take group shots. I don't have photos of a lot of students because they were either in a large group where I couldn't get an individual shot or they were sitting in the sun where the light was too bright.
4. White-balance is a must. I have a special lens cap on my other lenses that allow me to get accurate white balance. I used automatic white balance with this lens and I paid for it dearly during editing because I had to make almost every photo warmer.
5. I've got to learn how to light meter. I'm winging it and I'm not doing a very good job.
6. I'm my biggest critic. I'm not very pleased with the results of these photos. I published more photos than I wanted to because I knew people would want to see any photo of themselves-good or bad. The photos aren't bad, but they aren't the quality that I want to be known for.
The good thing is that there are many more SBA events that need a photographer. I'll be there because the only person that can fire me is the President of SBA. ;)
I left the SBA office to go downtown and came back to this scene. You'll notice my Macbook Pro power cord in three pieces. The scary part is that it was still plugged in when I found it in pieces.
New Macbook Pro power cord: $80
