Hayden Peak in Spring

Hayden Peak is in the Uinta Mountains in northern Utah. The Uintas are one of the only east-to-west mountain ranges in the Western Hemisphere and is one of the largest primitive wilderness areas within the United States. We are lucky to have such beautiful country so close to home.

We took a family trip up there today and schedules permitted me to hang around Hayden Peak for sunset. This is a shot I’ve had on my “to photograph” list for some time so I was happy for the chance.

My first couple of compositions were not too pleasing but I settled with my third composition. All framed the peak with the pines as you see here but I tried different angles, finally settling on this one. I wish there had been more dramatic skies but you work with what you have, I guess. I do like the frozen lake toward the bottom of the frame, though. The blue water coming through the ice is pretty neat. Oh, and I had to break out the trusty hyperfocal distance table to get the focus just right.

Black-Eyed Susan

I was digging through my old photos when I ran across a shot I took in 2005. I had completely forgotten about this photo and it really struck me as probably one of my strongest photos. I haven’t the foggiest idea why I let this one slip through the cracks but it happened. It goes to show you the importance of not deleting your photos (storage is really quite cheap) and the fact that your opinion of a photo can change over time.

The photo was taken at the Memorial Grove Park in Salt Lake City, Utah. I had stopped by there to shoot flowers after returning from a photo trip up Little Cottonwood Canyon. The skies were overcast and I hadn’t really tried to shoot flowers before so I gave it a shot. I remember what struck me about these flowers was their bright yellow petals and the purple flowers providing ground cover underneath them.

Peeking Sunflower

My wife loves photos of sunflowers so I had been looking for a sunflower as a subject for quite some time before I shot this. I haven’t shot flowers much, mainly because I haven’t been inspired by them as a subject, but I wanted to get at least one good sunflower photo. I had gone out looking for sunflowers specifically on many occasions but up to this point had not shot anything that I liked. My shots never seemed to have that “yes, that’s the one” type of quality so I kept looking.

Well, one day my family had gone to a local farm to get pumpkins. As we were getting set to leave I noticed a sunflower patch and wandered over there. The sunflowers were huge and the leaves were nice and green (not the faded yellow of so many others I’d seen). Couple nice flowers with a bright, blue sky and I figured I had a decent opportunity for a pleasing photo. The only problem was that it was very windy so the flowers were swaying quite a bit. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a try.

There wasn’t room to setup a tripod without trampling the farmer’s sunflowers so I had to hand-hold the camera. I held the camera with one hand and the sunflower with the other in an attempt to reduce the swaying from the wind. I took several differently framed shots and settled on this one. I like the mix of deep blue, green, and yellow within the frame. I also like that the flower isn’t centered, causing the sky to be visible to the right. It gives the shot an open feel to it.

Spring Storm in Boise, Idaho

Here are the photos, mostly panoramics, from my shooting session in Boise, Idaho. As mentioned previously, a rain storm provided some wonderfully dramatic skies to go along with a setting sun over the city of Boise. I headed up to Camel’s Back Park to get a vantage point overlooking the city and spent some time shooting panoramics.

Click on images for larger versions, though the panos can be printed huge. The web doesn’t portray the detail in the shots.

The above photograph was created by merging nine photos together to form a huge panoramic. It was very tough to get my tripod level and to get everything lined up to get this shot to work out but I am glad that I made the effort. It’s my favorite shot from the series and captures the storm front as it moved in over Boise.

The above photograph is a merging of seven photos that have been stitched together using Photoshop. It captures the storm as it continues to pass over Boise and the rainbow adds a wonderful touch of color to the shot.

The above photograph consists of five photos stitched together to create a panoramic image. It was taken much later in the evening than the previous two, thus providing excellent lighting in the clouds as the sun set below the horizon.

This shot was taken looking the opposite direction (west) from downtown Boise and shows the trail along the ridge of Camel’s Back Park. I stopped down to f/16 in order to get the sun rays but probably should have stopped down to f/22 to get more detail in the sun and not have it be so overwhelming in the photograph.

Spring Shooting in Boise, Idaho

I just returned from a business trip to Boise, Idaho and I packed my camera along for the trip. I sure was glad I did because, as I was eating dinner one of the nights, I noticed a nice storm rolling in that might allow for dramatic skies and great lighting during the sunset. I jumped in the car and headed to a spot I had “scouted” on Google Earth called Camel’s Back Park. I was looking for a good panoramic of the downtown area and this looked like it might hold promise.

As I pulled up and saw the hill within the park I got pretty excited. It would allow me an unobstructed view of downtown from a location that was not too close and not too far away, thus allowing for good panoramic-friendly focal lengths.

I hiked up the hill and spent the rest of the evening there shooting panos as the weather changed. I eventually got pounded with wind and rain but I stuck it out and was rewarded with some very dramatic skies over downtown Boise and a well-lit sunset. The most difficult thing with the outing was having to deal with the wind. The wind was strong enough to jostle my camera just enough that some of the shots had to be redone due to camera shake. I used a caribiner to attach my backpack to the underside of my tripod but that didn’t completely remove shake, which was occurring higher up the tripod as my camera was buffeted by wind.

I’m processing the photos now and am quite happy with how they turned out. I’ll be posting them within the next few days. No matter what, though, standing on a hill with a glorious landscape, dramatic skies, beautiful lighting, wind, rainbows and rain was very nice. It is always great to get out and shoot!