I ended up catching a nasty virus recently, so I have been unable to get out and take any photos.  Today I decided to do the next best thing.  I looked at several old photos from the Utah Lake State Park.  This one was taken on December 15th 2009.  The temperatures that day were very much like today's... cold with a North wind blowing.  The biggest difference from that year to this was the amount of snow.  This year is one of our driest on record.

I shot today as the sun was setting it looked like there may be some fun colors down at the lake.  After several days of above average temperatures I was no prepared to find the lake frozen solid.  With a major wind event on Saturday night the ice was broken and refrozen into several interesting shapes.

This was a fun photo to process. I took several different exposures hoping that I would be able to process one or two into a nice HDR. The exposures ranged from a quick exposure to over 30 seconds. There was not a lot of color in the sky except close to the horizon. It was getting dark quick and several people were walking on the ice around and in front of where I was shooting. In the end I like how the exposure turned out.

For this photo I used:
a tripod
nikon d7000
nikon 28-300 lens

For processing I used:
Lightroom 3
HDR efex
three color processing points to lighten the ice
CS5
Topaz Denoise

I like the rich colors offset by the cool ice
I like the reflection of color off the ice blocks
I like how well defined the ice block are.

Thank you for visiting.

~wr~

This is the last photo I will take this year. I hope all of you have a happy new year and that all your dreams come true in 2012.
For this photo I used three cokin split neutral density filters. This darkened the sky and allowed for a proper exposure of the ground. I still decided to process this as an HDR, so I used three exposures. I then used two different filters in color Nik Color Efex Pro. This lightened the sky and brought out more of the color I wanted. The second added the color to the water. I then blended each of these exposures in Photoshop.

Thank you for visiting.

~wr~

My friend Jon and I decided to head up Provo Canyon to take some photos of the local waterfalls that feed the Provo river. The hike to this one looked short so we began. The weather quickly warmed into the lower 40's and it was turning into a great day. As soon as we arrived the heavens opened up and it started to rain/hail. This lasted for about 45 min. we were in the perfect position, but the rain was driving into our cameras. After a short rest under the pine trees we pulled out the cameras, and shielded our lenses with the other persons coat. We were unable to get much closer to these falls due to the entire landing area being under a solid sheet of ice.

I have been itching to get out and take some photos lately, but have been hard pressed to find the time.  This holiday season The weather has been cold with a lot of valley haze.  Today we took the kids for a fun outing to play with some of their Christmas toys.  I took my camera along.  I got a few good snapshots of the kids.  On the way home we stopped by a local waterfall I was anxious to try a new filter out.  I moved quickly due to the temperature being cold and a stiff and steady wind blowing.  The waterfall was flowing nicely and it was surrounded with ice.  I set up and quickly learned that the attachment I needed to mount the camera on the tripod was back at home.  At this point I decided taking photos was not meant to be.  I took the family to a nice restaurant.  Today was just not the day to take photos. On our way home from dinner I saw this amazing photo op.  The only problem was I had dropped my camera off at home before going to eat.  I knew I had only a few moment of magic left so I quickly grabbed the camera bag and ran to the end of our street.  I had time to take about six photos.  This one was about a 6 second exposure.  I love how all the colors come together to form a quiet evening moon set.


I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your holiday.  We will all be back to work soon.

Tags: exposure

This is a fun waterfall to photograph.  The amount of water flowing seams to constantly be changing as is the flow over the bottom part of the falls.  In the Winter this waterfall is completely frozen over, and the lookout point is closed due to avalanche danger.  We have had a couple of cold nights so I thought now would be a good time to photograph it.  I love how there are multiple ice formations just getting started.  In a few short weeks this area will be a complete wall of ice.

The colors are just starting to change.  Even though this waterfall is only a few minutes drive from my home I have not been able to be near it, with a camera, during fall season.   Today was different.  I made a point of getting up early this morning to take a few photos.  This particular picture is five frames each of five seconds in length.  After stitching the picture together I then needed to re-paint the sky.  Because of the long exposure the sky was completely blown out.  I hope to get back here next week when the colors will be a little more intense, but with my luck......

Thanks for visiting.