New York City - Central Park

A new adventure, a chance to meet new people, see new places, take some awesome photos, and re-discover myself.  Here's the plan:

New York City this weekend, staying with my older sister Jasmine, traveling with my sister-in-law Annie, lots and lots of walking, a little bit of shopping, and a chance to feel the energy of a new city.  It is, after all, a little bit different than Salt Lake!

This evening, I leave for Ireland, where I'll travel around with Annie (luckily she's been there before) and see Dublin, Galway, and some other places I've never heard of.  But I've seen P.S. I Love You, so I know it will be absolutely beautiful!  (In case any clarification was needed, I'm talking about the countryside, not the men.)

After Ireland, I say goodbye to Annie and meet Thomas in London for a couple days, then on to Madrid for a week and Holland for a few days and an incredible wedding.  What a month we have planned!  You will not be able to reach me via phone over the next few weeks, but feel free to email. And I'll be back home at the end of May.

Here's part I from my trip - Central Park and the New York Skyline.  Well, not really the skyline, but some part of it - tall buildings and the sky.  Does that count?

I walked by the bridge several times and I just loved the way the light hit it this afternoon.  I took a nap on the other side - if you look really closely, there are some giant rocks.  Actually quite comfortable!  What I've thought was most interesting about New York, though, is how I can sit and have hundreds of people around me and still feel alone.  Because people are always around, everyone's developed a way of going about their lives anyway.  Street music, families playing, couples practicing martial arts, people napping, walking, jogging, sitting...  And yet it's as if I was there as an audience member, not part of the play.  There is such an amazing energy when that many people come together, but everyone has their own story, their own purpose to their day.  Fascinating.

One of my favorite movies is "Elf," and I discovered that his advice is true "Careful! The yellow ones don't stop!" ^

And the view from the park at night.  If I could take awesome night shots like this all day, I would be very happy (hrmmm... that doesn't make much sense, does it?)

So thank you New York for a new perspective and a new experience.  And for taking care of my sister, glad I got to see Jasmine too.

Los Angeles Adventure

  It's hard to find words to describe what a cool experiences this day was.  So for now, I'll let the photos do the talking.

 

 

You can purchase these files from istockphoto here: http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/12256112

Leavin' on a jet plane...

  Well, the last couple weeks have been INSANE.  I'm getting everything ready for my trip to Europe (I leave in 1 hour and I'm STILL not done packing!)  This trip is for a wedding in Holland, but I'm headed to New York City, Ireland, London, and Spain first.  So excited for this opportunity.  I have a huge backlog of photoshoots to post about, so I'll try to get caught up on those as I travel as well as give you some updates on my trip, but for now I wanted to check in now, say adios, and we'll see you in June!

San Diego Skyline

 

I spent the afternoon of Day 2 in San Diego at  a beach, sitting, sleeping, and writing things in the sand.  Oh, how I would love to be on the beach right now!  Jealous seemed like the correct word to write :)  I first tried writing them with my toe, but the water kept beating me to it and washing the words away.  So I walked and walked and walked looking for a big stick.  And I couldn't find one anywhere!  Then Justin suggested a lightstand - turns out camera equipment has multiple purposes!

  

It was perfect :)

 

And the working part of the day - corporate photos.  Jeremy's business partner, Nate, flew in that morning so he could join us for photoshoot #2.  Nate has spent the last year or so traveling around the country - a couple weeks here, a couple weeks there (California, Colorado, Utah, Florida and a few other places) and has finally settled back in San Diego with a permanent address.  Most of the work they do is online anyway, or traveling to meet with clients in other states, so being able to move around without interrupting the business is pretty cool.  I love the perspective both of these guys have on life and people, though.  They make a huge effort to understand people and it shows in the relationships they have, even while not staying in one place for very long.  You can still connect with people and make a difference.  Everyone travels for different reasons, and I've loved the experiences I've been able to have traveling recently - new people, new places, new experiences.  I've gone out of the state at least once every month since November, and this will continue for almost a whole year.  I'm excited to see the connections I can make as this continues!

Nate and Jeremy run two businesses together, SpireWave and Mind Breakthrough.  (The SpireWave website is about to be relaunched, but until then, you can read a little bit about it on Jeremy's website here)

 

 

I loved the view of this skyline with the water.  For you photographers interested in the specs on this one below, I had one speedlight on my camera, two behind them for backlight, and one from the front right with a soft box. I used pocketwizards to trigger, and shot it at 1/15 sec, f/3.2, ISO 640.  Most importantly, though, I called ahead to make sure they'd turn all the lights on for the office buildings in the background ;)

And I hopped in one at the end - thanks Justin for taking the picture!

San Diego

  ...more from the California trip!  Justin and I arrived in San Diego and had a couple hours to kill before the photo shoot was scheduled, so we went to  Point Loma, some kind of cool historical overlook.  I found a lighthouse, which for some reason is always exciting to me.  I'm never quite sure what I'll do with photos like this, but at least it's pretttty :)

On our way back down, we were trying to find access to a beach somewhere and figured we'd turn left at the next spot since the water was... somewhere over in that direction.  (I discovered I've been really spoiled with Utah's directions... you can always see the mountains and know that that's East.  From there I can figure it out, but in California I was getting really turned around!)  Back to the story though, apparently the next left turn was into some Naval base!  I was "greeted" by a suspicious and heavily armed Navy guard wanting to know exactly why we were turning in there and what we wanted.  I tried to assure him that we were just tourists looking for the beach!  But it took a little while before he was convinced.  Maybe it was all the camera gear that made him nervous, I'm not sure, but I sure was intimidated!  After that, we gave up on trying to find a beach and found a very small park to sit and wait instead.

 

And then Jeremy showed up, the man that made this trip happen.  I met Jeremy back in December on the cruise with Jasmine.  Just for kicks, here he is wiping out on the simulated surfing back then:

  

Jeremy had 2 reasons for the photos in California.  The first was head shots of him: personal, approachable, and authentic.  Sure, he wanted a new Facebook profile (who doesn't?) but primarily, he wanted these for his efforts in the cause for childhood cancer.  Jeremy spends a lot of his time working with kids with cancer and I've loved the opportunity to see that perspective of learning about and giving time to a community and a cause.  I get so caught up in my own life, sometimes I forget how many people out there could use some help - or even just a smile.  Thanks Jeremy for that example!  You can read about what this means to him and look through the rest of his website here: http://www.jeremybliler.com/childhood-cancer/  The second reason for the photos was business, and you can see those photos (with the San Diego skyline) tomorrow!  But for now, here's Jeremy.

Jeremy grew up in Denver, but has lived in San Diego for several years.  He chose all the locations for the photos on this trip, and I was impressed!  Today was at Sunset Cliffs.

 

 

The photo to the right here is what we call the "Jasmine" pose (named for my older sister).  Because she was there when I met Jeremy, we wanted to give a tribute to her.  She's always been more confident posing for the camera and she just has fun with it!  I would much prefer to be taking the pictures than to be in them, and Jeremy was also learning the art of being himself during the photoshoot.  It's always a challenge!  We often teach kids to smile and say "cheeeeeese" which turns into photos with cheesy smiles and shows very little of their personality, I prefer to see people laugh or find a genuine smile.  I'm glad we could take a que from Jasmine and have some fun with it.

(This is a flashback from 2010 to give you an idea of just how much fun she has...)

 

And back to Sunset Cliffs-

Jeremy always wears his "sTAY strong" bracelet, and he wrote a blog post about the story behind it here: http://www.jeremybliler.com/2012/02/09/stay-strong/

Vegas, baby!

I'm sorry to say that no real Vegas stories came out of my trip, not much exciting happened.  I've been to Vegas before with Thomas.  We loved the Cirque De Soleil show, but other than that, though the city was kind of tacky...  This trip however, I saw it through a photographer's eyes.  And I'm now happy to report that it is not just tacky, but it is delightfully tacky.  The lights, the water, the color... all of that combines for some amazing photos!!

These photos below are from the Beatles Cirque Du Soleil show - I've never seen it, but I would LOVE to go there this year!!  At least the lights were cool.

Photos tomorrow from San Diego - with Jeremy, the man who made this trip possible.

St. George Temple at Sunset

I made a goal this year to visit 50 temples - 50 temples in 2012.  So far, I've been to: Salt Lake Temple, Provo Temple, Timpanogos Temple, Draper Temple, Jordan River Temple, and this one is #6 for the year.  I was so glad we got to stop here right at sunset!, loved seeing the changing colors in the sky!

^My favorite picture from the evening.  In the past, I've always tried to avoid the gate in temple photos, I thought it got in the way.  I was excited to find a way to use the gate to add to the photo instead.

 

 

Normally, LDS temples have an Angel Moroni with a trumpet on the steeple.  It was interesting to see that the St. George temple did not.  We asked in the visitor's center and apparently, there are a handful of older temples that still do not.  According to ldsChurchTemples.com, "Eight (8) temples do not have an angel Moroni. They are the St. George Utah, Logan Utah, Manti Utah, Laie Hawaii, Cardston Alberta, Mesa Arizona, Hamilton New Zealand, and Oakland California Temples."

Check back tomorrow for photos from Las Vegas!

Where I've been...

  Wow, what a month!  I apologize for my absence from the blog, as the weather got warmer, I started spending more of my time outside experiencing life and less of my time inside telling people about it online :)  So here's a quick update, then I'll jump into the photos!

First, I've become obsessed with rock climbing.  I love learning about it, doing it, and photographing it!

Still lots and lots of photography!  I've done several family shoots, several engagements, a few weddings, many stock photography shoots (I'll tell you more about those later!), some corporate photos, and quite a bit of travel photography.

The travel is one of the things I've been most excited about recently.  See, when I started to get into photography, I dove in head first and it became a business.  I didn't even take the time to decide what kind of photography I liked, to learn about all the different options.  I just started working and jumped into weddings.  While I love weddings, this point in my life is a time of discovery.  It's time to see what else is out there, what else I can learn.  Here I am, 3 years after my first wedding and now I'm taking the time to learn about the art of photography - to discover why I really love it.

Most recently, I went on a road trip with my first intern, Justin Workman.  He's done an amazing job with his own photography business since he worked with me, and it was a great experience to shoot together and see a new perspective.  We left Salt Lake and drove South towards California (the jobs paying for the trip were in San Diego and Los Angeles).  First stop: Zion's National Park.

I have very little experience with landscape photography, in the past I used to say "that's nice... but can I put a bride in front of this view?" It was a challenge to go through the park and just see the photo - I can't pose a mountain, I have to move myself.  Can't make the rocks laugh, I only have light and angle to change how they look.  But what an experience!  I think I'm finally catching the vision.

 

One of the things I loved about Zion's was the road - the asphalt was a dark red color instead of black.

 

 

^ And there's Justin.  Whatever you have to do to get the shot, right?

Next stop: St George Temple at sunset!

Denver: The Trip Home

  Life is about the journey, not the destination.  I have always believed this, but it's hard to apply when focused on academic or occupational success.  At many points in my life, I've been so focused on where I'm going, I forget to stop and smell the roses.  When I went on the Caribbean cruise with my sister, my perspective changed dramatically.  Yes, we went to Jamaica and Haiti, but the experience was just being on a boat with no cell phone and no computer.  No work to do, nowhere to go (unless you REALLY like to swim!)  So I learned to slow down, to breathe, and just to be.  What an amazing feeling that is!  To enjoy the moment, not worrying about the future.  If I wanted to be really cheesy, I'd bring up the quote I heard as a teenager.  Ok, ok, here it is.  "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that is why we call it the present."  In trying to live this principle, I decided to take the 14 hour train ride back home from Denver to Salt Lake.  Yes, an early morning and a later night with no where to go except the train car, the observation car, the dining car and the other train car... haha.

And I LOVED it.  I met so many interesting people.  An older woman who doesn't like to fly but travels the continent with her husband by motorcycle or train.  A man who had 24 hours before entering a monastery.  A man who sings for a band but hasn't had his big break yet, so he works in a restaurant until his musical career can take off.  A girl born on February 29th so her dad wanted to celebrate with a trip - she was technically turning 5 years old, even though she'd been alive for 20 years :)  A chef moving from Colorado to Washington to start at a new from-scratch kitchen.  And a National Geographic photographer.  Everyone traveling the same journey for a completely different reason.  Absolutely fascinating to me.  14 hours of talking, eating, looking out the window, and taking pictures.  I couldn't be happier!

And what amazing views we had!  One of the cars, called the observation car, had big windows everywhere so you could sit and enjoy the landscape (not like those little airplane windows!)

It wasn't easy to shoot through the windows, but after the plane shoot, I had become a pro! (ok, not really.  But I did have some practice.  It was a challenge.)

The seasons seemed to change as we traveled, too.  Started out in winter...  then spring, and finally ended in summer.  Then the sun went down and when I got off the train in Salt Lake there was a snow storm.

 

There were 5 or 6 stops along the way, but we had only 3-5 minutes at each stop.  While some people hopped off to take a smoke break, I usually took a couple seconds for a photo break!  On the left here is the other photographer I had the chance to shoot with.  Learned a lot from him!

 

aaand.... back to my favorite views from the train.  Last 30 minutes of sunlight.  The way the rock got so orange with the sun going down was gorgeous.