...The San Fransisco Treat! {Utah Photography}

Apologies in advance, this post is a bit long... and here we go!

I am in a play right now, Anything Goes, at Centerpoint Legacy theatre and we have the most AMAZING costumes. Here is a photo of our lovely Erma.

Isn't her jewelry fantastic? I am totally fascinated with her necklace! Our costumers obviously didn't make it from scratch so I couldn't help but wonder where on earth they found it because it must exist in real life, do people really wear jewelry like that??

Ta-dah!!

These are actually the mildest of the fun necklaces I saw in Chinatown. I was so excited to take this picture to show the girls in the dressing room. We all thought it was great fun!

As I mentioned in my last post, my husband and I jetted to San Fran for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. We had an absolutely wonderful time and it was extra fun being such a random, crazy trip. Our hotel was pretty much at the very top of Nob hill and to be honest I was completely freaked out by the steepness of the hill. I was physically leaning forward in the car and didn't breath easy until I was out. I wondered out loud what on earth they do when it snows, hubby pointed out that it doesn't...oh yeah, right.

I took a quick snap as I was walking across the street from my hotel...it doesn't look at all as creepily steep in this picture as it really is!

We jaunted over to Chinatown...sidenote: Chinatown in real life does NOT look at all like it does in the movies. It isn't all crazy lit up and there were no parades with a bunch of people dressed as a giant dragon. Sad...still fun though!

I was loving all the lanterns strung everywhere and I couldn't wait to come back at night to get a shot of them all lit up, sadly they don't light up. Sad...still fun though, lol!

Here is a view of the city from Telegraph hill. Bit of hike that one is, my quads were killing me.

I liked how the flag stood out against the sky and monument. Just a quick snap for fun.

I'm a sucker for boardwalks. Below is a photograph I took at Fisherman's Wharf. To my left are the sea lions, it was fun to watch them.

I loved the bustle of Pier 39. We got clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl, soooooooooo good!

Of course I couldn't visit San Fransisco without visiting the Golden Gate bridge and by visit I mean stay for hours to get as many pictures as I could.

Most of my photographs are taken from Battery Spencer. The shot above was obviously taken before it got too dark though it looks lighter thank it really was, I just used a tripod and dragged my shutter speed. I'm glad there was some fog for the shot.

I seem to have a penchant for freezing night-time shots. Luckily Todd and I were able to wait in our car until it got darker. I literally bolted to the look-out as soon as I saw the light getting where I wanted it. It was freezing and so windy. I tried to use my weight to steady my tripod. It worked pretty well.

There is a dirt rode that leads from Battery Spencer down to the beach. Darling Husband had researched it out for me (he is so fantastic) and we headed down for a thirty minute walk in the pitch black darkness. Of course he had known that so he warned me to wear good shoes and we brought flashlights. Luckily as soon as we dipped below the ridge line the wind couldn't get at us and it was a lot warmer. I was also totally creeped out. I had NO idea where we were going and I could just picture the police standing over our bodies shaking their heads and muttering about stupid tourists (I have a very vivid imagination). Then some people with a kid and fishing poles passed us and I realized we were just heading to a campground where a bunch of other people were and I felt much better.

We walked out onto the beach as close to the water as we could get and I took a bunch of pictures while Todd made sure I didn't get soaked as the tide was rising and I was not paying any attention at all to the water. Here are a couple of my favorites. I almost got doused taking the shot below. We basically had to bolt for higher ground right after taking it.

We headed over to Liberty Island that same night to get a shot of the cityscape...I am a sucker for cityscapes!
I have more of my San Fransisco bridge and cityscape shots on my online boutique. They are all available for purchase and I have included many different croppings to make things easier. Here is the link.

http://fineart.illuminephotography.com/sanfransisco


This is my My World shot that I took the morning that we left. It was pretty early as you can see and I actually think it shows the steepness of the hill and the dynamic of the city pretty well. I dragged my shutter a little and racked my lens to create the motion. Oh, we had such a great time! I hope I get to visit again soon!

Niagara Falls {Utah Fine Art Photography}

You know that scene in one of the Superman movies where the kid is goofing on the railing and falls into Niagara Falls and Superman has to save him? I couldn't find it. Walked up and down and up and down the falls looking and finally came to the conclusion that they must have filmed it somewhere else entirely. I was a trifle out of sorts. Then someone pointed out that I was on the Canadian side and maybe that was filmed on the American side. Ohhhh!!!

I still want to watch that part of the movie again.

Here are a few of my favorites from my Niagara Falls stay. The Panoramas were shot from my hotel room through a window. I took them on a whim for my My World project and then was pleasantly surprised by how they turned out. Perhaps they are only special because they are a happy memory of mine {I spent hours chilling by my window and watching the falls}, but I'll take it.

At night they shine colored lights on the Falls that slowly change into different light patterns. Apparently the week after we left they were scheduled to start firework shows every night. I'm a teeny bit sad to have missed that.

This is what I woke up to every morning. Made it impossible to sleep in, so beautiful!

A few detail shots. Our hotel room was decorated with black and white shots like these. I absolutely loved them so I went and created some that had emotional meaning for me. Now I just have to decide where I want to put them in my house.




Every sunny afternoon brought a rainbow. I love this shot!


Here are a few of the night shots. Y'all know I'm a sucker for night shots!




Farewell beloved Falls...hopefully some day our paths shall cross again.

Trip Pictures...Smith Farm/Sacred Grove/Hill Cummorah/Toronto

I am fully cognizant of the fact that one's precious trip pictures may be boring to every one else in the world so I am trying to post just a few of my most favorites. All the pictures except the Toronto skyline were taken on May 7, 2011...we were busy that day.

Starting with a few shots of the historic Smith farm.

Above is the original log cabin, below the frame house that they lost due to the mortgage note on the land "suddenly coming due".



A few shots of the Sacred Grove. It is a lovely place.





Christus in the visitor's center at the Hill Cummorah.



This photograph of the Toronto skyline was taken from an island, ironically named Toronto Island. We took a ferry over, scouted out a spot, and then sat there for about two hours {well, I sat there, Husband wandered around} freezing and waiting for the right moment. I took a LOT of pictures {122...I just counted} because I didn't know when would be the best time. Did I want just before sunset, just after, a little after that, full dark? When would the sky be prettiest? Ddn't I want some blue in the sky rather than complete black? When will the lights show the best? Oooh, now I'm getting a great reflection. A lot of work for one shot...but I think I'm happy with it.

Palmyra Temple {Utah Fine Art Photography}

I traveled to Canada with my husband the second/third week of May. We stayed just across the border on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We had a wonderful time. Our first full day there we took advantage of the fact that we were so close to some LDS church history sites. Here are a few pictures of the Palmyra, New York Temple.

I finally got some pictures with tulips.

This is a picture of the temple taken from the Smith farm. I would love to see this later in the season with all the trees green...I wonder what it looks like in the fall?!

Can't..look...at...these...pix..any...more........... (Travel Photography)

Here are some pix from the trip I took to New York in October. I consider it a personal travesty that I haven't posted them yet but in my defense I've been feverishly filling Christmas orders and these panoramas have been giving me fits!

These are panos of N.Y.C. shot from Liberty Island. The shorter are 10"X50" and consist of nine images stitched together. The longer is 10"X60". When I first worked on these I measured my horizons from the buildings and they were straight but the waterline wasn't. I didn't think it looked that bad until I saw it on my friend Josh's gigantic monitor, AWFUL!! I spent a couple of days panicking because I knew that in order to make the waterline straight the buildings would be crooked so I was scared to even open the files again. I straightened the waterline and tried to ignore the buildings, tested it on the unsuspecting public (my family) and they didn't notice anything. Still bugged. Worked with the images with the lens distortion tool in Pshop and that helped a bit but it's still off. Conclusion: 1. Panos aren't ever going to be perfect (grrr) and 2. I'm just tired of staring at this picture so this will have to do. =)


If anyone has any opinions on which they like best I'd love to hear. I seriously have lost all ability to judge, lol.


I'm only doing one post for the whole week so I tried really, REALLY, hard to edit to my most favoritest images.

Columbus Circle, one of my favorite places in N.Y.C. and my favorite metro stop. I love coming out under the big silver globe. I did this in sepia to accent the lines of the buildings. I like how they loom and curve.

Love street fairs and bright colors and sparkly things.

Haha, just had to. The Naked Cowboy wasn't there on my first trip. Had to snap a pic (or two or three). Haha!!

Fantastic "street performers". I think they were actually from some sort of church group. Love, love, LOVED listening/watching them. I had a terrible time picking out my favorite image. I'm down on the ground with my huge camera and he totally hammed it up for me. SO fun!

I'm on a billboard on Times Square with my honey!!! =)

There aren't words for how much I love the Metro system.

I was walking down the streets of SoHo in the rain and of course singing Werewolves of London when I saw this shot that I just thought was cool and realized that as the song was Werewolves of LONDON it must be talking about a different SoHo, oh well.

So they have parades in N.Y.C. for Colombus day, who knew? Some people from Denmark were standing next to us and asked us if we celebrate Columbus day like this and we were like "Ummm no, we don't even get out of school".
Anyway, there was a parade AND Bagpipers ( I WILL learn to play the bagpipes someday) AND, wait for it, CONFETTI!!! Oh, was I so bouncing up and down while Todd laughed at me!!

Had to take pictures of this random Cafe under a bridge.

I saw a picture like this in one of my photography magazines and have been wanting to shoot this ever since. This is Grand Central Station and I'm up on the balcony, dead center, with my camera propped up on my hands which are propped on the railing and I'm not breathing at all beacause I wanted a long exposure to blur people. It was a total fluke that I caught that camera flash from the Gentleman on the floor, it's my favorite part. I couldn't decide color or no color, any thoughts??

LOVED Coney Island. Of course I had to get an original Nathan's Hotdog, y'all know my thing for iconic food, and while I was there I tried their frog legs, because I've never had them before so I had to! =)

We had the greatest skies while we were in New York. It was always on the verge of raining, or sprinkling, and one night boy oh boy did it ever pour down, so I had great clouds to work with.

As you can see I'm under the pier, just another of the pictures in my head.


Love Lady Liberty, that's all.


These shots are in the Visitors Center on Ellis Island. It's hard to describe how much that place moved me. I'm very visual so to me the greatest treasures were the pictures of the immigrants in their Native dress that were taken as they came to this country to begin a new life. I felt a connection to them, these people from so long ago. I just sat and stared at their eyes and wondered how their lives turned out, how they felt about being in this strange new land, what incredible courage they must have had. It made me want to be stronger and less afraid of taking risks in my own life.
The room below is The Great Hall where Immigrants waited for their interviews with legal inspectors after finishing their medical exams. If they were lucky the entire process through Ellis Island took three to five hours. I wanted to emphasize the size of the room because I imagined that it had to have been pretty intimidating to be there as an immigrant so I'm once again laying flat on the floor...I spent a lot of time in N.Y.C. doing that.


I just really love the Brooklyn Bridge, probably because Todd loves documentaries so I've learned all kinds of crazy fun stories about its construction. This time I ate that day so I didn't feel like I was dying walking across it and was able to savor it more.

We had the most amazing sunsets while we there. This was one of those stop and stare, oh wait I need a pic, go back to stopping and staring. Definitely a "savor the perfect moment" moment.

Another pano I played with. the exposure is longer so it looks lighter than it really was. I messed a bit with trying to fix the perspective but it just made things weird so I'm going for "artistic" here.

One of my favorite spots in Brooklyn is the Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's this tiny park with the most incredible views of the skyline.

Playing with zooming my lens during my exposure to create something different. I like the ghost skyline in the one above and I think this is my favorite pic of Times Square that I've taken. I have struggled and struggled to get a picture of Times Square that "feels" right and I just can't seem to manage it. This one comes pretty darn close for me.

Four of my favorite buildings in New York, also wanted to try my hand at making my own postcard.

Last but not least, Imagine in Strawberry Fields. Love the song, love the place, love the city. thank you kind reader for making it to the end of this post. Loves!!! xoxox