First of all, my apologies to Brandon for not choosing a photo of you with your new wife. Hey, you’re cool and we all love you. But this shot of Charlotte with dad was just too good to pass up!
Tour de Heartland took us from Kansas City to Dixon, IL for Brandon and Charlotte’s wedding reception. The reception was a fabulous Midwestern affair – maybe not quite as exciting as the crash-bang Key West wedding earlier in July, though!
Charlotte and her sister Emily, daughters of my sister Pat and her Lutheran pastor husband Gary, have always been favorites for us. We’ll never forget their trip to Park City and Yellowstone (with Coco) many years ago. We never knew how much young girls can eat until that trip!
This photograph was taken close to the end of the afternoon. The two of them were standing there and, frankly, I was more interested in the cool light on the sunflower on the gift table. I simply could not find an angle that really cooperated. So, composition wise, this ain’t the greatest.
But you can throw out all the composition rules in the world when you get two smiles like this. It says it all!
P.S. And if you want to see more, just click below:
Brandon and Charlotte Wedding Gallery
Our Tour de Heartland has landed us in Wisconsin, with an entirely new set of weather and wildlife from our native Utah. While, yes, we are the beehive state, there’s a bit more pollinating to be done in the Midwest.
Today’s journey took us to Token Creek Park outside Madison. It’s a wonderful preserve that was initially built about the year I left town in 1977. It was my first trip, although mom and dad went out there often.
Our short hike took us along Token Creek (named for an Indian Taukanee) through amazing vegetation ripe with monarchs and other flying creatures.
This particular set of wildflowers was brilliantly lighted against a dark backdrop – perfect for a closeup photo. But what I hadn’t planned on was the bee activity.
While I have an entire set of great photographs, this shot of the bee on final approach was special.
This was an amazing evening last August in Silver Creek near Park City, Utah. Sadly, when I returned that evening, I just wasn’t excited about my photographs. In fact, I didn’t even process a single shot. I just stumbled across the photographs looking for another rainbow shot and had a different perspective. Turns out to be a pretty good shoot after all.
The scene is actually just a few hundred meters from our home, looking somewhat to the south just before sunset. The rainbow is splitting the dark sky from a blustery white cloud, with the sun painting the yellow of the wild sunflowers.
One of the challenges with the shot was the light was getting low and the wind was howling. This frame was f5.3 at 1/30th of a second. Somehow the flowers are reasonably sharp.
You can also visit this photograph’s home and leave a comment on Flickr.
Well, it isn’t the Kimball Art Center but it probably gets just as much traffic. I’m proud to have five photographs on display this summer at the Park City Starbucks (Park Avenue). Stop by and take a look.
The photographs include a variety of Utah scenics. You can view the entire gallery at the link below.
http://www.tomkellyphoto.com/?page_id=390
Lavender Fields is a wonderful shot of brilliant purple lavender in Mona, Utah, just south of Provo. Check it out this July.
Albion Basin Wildflowers is a colorful photograph of brilliant yellow flowers last August at Alta.
Moon Over the Clouds is one of those really rare photographs of a stunning full moon rising over clouds bathed in sunset glow, taken here in Silver Creek near Park City on an August evening.
Sunset Over the Pond features a magnificent sky, taken on a springtime pond near Park City this past May.
And every Utah show needs some redrock. Window on Turret Arch is a quintessential Moab shot from Arches National Park.
Each of the 10×15 prints is mounted in an 18×22 black frame and are available for sale.
Thanks for stopping by to take a look. Whenever you do, please ask the barista for my business card! I’m proud to share them with my Park City friends this summer.
Posted in Blog
Tagged gallery, starbucks
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Carole and her friends decided to do the monthly Salt Lake City Gallery Stroll and I volunteered as chauffeur. If you actually get out onto the streets of downtown Salt Lake, it’s actually a pretty interesting place. The girls had a great plan, including Blazing Needles (a bit east of downtown), UTah Hands and more.
The monthly stroll links dozens of downtown galleries. But as I dropped the ladies by the Convention Center, I saw a Facebook post from a friend about a Holga exhibit at a nearby photo gallery.
In today’s digital world, the unassuming Holga is the epitome of a simpler, analog world. It has only a few simple settings, a fixed focal length lens and, yes, it takes film – old fashioned 120 film.
But while today’s digital photographer fine tunes intricate computerized settings, the creative Holga photographer experiments with the simplistic settings to create amazing works on art onto small, square photographic prints.
The exhibit at the Saans Photography on Broadway amazing. And it was clearly the hit of the opening Friday night Broadway Stroll as hundreds and hundreds of Utahns took advantage of a warm summer night (rare) and the Chowtruck around the corner. Third South and Second East was abuzz with activity.
If you get a chance, check out the Friday night Broadway Stroll the third Friday of the month this summer.
One of our favorite Jeep trails crisscrosses a creek up South Fork Canyon in the Weber Canyon. With flooding this week in nearby Oakley, we thought it would be good to checkout the flow. While we knew we couldn’t get far, it was still an opportunity to catch some of the magic of Mother Nature in the spring runoff.
The creek in South Fork Canyon collects significant runoff every spring from the south side of the Weber Canyon stretching from Oakley up to the High Uintahs. It’s generally not passable until at least mid-July.
In June, the water is raging as it courses its way down the mountainside to the Weber River a few more miles downstream.
What’s especially fascinating this time of year is watching for sign of where the creek has been the last few days. Carole was quick to spot the telltale signs of where the runoff had gone the last few days when it was especially high.
We’ll now look forward to coming back a few months from now to enjoy a bit more of the canyon.
Our first trip to Turkey and what a great first day in Istanbul. Being a predominantly Muslim country, it’s a whole new experience for us. We spent the day walking the streets of Istanbul’s Old Town, visiting historic sites and looking for photographic vantage points.
We really didn’t have a key sunset spot, but Carole had noted the several mosques and minarets dotting the Istanbul skyline when we walked across the Golden Horn in the afternoon. So, we went back at sunset, found a nice cafe along restaurant row under the bridge, and waited. We were treated to a spectacular show.
Now, if only I hadn’t left the tripod I would have a little more efficiency with the shots.
There’s a wonderful little farm along I-80 near the Silver Creek view area. It’s a great spot for sunrise or sunset. Tonight as I was driving by there were dozens of baby lambs frolicing around. I figured it was worth a stop.
The biggest challenge now is that they erected an eight foot chain link fence along the freeway, so there’s no shooting over it. If you’re careful, you can get a decent angle through the links.
All of the lambs were leaping and jumping – like track stars running the hurdles. This black sheep was having the most fun of all.
Just noticed this old picture on Flickr tonight. It’s one of my all-time most viewed Flickr pix. What’s especially amazing to me is the quality given it was photographed in 2004 with an old Canon G2 point and shoot. I always got great stuff from that little camera!
This is one of the reasons you want to walk around a bit at Delicate Arch. This is a series of monuments and domes just north of the main viewpoint. It can be absolutely stunning in the sunset light.
Tonight was my first mountain bike outing of the year. I was probably a bit aggressive in my goal, but I figured I would go cross country across Silver Creek, loop through Trailside, back through the I-80 tunnel and home – a nice 45 minute ride. Well, I was a bit optimistic on the condition of Silver Creek. It was probably as high as I’ve ever seen it – pretty much 2-3 feet everywhere and no way I was riding through. But the light was good, so I figured I would ride back home and get the cameras and Jeep.
We live in a desert environment. But every spring it comes alive. Silver Creek takes the runoff from the ridgeline sweeping down from Lewis Peak all the way to our little community. It was raging, as it tends to do in the spring. There are streams everywhere, as well as pond. One massive pond covered several acres and attracted nearly a dozen species of birds. It was an amazing hour as I watched the sun and clouds paint color over the sky and landscape.
Sadly, we lost the sun 20 minutes before sundown as clouds gathered. But for a few minutes it produced some really brilliant colors.
Posted in Blog
Tagged clouds, pond, sky, sunset
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