Last night I had the opportunity to photograph the kids of a family for the second time. It is always a compliment to me to have repeat customers, telling me they must have enjoyed the first batch if they are back for another set!

The Madsens have a full clan of beautiful children, making my job an easy one to capture some great smiles and sharp eyes. Unfortunately this time the youngest boys were having a rough day (one had recently had his tonsils out) so we were unable to get photos of all of them, including the group photo we really wanted to capture. I’ll be coming back to hopefully get that on a second shoot.

Here’s a few more preview photos from the shoot.

I haven’t been posting for a bit because I am very close to working on a new blog design, location & format.

Last weekend I was able to get out with my family on an afternoon hike in the nearby mountains. Just above Sundance there is a very accessible hike to Stuart Falls. My wife has been wanting to get the family up for an outing for some time, and this time of year seemed the perfect time to see the falls colors. As the photo above shows, the vistas did not disappoint!

Those who know me well know that I love the outdoors, and grew up hiking the mountains of the Northwest. Unfortunately my prematurely old knees (from sports injuries) preclude me from doing any serious hiking any more. This 4 mile round trip hike was doable, though I am still paying a little bit of the price in soreness, it was well worth it.

Our kids loved the outing and are eager to repeat the trip again.

Here are a couple additional photos from my trip up Alpine Loop for some family photography

And a large panoramic view (click through to get a much larger version – free for personal use)

So if you have followed my photo stream at all, you might say I’m an opportunist when it comes to macro photography. This is especially true of insect photography.  I don’t spend time seeking them out, but when they come to me, I jump on the chance.

This last week a rather large spider got itself caught in our tub. My lovely wife called me in to take care of it, but was less than enthused when I said I wanted to keep it in there to take a photo.  He was rather spry, and I figured I’d let him simmer down so he’d hold still for a photo. I thought the white porcelain of the tub would make for a great white background and reflect a single strobe light well.

A week later I finally got around to taking the photos a week later. I know, terrible husband; even more tolerant wife!

Anyway, I shot several angles but liked this one best.  He was still pretty spry, so the scene was a fun one with me jumping around the tub chasing him while he chased me.  To add to the fun scene, my brother is holding the speedlight off to the site, our kids are pushing themselves around us to get a better view, and our wives are back across the room talking about how nuts the whole thing is. Good times!

Here’s a close crop of another shot in the series:

So lesson is, if you ever find a spider you want a good setting, the tub works pretty well

Canon 100mm macro lens on a 5D Mark II, hand held with strobe tethered off camera right. Click through to see the full size image for some fun details in the hair and eyes.

This weekend I had a wonderful overnight trip that included driving through the Alpine Loop in the mountains near where we live.  We stopped off the side of the road to admire the colors starting to turn in this beautiful landscape.

I’ve always enjoyed living near mountains and majestic scenery that both inspires and refreshes me whenever I needed it.  My wife calls it taking a “mental health break” when I take off for a drive or simply walk around with my camera in hand. I think that says it well.

It seems my friend Don Osmond was experiencing a similar mental health refreshment in recent weeks as he talks about in his Mormon Times blog post.

Of course throughout my trip this weekend I took many photos, I’ll try to share a few on my Flickr account over the next bit.  I did take a panoramic shot of this same scene shown above.  You can click the photo below to get the full resolution version if you’d like to use or print it (free for personal use):

This panoramic is 5 photos taken portrait orientation, stitched together using Autopano.  The advantage of stitching 5-21 megapixel images together is this photo can be printed at a high quality resolution up to 7 feet wide. Enjoy!

Today has been for me one of reflection and somber thought, as I am sure it has been for many.  I am not one to do much publicly in remembrance of such tragedies, but I remembered my a short outing I took to see “Ground Zero” when I was on a trip to New York. I looked through the photos and thought I would share this today.

I was on a business trip with a fairly tight schedule, so I was only able to take a few hours to jump on the subway and make the visit.  I had brought my camera but really ended up taking very few photos, instead spending much of my time looking and thinking, imagining, wondering…

I don’t think this image needs much explanation as many were aware of how this cross came to be and was left for much of the clean up.

You may notice a slight darkening of in the photo in a grid pattern because I was shooting through the chain link fence.

Another photo from the reception yesterday. I hope you enjoy these as I work through processing and sharing some of them.

On a side note, I absolutely loved having the high ISO capability of the Canon 5D Mark II for this kind of event.  Receptions always have dim lighting yet I like to avoid using a flash as much as possible.

I had the wonderful opportunity to not only attend but also photograph the wedding of my cousin Stefanie and her now hubby Jon. They are a beautiful couple that showed their love in their shinning, happy smiles throughout the day.

I am going to process the many, many photos I took over the next bit, but I figured I’d post a few teasers to as I go.

Location: Union Station, Ogden, Utah.
Canon 5D Mark II, 70-200L 2.8, 1/30 at f/2.8 & 1600 ISO

I’ve been going through some photos from earlier this year that I overlooked in my processing flow. This photo is from an outing I was invited on with Rich Legg and Ann Torrence, two local photogs that do so much for our local community.

We hiked Timpanogos Cave to scope out the potential for a later photowalk with Photowalking Utah, as well as getting a shot potentially needed for Ann’s Highway 89 book project.

On a short break I told Rich & Ann to pose for a quick snapshot. I like how this casual shot turned out, reminding me the power of what great friends mean in our lives.

There is something so relaxing about being by a river, and especially at dusk. Capturing scenes like this remind me why I like to get out into the great outdoors – piece, tranquility and to get away from it all. Gotta love it.

This photo was taken while stealing a moment away from the festivities at our church “Father & Daughter” camp out.  The “Father & Sons” camp out has been a long standing tradition in most places I have lived, but seldom has the daughter version been an annual event.  Our church started doing the camp out annually a few years ago, and I know my daughters get excited about it every year.

I composed this photo at a low angle using a wide angle, 17-40L Canon lens borrowed from a friend.  I really would like to get a wider lens to have in my bag as my previous wide options were sold along with my 40D because they were EF-S lenses that no longer worked on my full frame camera.  I’d really like the 16-35L, but that is one expensive lens I need to save up my pennies for!

Canon 5D Mkii, 17-40L, f/8, 1/250, ISO 400

I originally titled this “Do You Mind” but I liked Jeff McGrath’s reference in a Flickr comment to Finding Nemo with the “Mine, mine, mine” reference.

Friday morning on our vacation in California, I spent part of the morning at the Huntington Beach Pier capturing photos of surfers. It was fun to get out early and watch the process and tried to get some good action photos.  I have some of those to post later.

While waiting for a new set of waves I looked up the pier and noticed this gull further up the pier getting a drink from the fish cleaning station. Since I had my Sigma 50-500 on board, I was able to swing the camera around and frame this close up shot from a distance. I liked the personality he seemed to be conveying.

Of note, this lens is not all that fast at f/6.3 at full zoom, but with that 500mm at work it does compress the image into a nice shallow DOF.