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

Alex is getting MARRIED!!!!!!! (Park City Engagement Photography)

This is my incredibly wonderful and beautiful cousin Alex and my soon to be cousin Christopher. I adore them oh so much! They were kind enough to let me take their Engagement pictures a couple of weeks ago and we had so much fun. Alex wanted an urban feel and while my husband and I were in Park City for a fun weekend get-a-way he suggested we shoot there. I loved the idea, Alex loved the idea and voila, there we were. We ended up shooting for a little over five hours. I don't normally shoot that long for an Engagement session but I wanted to play with some night pictures and they were game so... =)

We wanted an urban look but a little more classy sophisticate than grungy. I love how the shots turned out. These are just a few of my favorites and they are mostly the "play" ones that I like to do for myself, luckily Alex and Christopher like the play shots too!

Love the shadow, love the shoes!

Love the colors!

When he pulled out the hat I started bouncing and squealing like a little girl... I really did.

I love all the colors in Park City, this blue building was a must shoot. Add a light post and a gorgeous couple and...magic!

Shooting through bars. It's artistic. ;D

I was sad to turn this to sepia because I loved the red of the balls but it just looks better. I especially love the way the sepia accents the texture in the balls. Makes it more of a graphic element and less distracting.


I heart the whole series of the shots by this window but I had to pick (I hate picking sometimes).


So cute!

I love the Park City Trolley so I was fully prepared to beg, bribe, cajole, and wheedle in order to take pictures on it. No need! The driver was THE nicest guy ever and everyone else seemed to love just being a part of the fun day. People were so nice to us the whole shoot. I was thrilled at what we got on the Trolley and it was something I'd never done before which y'all know I'm a HUGE fan of.

I love this little moment.

Hahaha, my Aunt has two stores in Park City so we just had to take some pictures in one of them. They're mannequins, I love this shot! Christopher fits in well with my family!

My husband liked the car in this shot.

This shot is my FAVORITE!!! It's the picture that I had in my head for this shoot. Yes we are literally in the middle of the road. I think I'm lying in the road. We would literally scamper back and forth. Good times!!

Manamana!
Love, love, love, the glowy red balls. We had to come back here after the lights came on.

This wonderful art gallery owned invited us to come in and shoot on his fun couch. We're going for major attitude in these shots. So fun! So glad my beloved cousin is marrying such an awesome guy. He is the best and game for anything. We have had such a great time taking pictures. Thanks Alex and Christopher, love you both!!


I need to mention that the name of the gallery is Silver Queen Fine Art and their website is www.SilverQueenFineArt.com. The owner is Timm Hilty and he is awesome!

Oh, the humanity!! (Utah Family Photography)

The irony of my life is that when I have lots to blog about I have absolutely no time and when I have plenty of free time for blogging I have nothing to talk about...sigh. Right now the former would be the case so here I am finally posting my own family pictures that I took on October 17th out at Saltair. I was going for an edgy grunge look with the black and white attire and graffiti walls. I just want to point out here that I am so very sympathetic to how excruciatingly painful it can be to have family pictures taken. My family is just like every other, and believe me, I am not above threats and bribery. Lol, luckily I had my parents come along to help wrangle the heathens and push the shutter button. I'm now good for a year, well, maybe two. =)

This was the picture I had in my head when I decided on this location and I love everyone in it... except for me. But, oh well, I'm being the self-sacrificing mother and using this for the parental Christmas gifts. I do love everything else about it. My family is the cutest! =)

This is probably my favorite though the two stripeys were NOT supposed to be next to each other...family pictures are uber frazzling.

I love, love, love this photo of my children. Four of the stubbornest mules in existence but I love 'em for it (when I don't want to kill them, lol).

Not a huge fan of this shot but the setting is cool. My kids wanted to take pictures here SO badly and so we did, all a part of the bribery for good behavior. Mostly I look at it and want to move Todd and I to the right. I don't like it enough to go to all of that hassle in PShop so it's just gonna have to stay the way it is.
I love the composition of this shot with the repeating framing. Just thought the lines were cool. SO wish I could just switch my two boys so that the stripeys aren't next to each other. That's the kind of thing that drives me crazy. I knew I didn't want them together but you get there and there's tension, and whining, and grumbling, and that's not even counting the kids!! Haha ;D

Me and my fabulous husband!! I need to drum up my photog pals to do a couple shoot of the two of us, doing it yourself is just too hard. I love my boy! Here we are just a couple days back from him taking me to New York for the best birthday ever!

This is my oldest daughter. She'll turn thirteen in just a couple of weeks and she is almost as tall as I am. My literal words when I first saw this picture..."Oh, crap!"

This is my second daughter and she is a spitfire and then some! Tomorrow she defends her title as the Spelling Bee champ at her Elementary. She won it last year as a fourth grader beating out her older sister who ended up taking fouth place. yeah, that was a fun week at our house. The girls were actually great to each other but one was naturally upset that she got out and the other was upset that she got her sister out, Oy Vey! SO tomorrow I will be a nervous wreck waiting to hear the outcome, I'm already feeling sick about it. We've done the whole spill of "Spelling Bee's are a lot about luck" and "We are proud of you no matter what" but I know my daughter.

Here is my sunshine boy. The happiest, friendliest, most outgoing kid you will ever meet. Of course he has his horrifying termagant moments but apparently only for his parents. Good times!

And my baby. This is the only single shot I got of him not crying, he was ready for his fruit snacks. Quick anecdote. This last Monday was his fourth birthday but Todd and I were both going to be gone so we told him his birthday was Sunday. We made a big deal, did the whole cake and presents party, threatened his siblings with death if they ratted us out (his brother had to be "reminded" of that), even enlisted the Primary Presidency in the scam. Of course the next day on his actual birthday I went to wake him up with a big Happy Birthday and then realized I had to pretend all day that it WASN'T his birthday...I had to laugh.

So why am I juggling? Well, you know how New Year's resolutions are usually pretty lame like losing weight and all that? I decided I wanted to do something fun. Ages ago my Grandmother made all of the grandkids juggle balls out of balloons and sprouted wheat, no really, after awhile mine actually started to grow. Anyway, my cousin Tony got phenomenally good and I've always been a little envious. This year for New Year's I decided to juggle every day as best as I could. And I have. Sadly I'm still not all that great but I can, at least, juggle. I think I'll give it one more year and then it's on to the bagpipes! Sidenote: My mommy made me these juggle balls for my birthday and on my birthday I juggled with them on Times Square. So fun! They are silver and black with sparkly sequins. I love my Mommy!!


I heart this picture. I love the lines of the window above and the silhouettes. I just love it. Well, this is us, thank so much for taking the time to meet my family. Loves!! xoxox