2011 in Photos

It's been a busy year.  Between school, work and everything else, I haven't shot nearly as much as I have in the past.  Here are my favorite photos:

In May Mushna and I took a vacation to Moab.







In June I took some 2 year old photos of my Nephew Rylan for my sister.  He wasn't having it at all, but I did manage to get a couple of good shots:





Soon after that, I ended up doing some photos for my cousin Blaise.  He wasn't happy to get his photos taken either, but he did get a little more cooperative:









My friend Dave asked me to send him a few photos for him:





In August, Mushna and I visited San Francisco and did a Photowalk with one of my Flickr friends, Deborah:





We also saw Alcatraz:







The Golden Gate Bridge:





This fall we visited the Alpine Loop and Cascade Springs.  I used this trip to practice some natural light portraiture:







On a very cold overcast morning, I shot the Christmas card photos for my sister's veterinary office, The Riverwoods Pet Hospital:





In September, my Grandpa was honored before the BYU vs Utah football game for his military service.  He fired the cannon to start the game:



And finally, a few weeks ago I shot my sister's Christmas Card photos:



Probably the best photo this year was this one:



It was chosen as one of the top 5 photos in the Flickr group for Alien Skin and as a result, I won their photo bundle of software.  Pretty exciting stuff.

I guess my new years resolution is to get out and shoot more next year.  I have been so busy I didn't even realize how little I've shot this year.  Mushna gave me a B+W 110 Neutral Density filter so I'm definitely looking at getting into more landscape photography.  For some examples of what this filter is capable of, look through this Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/nd110-filter-group/

BYU vs Utah Football Game

My Grandpa was honored at the BYU vs Utah game this year. For anyone outside of Utah, this is a huge rivalry and one of, if not the, biggest game of the year. Before the game, they gave a brief overview of my Grandpa's military career and honors, then he fired the cannon to start the game. I tried to get them to let me down on the field so I could get some good pictures, but no one would work with me, so I did what I could from the seats. I found a good spot, threw my 70-200 f/2.8L IS in front of my 2x teleconverter and shot from where I was, which unfortunately turned out to be the other side of the stadium. Here are the pictures of my Grandpa on the field firing the cannon, and a few shots from the game itself. This is my Grandma and Grandpa down on the field during the opening festivities.



They were put up on the big jumbo screens in the stadium with my Grandpa's name and everything.

Here he is firing the cannon:

A few shots from the game:

You can view the set here.

Riverwoods Animal Hospital Christmas Card Photos

My sister works at the Riverwoods Animal Hospital and contacted me about shooting photos for their Christmas card. We agreed to shoot the photos last Saturday morning. The weather was cold, overcast and it had been raining the entire night before. I wanted to warm the photos up and give some kind of indication of a magic hour light, so I set up the shot very similarly to what I did when I shot my sister's family pictures last year. One flash was off to camera right, gelled with a cut of full CTO gel, zoomed out to 105 mm and fired at full power. The other flash, I had sitting behind the umbrella for a fill light on the people's faces. It was camera left, angled so the most direct light from the umbrella would hit the opposite side of the group the strongest, and the fall off would light the group evenly as it moved from that strong side back to the left.

The fill from the umbrella really brought out the areas under the eyes and around the cheeks of the people in the group. It was pretty obvious in shots I took before my light had recycled how much of an improvement it was making.

Here are the shots.




Finally, the owner of the pet hospital wanted a quick portrait of her with her dogs. I pulled the light with the umbrella around to camera right and let the CTO's flash stay pointed at the background. I had to lower my umbrella light because the brim of her hat was causing a lot of shadow on her face. Here's the shot:

Moab, 2011

We headed down to Moab for a three day weekend a little while ago. I posted the pictures recently, but haven't thought about blogging the trip until now.

We drove down early in the morning on Friday and got checked into our bed and breakfast. After stopping buy, we went straight into Arches where we spent the day hiking to the more accessible arches. All in all, I believe we hiked about four and a half miles in total Friday.

Our first hike took us to three different arches...

Turret Arch:



And the North/South Windows:





Sharing the same parking lot was the trailhead for Double Arch. Double Arch was cool because you were able to climb right up inside it. We spent a good 45 minutes or so just hanging out inside the arch.



Afterward, we went to Sand Dune Arch. This was probably my favorite hike of the trip because it takes you right through these giant fins:



The trail was as sandy as any beach. Tucked away inside was Sand Dune Arch:



Our next step was Skyline Arch. The arch sits pretty high on the rock, so I thought this might be an bit more interesting perspective:



Our final hike of the day was to Landscape Arch. To get there, you take the Devil's Garden Trail. There were two other arches on this trail, but the lighting didn't provide very good photos. Here are a couple views from the trail:





When we finally made it to Landscape Arch, the sun was directly behind it. Definitely not good shooting conditions. I took what I could get and wasn't really planning to keep any of them, but when I converted this shot to B&W, I think it actually turned out pretty interesting:



After that, we headed into Moab and ate at the famous Zax pizza where we got all you can eat pizza. It was pretty good.

The next morning we woke up and hit the trail to Delicate Arch. I had planned on hiking Delicate Arch late Friday night, but not really knowing the trail, I didn't want to be hiking out of there at night. They say evening is the best time to get photos of the arch, and they're right. The sun will be setting right behind you. We got up there fairly early in the afternoon, but I think the photo turned out okay.



I actually really liked how it converted to B&W, too:



Later that evening we did a sunset river cruise on the Colorado. We piled into a boat and a guide took us out and gave us a little tour of the area. I actually did learn quite a bit, like the location of another arch, some Petroglyphs and a bit about the area, too. The guide was really funny, too, so it was a very enjoyable experience.

Sunset+Red rock+Water=Amazing Photos:





On our last day, we just hung out at the park and took some pictures right off the side of the road of stuff we had ignored the previous days.

The Three Gossips:



Balanced Rock:



The Organ:



Finally, on our way home, we drove the hour or so out of our way to see Dead Horse Point:



In the end, it was a really great trip. Despite having been to Moab many times before, I definitely saw more of the park than I remember ever seeing before. Mushna is starting to get to the point that she really enjoys hiking, too, which made the trip much more enjoyable for both of us. We plan to make our trips to Moab an annual thing. Next time I go, I plan to try to plan some of these hikes for optimal lighting for photos.

I posted most of the photos here, but there are a few others you can view on my Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoeyez99/sets/72157626789781538/