Foto Friday – a vote of confidence

Taken with the Nikon D40 in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 10, 2009. Manual Exposure Mode, 70mm, 1/640 sec at f/2.8, ISO 200, Nikon Raw Format converted to Adobe DNG format. Edited in Lightroom 2.2.

I took this shot using the same lens and during the same photowalk as urban non-chalance.  What a fun morning!  It was very cold; however, a morning sun illuminated the face of Emma Smith from the east.  The lighting was still somewhat soft but with enough strength to fall nicely on Emma’s face.  I really like to see shadow next to highlight to give a lot of shape to the face.  I was using the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 so I hit this one with f/2.8 to blur the background as much as possible.  To my knowledge, this statue depicts Emma receiving pennies from Joseph to fund the beginning of the relief society.  A tremendous amount of confidence was placed in Emma and this statue captures her resolute, calm, and confident spirit that she’ll be able to accomplish her assignment with the Lord’s help. 

I converted this image to grayscale and did a few curve adjustments to separate her from the background slightly more (the b&w tones were a little too similar for my tastes without the curve adjustments).  Using the brush adjustment tool I added a very slight amount of negative clarity to soften her face and some positive clarity to her shirt to emphasize the amazing detail on her shirt. 

If you want even more details on this image you can see it on the more properties page for this image on flickr.  I hope you enjoy this photo and hope you enjoy yourself behind the lens!  We’ll see many of you tomorrow at the workshop!

Reminder for RJ Snow Photography Exposure Workshop

We got such a good response for our upcoming Exposure Workshop!  Here is a list of who we have coming. Please let us know if you are unable to attend or want to join us.

Rob & Julie S.
Shannon W.
Josh & Jenni N.
Mat B.
Tyson & Diane G.
Andrea R.
Emily N.
Kelly W.
Deb J. & Jason
Susan F.
Robby W.
Aubry B.
Alex D.

Again, here are the details:

When: Saturday, Feb. 28th at 11am. 

Where: The Counter restaurant at The Gateway in downtown Salt Lake.

We’re excited to see all of you!!

Ward Youth Sledding Activity

I took a bunch of pictures at a youth sledding activity and have compiled them in this video.  It was too big for me too upload in HD so unfortunately you only get it in standard def today.  We had such a blast sledding, drinking hot chocolate, and having impromptu snowball fights.  I got hit in the head twice!  I think it is because my head is so big!  Enjoy.  If anyone wants to get this on DVD I can hook you up.  Just let me know.  And I’ll put the photos up for download soon! 

Can’t Sleep…so Photos

The title pretty much explains it. It’s 2:18am and I (Julie) can’t sleep. I’m jealous of Rob. He can ALWAYS sleep. It takes him just a hair under 20 seconds to enter dreamland. I was sleeping, but Nate woke me up twice crying. Before I went to bed I checked on the kids and noticed that Nate seemed to have a slight fever. I was right. We’ll see if he wakes up more tonight. I hope not. Poor kid.

I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos from…wait for it…last November and December.  Terrible, huh?! In our defense, I totally forgot they were taken.  That’s not much of a defense, is it?

Here are a few photos from Thanksgiving at Rob’s parent’s house. Both sets of grandparents are there along with an aunt, an uncle, and two cousins. Holidays are great for getting together with family.  I thought just the other day that I don’t think we’ve gotten together with either side of the family as a group since Christmas, even though we all live within 45 minutes of each other. Crazy! We need to do something about that.

Here are a few photos from a service project and scavenger hunt my mom put together for her grandkids. She decided that it was a good idea for them to buy toiletry items and put together hygiene kits for the Humanitarian Center instead of trading gifts. To make it even more fun, she made each of the kids (13?) a scavenger hunt. They went around the house looking for little gifts and goodies with messages pertaining to the reason for Christmas. It was a good time and a big thanks to my mom for coming up with such an enjoyable and thoughtful activity.

Here are three random pictures. 

And finally, a few funny pictures of Rob as a preteen.

Now it’s 2:51am and maybe I’ll be able to fall asleep.

Foto Friday – White Trees

Rob always makes fun of me for my lame, uncreative titles. I always make fun of him for his “thesaurus” titles.  We’re at an impasse…haha.

This picture was taken last month when we went up to Farmington Canyon with friends.  We snow shoed away from the cabin and came to an open, snow-covered field. We all stopped, took out our cameras, and looked around for different perspectives.

When I was taking this shot, I already knew what I wanted to do with it, stylistically.  The white trees already stood out against the darker green background, but I wanted to pronounce that a little bit more and tried to make the trees emanate or “glow” a little.  It took some experimenting and a hard decision between keeping it in color or changing it to b&w, but this is what I ended up with. It’s not perfectly in line with what I had envisioned in my head, but pretty close. That’s such a hard thing sometimes, getting your vision captured. I’ll keep working on that… 

Randomness

A collection of random thoughts and happenings of the day thus far.

I let Nate butter his toast. When I came back and inspected it was covered with gobs of gross butter. As I was scraping it off I told him that much butter would hurt his belly. When I gave it back to him, in a sad voice, he said, “Oohhhh. Butttttterrrrrr. The butter’s all gone.”

Rob has a friend from high school who is an interior designer. We bartered our photography services her her design services. She’s stopping by in the morning and I’m so nervous! She’s a very honest ;) professional and will be critiquing my home. Makes me a little sick to my stomach.

I’m planning our road trip to Tucson for Rob’s cousin’s wedding at the end of March. I’m SO excited to take to scenic route along scenic byway 12 and visit some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. There are so many places to see and so little time.  I’m trying to choose the highlights and where to camp.

Better do my write-up for Foto Friday. I have a picture chosen, but I’m not sure what I’m going to say about it, yet.

Cub Scout Blue & Gold banquet is next Tuesday. I need to make phone calls and gather some info about each of the boys. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s making phone calls. I will procrastinate it for as long as possible.

Madeleine still only has 2 teeth. She’ll be 1 next month. I’d love to give her more people food and stop hand-feeding her baby food. 

I REALLY need to get to the gym tonight. I’ve been wanting to go to “Yoga Tone” on Thursday nights for weeks now but something always comes up.

I wonder what I should do for dinner. I was planning on BBQ chicken pizza.  Then I realized we’re out of BBQ sauce. I looked for a recipe online and it takes more effort to make than I’m willing to expend. The other option is Cheesy Potato Soup.  Hmmmm. That takes effort, too…

I can finally breathe again today. I’ve had a cold since Valentine’s Day.

I can’t wait to get my storage closet cleaned out and organized. I got a new file cabinet but can’t get into the closet to put away all the piles of paper from on my teeny desk in my teeny “office” on the landing at the top of our stairs.

I need to clean the bedrooms today. They’re too messy to play in.

The Office is on tonight and I’ll miss it since I’ll be at the gym. Will have to watch in online. Wondering if I can tonight or have to wait until tomorrow. Nevermind. I just looked and it’s a re-run. I hate re-runs. I swear half the season is re-runs.

Nate and I made apple crisp.  I LOVE that he LOVES cooking and I LOVE spending that special one-on-one time with him.

Madeleine is SO CUTE!! She just walks around and around and around finding toys and books and keeps herself entertained very well.

Well, I guess that’s all for now.  Thanks for letting me get my thoughts straightened!

Technorati Tags: random,thoughts

10 Favorite Songs – Rob Edition

Those that know me well are aware of my crazy love for music.  Every once in a while I want to share some favorites from my itunes library here on the blog.  Who knows you might find something you like.  Without further delay, my 10 favorite songs for February 16, 2009. 

• Stolen – Dashboard Confessional
• Coalminer – O.A.R.
• Release Me – Mae
• Dig – Incubus
• Lazarus – Porcupine Tree
• Buena – Morphine
• Glass of Water – Coldplay
• In Your Atmosphere – John Mayer
• Microcyte – Beast
• Granny – Dave Mathews Band

Check out these songs.  Maybe you’ll like some of them.  Of course, you may hate some of them too.  My musical taste is not always universal.  :)

Trade Services?

We forgot to mention, we ARE willing to trade our photography services (or my travel planning services) for any special services you may be able to offer.  These might include (but not limited to) babysitting, painting, interior design services, event tickets, hair cutting, sewing or anything else that may be a good trade.

A good article relating to the subject:

“Trading What You Have for What You Need”

Let us know and we’ll try to work something out!

RJ Snow Photography

Our webpage is finally finished!! We’re so excited to get out there, take more photographs, and expand our portfolio. 

Soooooo…….besides our killer deal of 30% off the sitting fees for our friends, the first 5 portraiture appointments we make will also receive a free 8x10!!

Or receive 30% off any Fine Art print or Custom Work order. 

So come on in and browse a bit. Hope to hear from you soon!!

A Snowy Valentine’s Afternoon

We thought that you might enjoy a few pictures (photoset and slideshow) that we took this afternoon.  They are very cute and we all had a great time just goofing around.  Cuteness just oozes out of our kids!!!!  The bright snow outside brought tons of light in our sliding glass door.  These were all taken with available light (except the one of Mad with the bottle).  Enjoy!

Foto Friday – stripe

  

Taken with the Nikon D40 in Zion National Park, Utah on October 19, 2008. Aperture Priority Exposure Mode, 26mm, 1/125 sec at f/4.5, ISO 400, Nikon Raw Format converted to Adobe DNG format. Edited in Lightroom 2.2.

A quick and late post for today.  I wanted to post another image from Zion National Park and I chose this one.  I really enjoy the lines of this photo and chose to emphasize that in my treatment.  It reminds me of a zebra jumping over a rock or a pool.  I’m really sorry that I don’t have time to share and explain more; I’ll do better next time!  If you have a specific question about the image then let me know in the comments.  I hope you enjoy this photo and make time to enjoy yourself behind the lens (even in the cold)!  

Want to Survive during a BIG Earthquake?

I attended the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) annual meeting today in SLC.  It was a great meeting and I will not bore you with the details.  I did learn about something really cool and really important.  I’m confident that we will have a similar exercise here along the Wasatch Front in the next couple of years. 

Late last year southern California held “The Great Southern California ShakeOut” which was a public drill to generate earthquake awareness and disseminate information to help save lives, identify weak points in the infrastructure, and shortfalls in preparedness.  The following videos (click here if you get this via email) show some of that information which is very applicable to us along the Wasatch Front.  Please watch and share these!

If you have ever heard of the "triangle of life" approach, forget everything you learned in that email.  This page clearly covers the many reasons not to follow the “triangle of life” recommendations (they are dangerous)!  Instead follow the recommendations in the videos above and at www.dropcoverholdon.org. Remember DROP, COVER, HOLD ON!  This may save your life when we have a large earthquake here along the Wasatch Front. Please share this information with you family and loved ones.

Farmington Canyon with Friends

A few weeks ago, Julie and I spent a night with friends in the ranger station in Farmington Canyon.  You can see their posts and pictures from the weekend here (the Greens – you can only see their blog if you are invited) and here (the Waters).  You can see our pictures here (photoset and slideshow).

After dropping off the kids on Friday afternoon, we stopped at the UofU’s outdoor recreation program (great place to rent all kinds of outdoor equipment) to rent some gaiters and snowshoes (I got some snowshoes as well because I left the split snowboard that I borrowed from a friend at home – ugh)!  I was so mad! 

We got up to the ranger station just before nightfall, got set up, and then started working on food.  After a lengthy and philosophical discussion on whether the breadsticks or pizza should be cooked first, we got the breadsticks cooking.  We then ran into a problem, the pizza was too large in diameter to fit into the compact oven in the ranger station.  It was snug and the paper tray touched the sides of the oven.  There was a warning against letting the paper tray touch the sides of the oven; however, I convinced the others to squeeze the pizza in anyway (what could possible happen right?) .  Well, a few minutes later (I can’t remember if it was Julie or Michelle that first noticed), but smoke was coming from the oven!  We opened the door and the edges of the paper tray were very toasty, blacked, and smokey!  Yikes!  We cut the pizza in half (it was a stuffed pizza so the filling oozed out everywhere) and baked each half separately.  

We then spent the rest of the night talking and playing some fun games.  We played phase 10 (dice edition) and let’s just say I didn’t do very well (OK, OK, I came in dead last place by a long shot and Julie won the game)!  It was a blast to hang out into the wee hours of the morning.  Finally we crashed and slept in a little longer than planned the next morning.  The next morning we all had a sweet breakfast with pancakes, bacon, and eggs.  We had both real and fake maple syrup to put on our pancakes; unfortunately, the fake stuff trumped the real stuff in popularity.  After a quick cleanup we got ready to do some shoe shoeing and photography.  In hindsight we really should have taken some fun photos inside the night before but it didn’t occur to me at the time (bummer). 

The sky was cloudy which made it a lot easier to get nice even exposures in a snowy environment.  For the first half of our hike we didn’t get snowed on; however, the storm moved in and we started getting pounded so we started heading back.  We had never been snowshoeing before and both really enjoyed it.  Thanks to Tyson and Diane for putting the whole thing together. 

“Madeleine Walks” Video

Here is proof of Madeleine’s triumph over gravity…mostly.

Foto Friday – Sky Lake

I took this picture at Jensen Nature Park in Syracuse, UT yesterday afternoon.  I actually went there to try and get some sunset pictures because we really get some amazingly colorful sunsets here many nights.  Unfortunately, the sky was too overcast to catch one. But I’ll try again.

This is a cute little lake where people go to canoe and fish. There really isn’t anything west of this park except open farmland and the mountains in the distance. It feels so far away from anything, even though all you have to do is turn around and there are neighborhoods and the rest of Davis County right across the street.

I love the glory of the sky in this shot. To get it, I had the camera on Aperture Priority, shot at ISO 400, f/4.2, 1/1250 of a second.  Then I upped the blacks and yellows slightly, and made it a little sharper.

Here are a few other interesting pictures I took, but I’m saving a couple for possible future wallpapers and Foto Fridays.             

Any Winners???

Here are a few photos from our visit to Zion National Park last fall.  Oh it was so nice there and I miss the warm weather so much!  We had such a great time hiking with the kids. 

My purpose here is to receive input on which of these photos are good enough to sell.  Please let me know what you think and what impressions you have.  The winners will make it into the portfolio section of our photography website and eventually be available for purchase.  Thanks for your input in advance.  Here is a link to the photo set.  You can add comments here or in flickr (if you use flickr). 

Denter HVAC

If anyone needs of the following, my brother-in-law, Troy, is looking for new customers. 

*Furnace Change-out

*Furnace and Air Conditioning Service

*Humidifier Installation

*In-Duct Air Purifier

*Air Duct Cleaning

*Water Heater Replacement

*Air Conditioner Installation

*Green Sticker

Troy has worked for a couple of the big HVAC companies in Utah and disliked their dishonesty and unfairness in pricing so much that he started his own business.  You really won’t find better prices anywhere.

http://www.denterhvac.com