Scott[o]Smith’s Digital World

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 100 * 32 seconds * f/8.0

I spent July 4th with my family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this year. We have made it a family tradition to watch the fireworks and spend the day there.  The fireworks are fired from the side of the Snow King Ski Mountain while the spectators are at the base. Having the mountains surround you makes for some amazingly loud fireworks. I’ve been to many fireworks shows and nothing compares to Jackson Hole.

We also spent part of the day hiking at the base of the Tetons, which I will be posting about later. If you live near Jackson it’s well worth the drive just to see the firework show.

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 100 * 17 seconds * f/8.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 100 * 9 seconds * f/8.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/1600 second * f/9.0

My daughter wanted to experience what it was like to go skydiving for her twelfth birthday so we took her to the New Solomon Center in Odgen Utah for a little indoor skydiving at iFly Utah.

They have a vertical wind tunnel that gives you the experience of indoor skydiving.  After a brief training video the instructor would take a group of people into the the tunnel one at a time. He would give each person a lesson one on one then work with them a second time to give them an opportunity to fly on their own and do a few tricks.

Courtney’s wind speed was around 90mph. After everyone had a change to fly, the instructor did some cool tricks. For the picture below, they cranked the wind speed up to 155mph. He would move around the glass upside down pulling faces at everyone. When he saw my camera he paused long enough for me to take this photo.

I’m going to try it one of these days, if your new Odgen I recommend stopping by.

While on a photowalk with my wife to Temple Square in Salt Lake City Utah I was standing on a bridge waiting for people to move out of this shot when I noticed a bride looking at herself in the reflection pond.  I quickly captured this image before she moved out of the picture.  I really like the placement of her arms and her head tilted to one side.

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 100 * 1/250 second * f/5.0

After going for a morning jog last week, I ran towards my house looking at this view hoping that it wouldn’t fade away before I could get a shot.  I like how the sun is hitting the clouds with the deep orange color which makes the clouds pop.  They were so low in the sky I felt like I could reach out and grab them.  The color is straight out of the camera, I added sharpness using an action in Photoshop CS3.

We are getting a lot of smoke from the fires in California that are creating some amazing sunrises and sunsets.

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/250 second * f/9.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/800 second * f/4.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/1000 second * f/4.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/2500 second * f/4.0

Canon 40D * Canon EF-24-105mm f/4.0L lens * ISO 400 * 1/250 second * f/4.0

This past weekend I joined our local photowalking group on a great outing at the Great Salt Lake. I missed the last event so it felt like it has been a while since I met with the group. We had about 40 people show up, I was surprised at how many were there for the first time. It’s great to have a venue where people with the same interest can get together to share ideas an make new friends.

We met at Saltair then drove west just past the Marina. We had a model that volunteered to do a trashed dress style shoot. She was great and was in the salt water for about two hours. I don’t know how these models can do what they do, I’m just grateful I’m on the other sided of the lens.

As always I’m amazed at the quality of pictures that are produced. I’ve lost count at how many photowalks I’ve been on but each time I come away grateful for the experience.

I’m not going to be able to make the next photowalk. For more information on the details visit our flickr group.

Be sure to check out other photogs blogs that were there:

Rich Legg

Jeremy Hall

Mike Calanan