christmas in florida

the year my wife and i were married we went to florida with her family over christmas vacation. i would definitely recommend doing this to anyone - the crowds were minimal, the weather was great, the water was swimmable, and the opportunities to photograph were new and exciting.

we stayed at ormond beach (near daytona) in a hotel that sat right on the beach. on the other side of the hotel was "a1a - beach front avenue" (think ice ice baby). the thing about the east coast that was new to me was that you can't watch the sun set over the ocean. to get that view you have to be up for sunrise. however, for some reason this wasn't a problem for me. i love to get up early on vacation to go out and explore.

this was one of my first chances to get out with my newly acquired canon ae-1. i think i was shooting on fuji astia slide film.


this is what most of the mornings looked like. as the sun came up the sky glowed a bright orange. it was awesome.



the sky shifted to a beautiful blue gray as the sun rose higher. the gentle slope of the wet beach made a great mirror for the clouds and birds.



just a stone's throw up the beach was this sign warning swimmers of the perils in the water - along with the pelican standing guard. the message of the sign spoke loudly to me as i have a fear of swimming in anything but swimming pools - i don't like not being able to see my toes...

you can read more about the nathan f. cobb here.

as a side note - here's a picture that my brother-in-law took of me from the hotel during the trip. thanks eric!

salt lake city

one of my favorite things to photograph is the urban landscape. i love seeing the way man made things fit into and interact with their surroundings. the urban landscape has many similarities to the natural landscape - a row of buildings is a canyon wall, a bridge is an arch, city lights are stars, streets are rivers, etc.

given enough time in a city an emotional attachment begins to grow. things that would mean absolutely nothing to someone else begin to have sentimental value. i quickly grew to love boston and new york city, and after spending four years in provo at school i grew to love its subtle uniqueness.

i spent a couple off years at the university of utah before i got married. sometimes after classes i would take the train into downtown salt lake city and just walk around with nothing to do but explore and see things. it's an interesting experience to be in the middle of a city with no particular agenda - to be able to just watch everything else happening around you.

a couple of years ago i spent an evening photographing salt lake with a friend. here are a couple of the shots from that night.

there is a time right after sunset but before dark that the sky glows a deep cerulean blue. this is one of the best times to get pictures of buildings - especially well-lit buildings. you can get the lights, the building, and the sky all within a nice range of exposure. this is the main entrance to the open air gateway mall which used to be the union pacific train depot.



this shot of the salt lake temple, the church office building, and the joseph smith memorial building was taken from a parking lot a couple of blocks west of temple square.