After several phone calls and a lot of questions to a particular manufacturer, I pulled out the debit card and ordered a backdrop lift system for my studio.  To tell you the truth I was pretty excited about it.  I talked to a company guy at the WPPI trade show in Vegas last spring and was just waiting for the funds to accumulate for studio equipment.  He told me about some of the various features of their product and it sounded like a good solid system.  After I made the order I had to wait for about three weeks before the UPS freight truck pulled up at my door.  Monday evening my son and I unpacked the boxes and went to work figuring out how we would hang  the roller system.  But something didn’t feel right.  I thought the motors were supposed to be inside the rollers – they weren’t.  I had a totally different picture in mind as to how the system looked.  Today I called them up to talk to them and discovered I had a different product than what I was expecting.  They thought I miss ordered, but that didn’t make sense to me because I couldn’t even see the one they sent to me in the catalog.  When I said that the gentleman on the phone went to check the original paperwork.  When he came back he had realized what happened.  The order was written up correctly, but when the gal entered it into the computer she added the letter “C” to the order and I ended up with the wrong product.  He kept apologizing, but I understood.  We are all human and things happen.  They are a good company, and I expect to do more business with them in the future.  The important thing is that they are backing up their product and making it good.  It’s not an emergency – I’m just excited to get it up and going.  I have made similar mistakes in filling out orders.  The wrong file number, or forgetting the extra print, or some such thing.  It’s embarrassing, but I always do my best to make it good.  And when it’s over I try to evaluate why I made the mistake and how I can prevent it in the future.  It’s important to me to serve my clients to the best of my ability.  I don’t want to ruin a great relationship over one little typo.

Weddings are always fun.  You never quite know what is going to happen.  My last one was no different.  It was an LDS wedding and I was waiting for the bride to come out of the temple.  While talking to the bride’s uncle I found out that her sister had forgotten her shoes.  It was freezing cold and we had to get family photographs.  Fortunately my daughter and trusty assistant had brought an extra pair.  I sent her out to the truck to get them – problem solved.  The wind was howling out of the south.  Fortunately I had planned to shoot on the north side of the building.  The temple acted as a huge wind block and saved the day!  The reception was held at The Old Meeting House, an old church that had been turned into a reception center.    My assistant and I arrived early and set up for the family group photographs.  Then I wandered around, preparing ideas for the bride and groom photographs.  I staked out several locations that I though would work well.  Unfortunately the bride and groom were 40 minutes late causing me to have to adapt.  It wouldn’t have been a problem except the winter sun sets early and the light was changing rapidly.  The other problem is running up against the reception start time.  Fortunately, being prepared for the family group shots helped to give me more time for the bride and groom.  The first image is one of my favorites.  It is actually the last of the series I’ve uploaded.  I posed the bride and groom between a piano and pillars on a half wall.  The angled piano top and the wall added leading lines that brings your eye to the couple.  You can also see the reception center in the background, though it’s softness takes away the distraction it would be if it were in perfect focus.  The second image was taken out on an east facing porch in the fading light.  I would like to have had more time because I liked this location.  Even now I’m thinking of additional angles I could have exploited!  Lastly – I found an interesting door and window combination.  There were a lot of planters around so it seemed like a nice location.  This one I like in both color as well as toned so I’m showing you both so you can decide for yourself.  I’m a big fan of toned prints, but sometimes the color comes together and I enjoy that too.  We did the entire shoot in about an hour.  That left 30 minutes to shoot the family groups, but that is another story.  As a photographer and artist you would like to control everything, but that is not always possible – specially in a wedding where its not all about the photographs, and things don’t always go on schedule or as planned.  I figure my job is to make as many images as possible without interfering with the events of the day.  I want to contribute to the memories, not distract.  Being prepared takes the edges off your flow so that when things go awry you can adapt on the fly.

I’ve had some great food in the past few days!  Friday night my daughter was throwing a party at the house so my wife and I left for some peace and quiet.  We were driving out of town discussing where we should eat when we passed a new place just a couple of miles from the house called the Tangerine Tiger Cafe.  I had seen the sign, but had not paid a lot of attention to it because I’m always going through the round about – too busy steering the truck to look at signs.  We decided instantly to give it a  try.  What a pleasant surprise.  They serve sushi, and Korean rice bowls along with sandwiches and other things.  I found it fun to watch the food being prepared.  It took me back to Japan and the Japanese careful attention to detail.  There isn’t a lot of ambiance, but that makes it genuine.  (Horumono we’d say in Japanese.)  On my anniversary I go for ambiance, the rest of the time I just want to eat good food!  The Tangerine Tiger Cafe serves good food.  Of course – I like Asian food.  I had some sushi along with a rice bowl and found everything fresh and well prepared.  I’m already thinking about the chicken rice bowl I’ll be ordering next with the shitake mushrooms.   Yum!  http://tangerinetiger.com/ Saturday I photographed a wedding.  Lunch was at the Gathering Place in Gardener Village.  The roast beef was so tender I could cut it easily with my fork and the chocolate cake was out of this world.  One of the best catered meals I’ve ever had!  We finished the night with another dose of good cake at The Old Meeting house on Highland Dr.  I don’t know who was responsible for the cake, but it was really good and no one was complaining about the meal they provided either.  Of course the later two only cater special occasions, but if you like Asian cuisine I highly recommend you give the Tangerine Tiger a try.  Pull into the Texaco parking lot at the southwest corner of the round about as you drive into Alpine.  I think you will like it.

A while back I was walking through a consignment store looking for interesting pieces of furniture for my studio when I chanced upon a Brownie Hawkeye Camera, once sold by Eastman Kodak. Opening the yellow box revealed the black box that was the camera along with a flash and several unused flash bulbs.   The brownie was the first camera I ever used, dating back to elementary school so I had to have it!  Camera’s have come a long way.  If you told me back then I would one day not be using film I would not have believed you, but here I am.  The Brownie allowed anyone to take pictures and that was  a good thing.  Much history has been recorded over the years by non-photographers capturing their families on film.  It was automatic.  Load the film, push a button, and take the film to the drugstore.  Sometime later you had pictures to look at.  Cool!  If you were indoors when you took the photograph – no problem – just clip on the flash, stick in a bulb, and take the photo.  Unfortunately that flash bulb sitting in a fixture next to the lens created the worst possible light on the planet of the earth.  You see a photograph, like a painting, relies on creating the illusion of three dimension on a two dimensional medium.  To do that one has to use light and shadow in the image.  With a brownie flash there is no shadow – only light.  That results in a flat, (one dimensional) image.  Flash forward forty years.  Now we have fancy digital cameras that have an electronic flash that we can use over and over again because it doesn’t burnout when you pop it.  Unfortunately one thing hasn’t changed for the average Joe (or Jane – mostly Jane).  The flash sits next to the lens.  The Brownie was a tad bit better in that the attachment lifted the bulb several inches above the lens.  Today’s cameras put the flash about as close as they can to the lens and that is the worse place it can be.  Ever seen red eyes – that’s why!  But technology had given professionals some great options too!  My camera has the ability to trigger my flash, measure the light from that flash, and adjust the exposure all in the blink of an eye.  Best of all – the flash doesn’t even have to be attached to the camera so I can move it anywhere.  Tonight I was practicing with my Pocket Wizard radio controls – training myself to use them.  My poor daughter was sitting at the computer in the kitchen so I pressed her into service as a model.  Woopie – was the look on her face – not!  The tools were great.  I could use the shutter to adjust for the exposure for the ambient light in the room while the automation kicked in to adjust the flash exposure.  By underexposing the room a touch I was able to produce some beautiful light on her face.  You can see the light and shadow that give the image the illusion of three dimensions. This is the art of photography.

(For those interested – the camera is set to ISO 1250, 1/30th, f7.1.  The image was processed in Lightroom where it was dropped into black and white.  A slight tone  and grain was added.  There was no retouching to the image.)

In my last blog I talked a bit about a couple of new lenses that I acquired in the last month.  I also mentioned I would be testing my new Canon 100mm 2.8 IS lens over the weekend.  It sort of happened and it sort of did not.  I didn’t get a chance to do any formal testing other than take a couple of snapshots around the house right after it arrived.  But I did get some images since then that at least show some of the versatility of the lens.  When people hear the word macro they think of getting up and close, but that is not all the lens can do.  It can take photographs of things far away too!  I’m excited to use it at a wedding this weekend, not only because it is good for all the closeup details such as the rings, and flowers, etc., but because it is also a good portrait lens.  That 85 to 300 range in the world of 35mm cameras is wonderful for capturing people.  The compression from the telephoto lens is very flattering on faces.  At large f-stops they help to simplify the image by throwing the background out of focus.   The first shot I made with the camera came when my wife told me the moon was coming up over the mountains.  I grabbed the camera, which had the 100mm Macro on it already, and went out to the front porch.  I liked the results.  The lens is very sharp!  I’m impressed.  The clarity and contrast is very nice and what I expect in a professional lens.  As you can see the lens is not just for close ups.   Monday morning I was coming back from a very early and cold walk and noticed frost on the plants out front.  I again grabbed the camera and went out to shoot some images.  I did not take the time to get a tripod – there was no time.  The sun was about to break over the mountains and I knew what that would do to the frost.  I cranked the ISO up to 1600 and began to make a few photographs.  If I had had a tripod I would have stopped down more for the depth of field which is severely lacking in close up photography.  So I hand help all the shots at about f 5.6.  While I think it helped that the lens has image stabilization It was difficult to hold the plane of focus.  I would focus on something, but any slight (And I do mean slight.) movement forward or backward would put that point back out of focus.  I managed to get some interesting images even if not optimum.  Good thing I didn’t go for the tripod because the sun rose and within minutes the frost was gone.  This is a money lens.  You can capture beautiful portraits with it.  But most interesting for me is a chance to get in close and explore a whole new world.

We just came through the driest December on record and then started off January with above normal temperatures.  Not exactly picnic weather, but still very pleasant for this time of the year.   They are predicting a little snow this weekend and that excites me!  I’m expecting my 100mm IS macro lens this afternoon and a little snow on the ground might make for the perfect subject to test it out on.  I actually bought the lens for photographing weddings.  At 100mm 2.8 it will be a great portrait lens for shooting both bride and groom as well as folks at the reception.  But more than that I will be able to get in close for the detail shots of decorations, the rings, etc.  The lens is the second major prime lens I have purchased as I transition from zooms.  Prime lenses are very sharp.  Last Saturday I used my 85mm 1.2 to photograph a family.  I shot at f-8 and was very happy with the results.  First of all 85mm is a nice focal length for portraiture.  Second of all I found the resulting images to be tack sharp on the family.  One disadvantage was I almost had to back into the river to get my shot, but on the other hand zooming out with one of my zoom lenses would have put me at 50mm or lower and that would not have made as pleasing a portrait.  I will be using both the 100mm macro and the 85mm at an upcoming wedding I have been employed to photograph.  They will bring a new dimension to my shoot.  As for the weather -  it doesn’t look like it will be as warm next week as this week, it’s still looking good at 40 degrees.  For January that’s prime weather.  (I worked on a wedding last February with below zero temperatures and we had to take a break every ten minutes to thaw out the bride!) Prime lenses and prime weather – what a great combination!

Fall is always the busiest time for my business.  Everyone wants their photographs made amongst the reds, oranges, and yellow leaves that mark the end of summer and the ushering in of chilly winter weather and falling snow.  I have to admit Fall is a wonderful time for a family photograph, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like other times of the year.  Last week I photographed a family along the river up American Fork Canyon.  The family sitting among the rocks with the river passing by is beautiful.  The image would not have been possible during the spring and even the summer because of all the run off we had this year.  The swollen stream would have prevented me from using the location.  I’ve made several portraits in an old cherry orchard while the trees were in bloom with beautiful results.  The white to pink blossoms, along with the green grasses rising in the pasture make for a colorful image.  The photographs I’m presenting in this blog were taken during the summer.  The family chose just the right colors that worked well with the greens and yellows in the image.  The informality and posing make for  beautiful family images.  The old wood fence adds a beautiful leading line that takes your eye to the people in the portrait.  These images would make beautiful large portraits on the walls of the family’s home.  Don’t be afraid of the time of year.   Anytime is a good time to capture your family.  I’m dreaming of capturing a family around or in their boat during the summer.  How about a family gathered around a snowman in the dead of winter or among the spring flowers in the mountains.  Anytime is a good time to capture your family.  There is color all year around,  so even if you are a fan of the fall colors, think about the fact that it’s not so much what season to take your family portrait as much as it is when your family happens to get together.

I was in Zion’s canyon last month hiking up towards the narrows.  It was a bright  cloudy day and the contrast between the dark canyon walls and the sky was too much for the camera to handle.  If you exposed the canyon walls correctly the sky would over expose – loosing all detail.  If you exposed the sky correctly the canyon walls would go black and there would be no detail in that portion of the image.  Famed photographer Ansel Adams used development to partially solve the problem.  He would expose for the shadows and use development time to control the highlights. (I don’t have time to explain the details and it is irrelevant to our discussion.)  Film had more latitude than today’s digital cameras although digital capture is improving.  Today’s cameras do have an advantage though, its called High Dynamic Range or HDR.  The way to capture the entire range is to shoot a series of exposures to capture that range and then combine them in software.  Many photographers use it to get a very edgy surrealistic image, but they are missing the point of HDR.  The whole idea is to compress the wide range that exists in reality and compress it into the lower range that can be captured and printed on paper.  I thought I would share an image I made in the canyon that works as a good illustration of HDR photography.  One image is exposed for the shadows and the other for the sky.  The third image is the combination.  In reality I shot five or six images, but I’m only showing the two extremes here.  This type of photograph is great in the world of scenic and fine art photography.  It does have limitations.  If part of the subject is moving you get ghosting.  I tried it once for a portrait, but the subject moved just enough to ruin the image.  The camera must be on a tripod.  You can only change your exposure with shutter speed – the aperture must remain constant.  With digital cameras getting better the possibility of getting the range in a single image is increasing.  I shoot all my images in RAW which gives me more dynamic range than a JEPG.  I’m hoping future cameras will have the capability of more range.  While it is nice to have great software – nothing beats getting it in the camera.  But until then I’m studying the capabilities of HDR photography as a tool to get the image.

My introduction to ice skating came in Nebraska when my parents got me a pair of ice skates.  I don’t remember why, but I do remember playing a little hockey out on an iced over pond in the dead of winter.  That was the last good experience I remember.  The next time I remember was in an ice skating rink in Okinawa of all places.  I was standing next to the wall talking to someone when a Japanese fellow skated over to join the conversation.  He came up at a pretty good clip and went into a slide to stop.  His feet went out from under him.  As he slid into us one of his feet, complete with a skate, slapped me up the side of my head and the next thing I knew I was at the hospital getting stitches.  That was not the only such incident that lead me to hang up my skates.  But not long ago I photographed a high school senior who was an ice skater.  Her mother invited me to watch her daughter perform in the Nut Cracker Suite.  She got me a great location so I could shoot some photographs.    I’m not a sports photographer, but I enjoyed the performance and had some fun shooting photographs in the process.  Best of all, while I was close to the action,  I was behind a wall that protected me from being slapped by an incoming skater! The lighting was poor so I had to use a high ISO, but even then I could not get the shutter speeds to stop the action.  I also needed two cameras, on with a telephoto and one with a shorter lens to catch the action that was close in.  Like ballerinas they are very artistic to photograph.  But it is difficult to photograph them in action because they must be moving to do what they do.  Unlike a ballerina they can not stand on point and hold it.  Despite the limitations I enjoyed photographing the skaters.  More than that I enjoyed watching the skaters seemingly defy the laws of physics.  I can’t for the life of me understand how they can do what they do, but they did and it was wonderful.  If you get the chance to watch an on ice performance do it.  It will amaze you.  (Just dress warm because everything in an ice rink is cold!) To watch my young friend spinning rapidly on the ice or skating on one foot with other one pointing into the air was breathtaking.  I think the next time the winter Olympics rolls around I’ll pay more attention to the ice skating events and wish I was there with a camera.  (BTW – I was told the gal in the blue may skate in the next winter Olympics – cool!)

I never really imagined myself someday being referred to as “grandpa.”  Well, here I am.  Frankly its not too bad.  I once heard it said that grandchildren are the rewards for having put up with children.  I’m not sure on that one yet.  Somewhat because my children have not been all that bad for the most part and partly because my four grandchildren are not old enough yet for me to enjoy to the fullest extent.  Probably the later for the most part.  I mean it is fun to hold them and they do like to go downstairs and watch the model trains run, but I can’t talk to them yet and the play is not all that exciting for me – its more like exercise.  When they come to visit its hours of adults lifting them up above their heads, making funny noises to get their attention, and telling them how cute they are in a language, English, they can’t understand yet – at least I think they can’t.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Recently I invested in Canon’s 85mm 1.2 lens.  The other evening while one of my grandsons was over I pulled the camera and new lens out to give it a spin – just shooting some snapshots for fun.  I  didn’t use flash because  because the combination of a 1.2 lens and a high ISO – in  this case 1,200 gave me the ability to photograph without additional light.  The boy didn’t exactly cooperate but I had fun chasing him around and trying to get his attention as he stood at the microwave proudly holding himself up on his two legs.  I suppose it won’t be too long before he starts walking.  I’m looking forward to a lot of photographs in the future.  (I already love the fact that we have entered the phase in life when everyone comes to our house for the holiday dinners.)   Yep – being called grandpa is not so bad.  I just can’t wait until one of my grandsons can call me that himself.  My four grandsons are the cats meow – oh did I tell you – we have another one on the way!

I wanted to share  photograph of some beautiful snow scene with you, but there hasn’t been any significant snow in my neck of the woods this year.  It’s been pretty cold, with a lot of below average temperatures, but hardly any snow.  Anyway I went through the archives and found this image of our residential studio I made while wandering around the neighborhood in the early morning fog a couple of years ago.  I love the snow and its ambiance.  Hey – if its going to be cold – let it snow!  I’m looking forward to this weekend.  To start things off it is my birthday tomorrow and my wife will be cooking something special.  Family will be popping in and out.  Christmas day will bring a family get-t0gether after church for another great meal as we celebrate the greatest holiday of the year.  To those of you who celebrate Hanukkah or other events this time of the year I wish you the very best too.  This season seems to bring us all together.  I lost a dear friend to cancer last month.  It reinforced the importance of our relationships with each other.  How important it is to enjoy each other during our short stay in this life.  I’m grateful for all the times my friend Ray and I spent together eating good food and solving the world’s problems.  This year my wife and I will have most of the family over.  There will be lots of eating, conversation, and laughter.  The grandchildren will be adding to the to the racket.  The weekend will be a welcome break for me.  It has been an extremely busy fall for Ted York Photography, for which we are grateful.  It has been our very best year since our beginning.  It’s been our pleasure to create what we hope will be family heirlooms enjoyed for years to come.  With that we wish all of you a very merry Christmas and best wishes for the coming new year.  May it bring you all the good that you desire and the success that you dream of.

I’ve had a goal for some time to put together a new website.  It feels good to finally have it up and running.  Even our blog has changed a bit.  In my last blog I reviewed some of the reasons for the change.  It is great to have a site I can now update when I need to.  I’ve already added a new portrait I made Saturday afternoon.  I was photographing ice skaters.  This young man’s mother was the coach and quite the skater.  I photographed her and she requested I photograph him.  She made him take off the glasses, but not before I shot this image which I quite like.  Well I hope you’ll take some time and peruse the new website.  We still have a lot of tweaking to do and will be adding things, but I think we are off to a good start.  Luke Baker, a graphic designer put together the home page.  Josh York put together the rest of the site with lots of requests from me to try this and change that.  I think they both did a great job!  And it feels good to have another goal crossed off and behind me.

When we build our first website I opted for using flash.  My main reasoning was for security purposes.  Had I understood then what I understand now I would have opted for HTML.  Back then I did not understand SEO (search engine optimization) and web crawlers.  Now I do.  I have been working on a new website for some time now.  It is not 100% ready and there will be some tweaking to do, but we have decided to launch the site on Monday the 19th.  That only gives me a few days to load up the remaining images I have planned.  One of the problems with my flash site is that I had to go to my web person every time I wanted to load images.  The new site will allow me to easily update new images on my own.  That was I can keep the site current much more easily so that you can see the latest work I’m doing for my clients.  I’m also including a commercial and fine art section to display some of the work I do for companies as well as art and scenery pieces I do for my own benefit.  The high school section will have a different look and appeal to it.  It’s a bit more punchy and also includes information related to my Senior Safari and how upcoming seniors can get involved.  My webmaster should be touching down in Auckland, New Zealand as I’m typing this so I can’t yet confirm the exact time of release, so keep an eye on http://www.tedyorkphotography.com on Monday.  (Don’t forget to refresh your browser if you are a frequent visitor.)  Be the first person to email me  that you have seen the new site and you can be the winner of  a complementary sitting that can be applied to individual or family – a $70 – $95 value.  Just visit the site, go to the contact page, fill in the information, including a note describing the first image in the high school senior portfolio.  Hit send and you could be the winner!  Good luck and hope to hear from you on Monday.

I have a big family.  We have five boys and three girls.  Last week our youngest boy entered the LDS  Mission Training Center where he will study the German language before heading over to the Alpine German Speaking Mission that encompasses southern Germany, Austria, most of  Switzerland, and some little country I can’t spell.  But that is not what I wanted to talk about.  The boy left me in a house with only two kids.  Now we are back to the national average, the nuclear family.  I call it radioactive because for the first time ever I’m in a house with all girls!  One in her last year of elementary school, one in high school, and my wife.  Lots of estrogen!  Yesterday I tried to take a family photograph for the Christmas card.  You’d think it would be easy with only the four of us.  There was no cooperation at all.  I just had to ignore the silliness and go with the flow.  I can tell you right now that I won’t be doing anything right for the rest of my life.  Fortunately some of my boys don’t live too far away and they pop in once in a while giving me a chance for some manly conversation and a chance to feel on top again.  But aside from the female issue I am enjoying a quieter life and that is nice although I miss the crowd from time to time.  Fortunately I do have four grandchildren.  They are all a bit too young for me to really enjoy yet, but in a couple of years they are going to be a blast and they are all boys!

Last week I encountered a problem with my CD player in my work computer.  Not good when you are trying to get orders out and you need the computer to just work.  It was the last straw.  Out of frustration I called my good friend Patrick at Action Computers.  “Build me a new one!”  I can’t afford down time.  There is an upside to having to buy a new computer; they keep getting faster!  I’m a PC guy.  It used to be that photographers were all Apple users.  For a good reason.  They were the best at graphics.  But that’s not really the case anymore.  PC’s have long caught up and I’d say that half of the photographers out there are using them now.  I suspect that Apples are a bit more stable because they are so proprietary.  But once I get things on I don’t usually have major problems.  besides I’ve seen my buddies take their Apples to the repair guy too.  And now that I think about it the last time I looked at one they tried to sell my an extended warranty.  What’s with that if they are so great?  I’m not really anti Apple and I have no doubt they are good machines.  I’ve just made a different choice.  There is one thing that the apple computer and my new PC will have in common, an Intel board.  Another thing for sure is this new computer should be a screamer.  My main drive will be a solid state drive.  That along with I7 chip, and 16 gig of ram I should be moving.  I’m guessing it won’t be long before I add another 16 gig to it.  I’m excited to get my hands on this puppy.  She is definitely built for speed!

In my last blog I talked about visiting the wave, a sand stone formation out in the desert.  While I was out there on Thursday I began to notice faces all around me.  Some of the faces were mere shadows cast upon the rocks while others were etched in the sand stone itself.  I found a bird in the branches of a dead stump, an elderly Chinese man inscribed by mother nature on the side of a sand stone formation.  There was a horse in the stone, or is it a dragon.  The shadow of a man gazing down into the rock.  A mechanical bird of prey laying flat, entombed in the rocks.  A huge sphinx on a mountainside.  Speaking to my imagination they became the subjects in my imagery.  While some were more photogenic than others I found them all fun and fascinating.  I think it was Peter Lik that said, “its not what you see, but how you see it.”  Most often we are caught up in what something should be and not what something could be.  People are notorious for wanting photographs to be realistic representations of what is.  The right color, the right detail, the right smile, etc.  But if we can back away from the notions we inherited viewing the snapshots of our lives we might begin to see something different.  We might begin to see photographs, not as a historical records, but as works of art.  Stimulating the imagination, or viewing into a person’s sole, giving us a glimpse into who they are, not just what they look like.  My faces in the sand aren’t really people or animals.  They are just shapes formed or arranged in a way that fool the mind.  They are only visible to those who see, to those with the imagination to find something out of the ordinary, hidden in plain view from those who still see the world as an ordinary place.  Can you see the faces in the sand?

The Wave!  The name congers up thoughts of the Beach Boys, surf boards, and hanging ten!  But in this case it’s not even close.  “The Wave” is a sandstone formation in the middle of the desert at the Utah, Arizona border.   It’s a rather secretive place where only 20 hikers per day are even allowed to traverse the roughly 6 mile journey in and out.  A month ago I was invited by friends who had received passes through the lottery used to determine who gets to go.  They had an extra after someone dropped out.  I readily excepted.  On Dec first we packed up the hiking and camera gear and drove several hours to the trail head.  The weather forecast for the day was not good.  We were expecting high winds and to hike out in rain or snow.  Fortunately it didn’t come to pass.  The wind was more than we would have liked, but not as bad as it could have been.  I had several lenses with me, but changing them in the wind and sand would not have been good so I shot with a 24 to 105 the entire day.  Not a bad combo.  I had pulled a muscle in my back that morning and for a while I was wondering if I would make it.  Fortunately after a half mile of hiking or so it began to feel much better.  The trail varied from sandstone to soft sand.  The later being the most difficult going up hill and there was a large soft sand hill to climb just before you arrive at the wave.  The formation itself is not huge, but it is beautifully sculptured and surrounded by miles of other wonderful formations, sporting varied patterns and colors.  I began shooting immediately.  Looking for compositions and color a wandered around with tripod and camera in hand.  After several hours of shooting we headed down the trail and back to the waiting SUV.  Not too far down the road things were pretty wet.  It had rained.  Fortunately, not on us.  While we could have done with less wind, all and all it turned out well.  We had just enough clouds to add interest to the sky, nice light, and no precipitation.  It was a good day to visit “The Wave.”

OK!  I confess!  I took the day off from behind my computer and my business networking group to chase and photograph trains.  And I’m unapologetic about it too. I rolled up to railroad painter, Gil Bennett’s house at 5:15 this morning.  By 5:30 we were on our way to Milford, Utah to meet the Union Pacific’s Northern steam locomotive 844.  After several hours of driving we arrived in Milford just in time to watch her depart headed north to Salt Lake City.  The race was on!  We leapfrogged our way north stopping to photograph the enormous engine as she passed by.  For a stretch between Milford and Delta the tracks parallel the highway.  We paced the locomotive, just soaking in the sounds as she chugged along at a moderate speed of 65 to 70 miles an hour.  I know she is capable of 100, but even at the lower speeds you have to wonder why the side rods don’t just disintegrate  under the enormous stress they must be under as they turn the huge drivers.  It’s awesome to watch and I never tire of it.  The weather was perfect.  It was chilly when she pulled out of Milford causing the steam the condense as it poured out of the stack while the locomotive accelerated.  There was enough cloud cover to add interest to the sky in the photographs.  What a treat!  We were fortunate enough to know the roads and turnoffs well enough to avoid the paparazzi that we ran into as we progressed north.  You’d like to be the only one out there, but it never works out that way so it takes skill and cunning sometimes to get the shot.  Every time the engine passed I dreamed of being in the cab, working the throttle, blowing the whistle, and leaning out the window to feel the wind rush by.  I can only imagine, thinking back to the day I helped  fire a small consolidation on the Heber Valley Railway.  I enjoyed that experience so much I didn’t want to wash my overalls when I got home because I could still savor the aroma of the smoke from the burning coal I had shoveled into the firebox.  The difference between then and now is I’m not sure we ever exceeded 30 miles per hour.  It didn’t matter.  Steam locomotives just rock, I don’t care what size they are or what speed they are going.  I’m glad to see steam locomotives being restored around the country.  The Union Pacific should be lauded for have there steam program.  This particular locomotive was never retired and is still working hard.  They have another, the 3985 challenger that was restore.  If you every get the chance to see either of these locomotives do it.  Steam is king and seeing is believing!  (By the way – as a photographer I didn’t really take the day off.  I was working – yah no kidding – it was hard work photographing  that engine.  Really it was! BTW – would you like to by the Brooklyn bridge?)

The Utah Women Magazine is out.  The editor called me a while back and asked me to photograph Holly Richardson, a legislator in the Utah House.  In exchange for my work the editor offered me a full page ad.  I’ve done that a lot for several magazines over the years and had great results.  Wasatch Fine Living went from a one time project to having me do work for them full time.  I photographed many of the home interiors for their articles on decorating and home improvement.  Today I received the latest copy of Utah Women Magazine and wow!  The front cover had an image of Holly and the rear cover was my ad!  It looked great!  They also used one of my photographs to lead the article inside. (The rest of the photos in the article were probably family pictures.)  Anyway I thought I would share a couple of the ads I’ve use recently in my Portrait – Art – Both campaign.   The idea for the work came from my son who is in marketing.  I like it because it is simple and elegant.  It came about when I was searching for a way to use one of my panoramic portraits in a two-page ad.  We toyed with it a while and you can see the results in the high-key family panoramic.  (I’ll talk more about family panoramic portraits in the future.  It is a marvelous way to capture a large family.)

I took the plunge and bought a smart phone to use for my business.  Three weeks later I still have no idea what it does!  Just kidding – I do know a lot about it, but I still have a lot to learn.  The problem for me is that the Samsung Galaxy II doesn’t come with an instruction book so I have to learn by osmosis.   But that aside, I love it!  Last week I learned how to use the GPS in conjunction with Google maps and who knows what else to guide me to where ever I want to go.  All I have to do is plug in an address, push a couple of buttons, and off I go.  The phone knows where I am and tells me how to get where I’m going.  Mind you I said it tells me, not shows me.  The phone starts talking!  “In one quarter mile turn left on ……”  How cool is that!  If you have a smart phone all you have to do is type or in the case of my Samsung, speak, “Ted York Photography” and it will know to take you to 304 W. Meadowlark Drive in Alpine.  Doesn’t get any easier than that.  (Scary if you are a conspiracy theorist.)