Week 49 of 52 – Theme: “Family” A belated Christmas greeting!

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Merry Christmas! (I know it’s late! but the sentiment’s still just as valid!)

Thank you so much to all those who have visited my blog this past year (or longer) I am truly humbled that you take time to click through to my little corner of the internet and spend some of your precious time viewing my pictures and maybe even reading some of my rambling thoughts. It has made my life that much better knowing that I’m able to share these things with all of you, so from my family to you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Dad (me) to the Kids: “C’mon it’ll be fun”

Kids to crazy photographer Dad: “These things are hot! Are we done yet?”

Dad: “Just one more!”

10 minutes and 20 long exposures later….. “Ok we’re done”

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

Week 44 of 52 – Theme: “Spooky” Rebirth!

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Although I’m late in getting this posted to the blog, the theme for Week 44 was perfectly timed to coincide with Halloween. What better time of year to find something “Spooky” to photograph?

We had a great Halloween this year as the weather was near record setting warm and taking my daughter and two of her friends out trick or treating was a blast! However trying to find something truly spooky just didn’t happen as the neighborhood decorations were more funny than scary.

So I moved on to my backup idea which was to create a spooky scene from scratch. So what does it take for an action figure,potting soil, two twigs, a cereal box, and a piece of paper have to do to become spooky…?

Rebirth! 3 shot HDR @2EV

It’s all in the presentation! I set this up in my garage which had some early morning light coming in through the window to give me some moody ambient light, I cut out a hole in a cereal box and placed my Spawn action figure inside with his zombie-esque hand poking out through the hole and covered the box with some potting soil. I then added a cut out print of an old creepy tombstone and two twigs that had fallen off one of our trees behind it all and using my 50mm f/1.8 + 12mm extension tube I got this shot!

Of course I had to play around with it just a little bit as well.

Not so spooky! 3 shot HDR @ 2EV

Earlier in the week I had scouted out The Fear Factory a popular “Haunted House” in downtown Salt Lake City and I must say the setting was pretty creepy, unfortunately the gates were closed and I had to use a telephoto to get anywhere near this shot and even then I had to crop in quite a bit so I decided not to use it for the challenge, but I sure wish I could have had a crack at this at night!

Death Grip!

Those are life size mannequins and that Grim Reaper was huge!

Thanks for looking, I’ll have the next theme up very soon as I work to get all caught up on my posts!

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

Week 39 of 52 – Theme: “Funny” “Occupado!”

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Witchy Poo!

I had to say it at least once seeing that I fought the urge to make it the title (It was too obvious) Week 39′s theme was “Funny” giving us another creative and thought provoking theme for sure. As it happens every October a local shopping center called Gardner Village goes all out in decorating for the Halloween season. We’ve visited often over the years to see the fun decorations and in fact it was here that I attended my first photowalk back in 2008 (please take into account that those shots were all made with a point and shoot)

I knew I wanted to get the outhouse shot for the challenge so I set off for the village early in the morning before the crowds started to build to hopefully get some good light and a decent shot.

Here are my some of my efforts:

3 shot HDR Handheld

 3 shot HDR Handheld

The small pond at Gardner Village gets its own special Witch. 3 shot HDR Handheld

And of course where there’s water there are Ducks!

There’s a “Flock of Seagulls” joke in here somewhere, but I’ll spare you the lameness of it, can you think of one? 3 shot HDR Handheld

 

Being a craft-centric shopping center you see many Witches like this around the shops as well as the larger ones. 3 shot HDR Handheld

This reminded me of my niece for some reason… 3 shot HDR Handheld

I shot this Witch for my big sister who loves all things Froggy! 3 shot HDR Handheld

3 shot HDR Handheld

3 shot HDR Handheld

Besides being a firefighter she’s also a Jeff Gordon fan! 3 shot HDR Handheld

I didn’t look too closely at the contents of the cauldron… 3 shot HDR Handheld

And finally…

Play that funky music… 3 shot HDR Handheld

There were many more, but this gives a good overview of what Gardner Village has to offer during Halloween. In the winter they decorate it with Elves (although they’re much smaller, and not as impressive) I plan on getting shots of those this year.

As always thank you for taking the time to look, and I hope you enjoyed the shots!

Happy Shooting!

Howard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 22 of 52 Theme: “Memorial Day” Freedom Is Not Free

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Week 22′s theme was “Memorial Day” Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. By the 20th century Memorial Day had been extended to honor all Americans who have died in all wars, more recently it has become customary to honor all those who have died and a day to visit and decorate their graves. It is also the unofficial start to Summer, while Labor Day marks the unofficial end of Summer.

I decided to try and honor our fallen heroes in my image for this weeks theme so I made a visit to our local cemetery, then to our city’s Veterans Memorial, but neither one had the impact I was after so I drove to the foothills east of downtown Salt Lake City to visit the Salt Lake City Cemetery, arguably one of the prettiest cemeteries around, there they have a Veterans Memorial that has the visual impact I was looking for.

It wasn’t always that way however, up until 2007 the memorial was actually in pretty bad shape as many of the headstones had broken, were tilting, or sinking into the ground. Fortunately Utah has true patriots that value the sacrifice our servicemen and women have given over the years and not wanting to wait for bureaucracies to figure it all out (read – pay for a fix) went ahead and donated their time and material to fix the problem A big thanks to Onyx Construction for the great work they did.

I hope I captured the feeling of the place, it was a gloriously beautiful mid week morning (I decided to go a few days after Memorial Day to avoid the crowds and not upset anyone who might be offended I was taking pictures) As the son of a veteran and friend to many more I have a deep feeling of respect and love for those who serve our country and tried to show that in my images, I hope you feel it as well.