Advantage of Provo Craft Shutdown

So We were having a meeting with the President of Provo Craft yesterday. It started at 9 am and was going along pretty good when we heard a loud bang behind the room. One lady was standing against the wall and was at the front of the room in less time than it took to turn and look back to see what had happened. Several of the managers including the President went out to see what had happened. About 5 to 7 minutes later they came back and reported that they couldn't find anything that might be a problem. So the President picked up from where he was and started the meeting again only to hear the same type of noise again only further east of the room this time. It sounded like someone had dropped a pallet of something on the floor yet it was too loud for that and the un-nerving part was not so much the sound as the fact that the entire room shook as well. I had thoughts that maybe it was due to a small earthquake but that didn't seem a bit feasible since it ended so quickly. Well the meeting kept going for a couple more minutes before one of the men came back in the room and announced that there was a heavy smell of gas coming from the storage area down stairs from where we were. So there was an immeadiate evacuation of the warehouse at that point. Well we went across the street to the holding place and accounted for everyone and waited. We could soon hear the sirens and soon three fire engines, one incident control vehicle, one ambulance, one police truck and a couple of other vehicles arrived to check everything out. We in the meantime were all very glad that it was sunny and somewhat warm as we stood outside for the next hour and a half. At one point the crews came out and said that they couldn't find anything so the plant manager told them to go back in and look again. Later there was still nothing found so the President announced that we would soon be allowed to go back in for 10 minutes to get our personal items and then go home for the weekend. It was now nearly 11:30 AM. It was still another 15 or so minutes though before the all clear was given but in the meantime the plant manager told us that the President had recinded his offer. We all went "Right" and only a few people believed him. The all clear was soon given and we went in to get things and then left. I personally went into the room where the gas had apparently been smelled because one of our people had to go in there to get her things as that is where her area of work is located. I couldn't smell the gas but she apparently was quite aware of it so I was glad to soon leave and go home. It would have been much nicer to go home but Marie had gone to Roy to babysit Hallie that morning so Hayden could go do some studying for finals. So I just came home and went to work on completeing some dance collages that I still had to complete for the Turning Point Dance Studios. (85 young girls and their teams yearly dance pictures.)
Well I had them mostly finished but was getting a real itch to go and do some photographing in the yard. I didn't know what I would photograph but there had to be something out there worth getting me out of the house for a few minutes at least. I did find something and it only took a few minutes to do so. Marie's flowers near the road were in bloom and I played around with some closeup lens and took 40 or 50 pictures and then started to walk around the yard. The apricot trees were in full bloom in the orchard so I walked out there to get some pictures of the blossoms only to find hundreds of bees and that was pretty exciting. I started to take some pictures of them and as I moved around the tree I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were also some butterflies on some of the blossoms of the second tree. They seemed easier to actually photograph than the bees since they would stay on one blossom for an extended length of time. So the image that I am including today is not of the bees or the flowers (or the birds I took pictures of also) but will be one of the ones of the butterfly. The others may come later after I go through them and see if there are some that I like.

Swan vs. Beaver

On an activity with BYU students a couple of weeks ago I was able to arrive early and observe (and photograph) a swan on the pond near the home where our activity took place. There were also a couple of ducks but they kept swimming away from where I was at and showing a great deal of shyness about being photographed. The swan on the other hand seemed as interested in me as I was in it. It would swim away for awhile and then toward me again and at one point I started to wonder about it's intentions so I figured that I had enough photographs and walked away to another area of the pond. The pond was c shaped and so I just crossed over the small island to the opposite side from the swan.

I was surprised to notice a beaver also swimming in that part of the pond and as I went to capture an image of him he dove under the water. I was a little amazed to see it because of the many times that I have tried in the past to be able to photograph one had never panned out. I either wouldn't find one in the pond where there was an obvious new amount of activity judging on the newly cut trees or they would disappear before I could get near enough to photograph them. I was then interested to see what the swan was doing again so I crossed back to the side of the pond where it was diving under the water and eating. It then noticed me again and began swimming in my direction just as it had the first time. I was starting to get a little worried, because I didn’t want a confrontation with it, when the beaver surfaced just a few feet from the swan and began swimming across to the shore away from me and to the other side of the swan from me.  The swan then turned and started slowly swimming toward the beaver which then turned directions and swam back toward where it had come from. I was amazed at how the swan just seemed to glide across the water because I could not see any activity from it's feet which I thought I should have been able to observe. I then became somewhat interested to see if there would be an interaction between the swan and the beaver because the swan seemed quite interested in it and if so which would win. Well when the swan got to within about 2 feet of the beaver it again dove under the water and left. (So did I.)

April 17, 2008

After reading through Scott Kelby's 7 Point book for Photoshop I decided to try an image of my own. I had worked all through the 21 images that he used and then found this one from my trip to Oregon in Dec of 2007. It was an OK picture but not one that I would really share because it just didn't seem to have any pop to it. So I worked through the image following the recipe that had been given in Scott's book for one of the images. I lightened some of the areas and added LAB color to it and then detailed parts of it. I was learning to use "masks" and having a great time. Well I think the outcome made the image much more enjoyable and I felt a lot more like sharing it. I liked how the walkway came alive with the golden glow of the sun and how the image became what I remembered seeing when I originally pushed the shutter of my camera. You can decide which version you like because I will put both of the on so you can see the differences.

My first Blog

Just a little note of introduction.

I am a Professional Photographer (in my spare time away from a daily job with Provo Craft) doing mostly weddings, portraits and families. I love the outdoors however and have literally thousands of images from camps that I have taken with scouts through my 40 plus years of being involved in The Boy Scouts of America organization. As a Scoutmaster I would always have my camera with me and then show slide shows of the camps after we returned home and held our next Court of Honor. One of the most common comments that I would receive after the slide show would be from my scouts and it would go something like this, "When and where did you get the picture of that deer?" My reply was always the same, "While you were asleep and the camp was still quiet." I then would explain the significance of getting up early and being quiet so that they could see the beauty of nature that I always tried to show them and which they always missed because of being too loud or lazy.

Whenever I go on trips though I have made a common mistake of never leaving enough time to just stop and take pictures along the road. I have seen easily 500 times the number of pictures that I do have that I wish I did have. I see things to photograph all over the place and always get home wishing I had taken the time needed to just get that picture of a simple wonder of the earth and creation.

I have been thinking about adding a blog to my life outside of the blogs I go to and read each day. I have been sending out Good Morning emails to a number of people and finding that they enjoy having an image that I have taken to start their day. I have gotten quite a collection of them over the past few months while doing this so I found that I wanted a place where I could also post comments about the images that would also become a history of my life when later saved to my computer and possibly viewed by my children and grandchildren. (I think the latter would appreciate them more though since they were not involved so closely with their dad as he took the pictures.)

 I will endeavor to load only pictures that will be of a high quality and worth looking at each day.  I will also try to add an explanation of where and possibly why I took the photo. The image that I added to my blog permanently (or at least until I decide to change it) was taken in the Columbia River Gorge near one of the famous falls in that gorge. I believe it is spelled Multnomah Falls but I can easily be proven to be incorrect.  (I will correct it later if needed.) I was just walking back to my car and looked down the stream from the falls and as I crossed the bridge leading to the parking lot. I saw that scene and knew it would be a keeper. 

I hope to inspire you to always have with you a camera,  to stop,  recognize and take a photo of your own. Maybe you can capture some of those that I have missed. With the ease of the digital photo world you too can capture beautiful images of your own.