tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-275415322024-03-13T04:06:45.179-06:00The Wounded MosquitoThe Exciting Adventures of a Certified Menace to Society...The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comBlogger524125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-78412006267617082192023-12-31T00:48:00.001-07:002023-12-31T21:49:29.944-07:00Welcome to the Post-Coronapocalypse: Images and Avatars of 2023<p>Dear family, friends, and our new AI overlords,</p><p>For over fifteen years now, I've made a habit of photographing my world, and I've enjoyed sharing the results on <a href="http://www.instagram.com/joshterryphoto">social media</a>, on <a href="http://www.joshterryphoto.com" target="_blank">living room walls</a>, and even in yearly blog posts like this one. But sometimes I miss the shot. In early December of this year, while slogging my way through a round of pull-ups at the gym, I looked across the room and smiled. An older man in a VR headset was air-punching his way through a virtual boxing simulation while Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" played on the gym PA. There was a striking, absurd poetry to the sight, and I was tempted to get a few seconds of footage on my smartphone, but I just couldn't do it. The Internet doesn't need another <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU" target="_blank">Star Wars Kid</a>.</p><p>Still, I think that old fellow could be an avatar for 2023. With the pandemic behind us, pushing forward into an ambiguous future has often felt like swinging at the air with my eyes closed, with or without Phil Collins to cheer me on. If 2022 <a href="https://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2022/12/crossing-bridge-2022-in-words-and.html" target="_blank">was the bridge</a> out of the pandemic, 2023 was our first full year in this Brave New World, and I have to admit, it's not making a lot of sense yet. But I might as well try to find some method in the madness, and post some of the shots I did take along the way...</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">W I N T E R</p><p>After a frantic finish to 2022, January tossed aside the sparkle and warmth of the holidays to reveal a bleak blank slate for 2023, but things got busy before I had much time to complain. Before the month was half over I launched a pair of online courses for Weber State's film department, and after almost two years in the Sunday School presidency I was called to be my ward's new Executive Secretary. I continued volunteering at the Bountiful Temple, started reviewing the new movies for 2023, and kept hosting the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1qNuCUpDfcDddor69s5EP3">Utah FilmPod</a>. In the middle of all this I got a quick start on my photography efforts, taking pictures at the Farmington Bird Refuge and the still-under-construction Layton Temple.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibD_pkkXHI0qcacwHCk0I8hTxWC8ioBl_Ww0gEJY452ApDwcQ11x3hOKWKJA0yHriqKVTOb6UDHKVmqMzQ2WZhOX4XqOxFk-J0wliLfvMCLSUTQE6dCNTP4Xa4lp9vYvduZosjvaWvyLwfwQsBiYUsZI3cOin6AltBLbClsgfbmSx-zVouA1-dqA/s1620/farmington-bird-refuge_jan2023-24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibD_pkkXHI0qcacwHCk0I8hTxWC8ioBl_Ww0gEJY452ApDwcQ11x3hOKWKJA0yHriqKVTOb6UDHKVmqMzQ2WZhOX4XqOxFk-J0wliLfvMCLSUTQE6dCNTP4Xa4lp9vYvduZosjvaWvyLwfwQsBiYUsZI3cOin6AltBLbClsgfbmSx-zVouA1-dqA/w640-h426/farmington-bird-refuge_jan2023-24.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fUarHx-Df9KkI9TXS-MOp-znKgqGYqUKvPzzEXbCdIz2loARftumoz-c6fsgf2D0ZPRHBpXdpXxZsau5o3JVMDf7UMW4jNa0LqFLLyHRPYQ7GXzK1ccw5KLX3JcY1mdfPcRkPVPNZiaxPn_8woPBMAC3dAnZZ0pMOWD14KEE1uCGpaV1z_Zn_A/s1350/layton-temple_jan2023-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6fUarHx-Df9KkI9TXS-MOp-znKgqGYqUKvPzzEXbCdIz2loARftumoz-c6fsgf2D0ZPRHBpXdpXxZsau5o3JVMDf7UMW4jNa0LqFLLyHRPYQ7GXzK1ccw5KLX3JcY1mdfPcRkPVPNZiaxPn_8woPBMAC3dAnZZ0pMOWD14KEE1uCGpaV1z_Zn_A/w512-h640/layton-temple_jan2023-14.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>The local shoots were a warm-up for January's biggest effort, which took me down to Zion National Park for a rare winter photo trip. When my pre-Christmas 2022 plans ran into complications, I decided a modest January excursion might be a novel way to redeem my winter angst, and the towering, snow-capped landscape of Zion delivered in dramatic style.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXEInLbgW80Kijka07xLhGMJD1-KwTMR-ItI9YqB35sod4-x_HJebXwWdu4KJQmzO8XU-dIlQLp37v5PbfWGdlvO7yz0seZi4g8ROaQYJD4UAH_MP8DdWDIW2stCezH4X_tsKWcMdTjG0sHSSBpMlTI3A390bI94-qIUn5mh25tj_QM8ww-L-Lg/s1620/zion-jan2023-day1-32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkXEInLbgW80Kijka07xLhGMJD1-KwTMR-ItI9YqB35sod4-x_HJebXwWdu4KJQmzO8XU-dIlQLp37v5PbfWGdlvO7yz0seZi4g8ROaQYJD4UAH_MP8DdWDIW2stCezH4X_tsKWcMdTjG0sHSSBpMlTI3A390bI94-qIUn5mh25tj_QM8ww-L-Lg/w640-h426/zion-jan2023-day1-32.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewWRi6M_We4Vr9LiTn0SrhA9uRCW3ClJnaDPZRgf0jDZ6a8LWiZMwjsKKbUUIiPqdrPrXvvizTOCZuMJzoYV2cFtpytTmUGkrFWXBUPFke-S3M_PHCtDmfTnEGjsJ4JjI1wXf6Olqt-p4PnGxNlPxT3oM99v8BmVdbAyNtZU6TKfbEsqVMjOGcQ/s1620/zion-jan23_reedits-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewWRi6M_We4Vr9LiTn0SrhA9uRCW3ClJnaDPZRgf0jDZ6a8LWiZMwjsKKbUUIiPqdrPrXvvizTOCZuMJzoYV2cFtpytTmUGkrFWXBUPFke-S3M_PHCtDmfTnEGjsJ4JjI1wXf6Olqt-p4PnGxNlPxT3oM99v8BmVdbAyNtZU6TKfbEsqVMjOGcQ/w640-h426/zion-jan23_reedits-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwp_PXgZA6x9WcX5NmIdCFfl1-mWsrOOXK24O9PgdYLJ3QTWzMC8mvIRQkxEQppFoC0wqyG4ANvyFbcqeyxGR0By3cHVkZnBY5M90FgoRQ2fFiykIkrZ1PTJeyUtvVSjLiwy5OAy5ck55lbpC2UQGdVTQIyp4AO_HV94-lsuYqsl-BMTlJIGzLDQ/s1620/zion-jan2023-day3-45.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwp_PXgZA6x9WcX5NmIdCFfl1-mWsrOOXK24O9PgdYLJ3QTWzMC8mvIRQkxEQppFoC0wqyG4ANvyFbcqeyxGR0By3cHVkZnBY5M90FgoRQ2fFiykIkrZ1PTJeyUtvVSjLiwy5OAy5ck55lbpC2UQGdVTQIyp4AO_HV94-lsuYqsl-BMTlJIGzLDQ/w640-h426/zion-jan2023-day3-45.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the way back I made a pit stop at Bryce Canyon, for obvious reasons.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>On the last day of the month, on the way to screen a so-so horror flick from M. Night Shyamalan, I dropped by Top Hat Video for a bittersweet goodbye on their last day of business. I'd accepted the argument that the traditional video store was no longer a sustainable business plan, but lamented to see another valuable social opportunity sacrificed at the altar of convenience and efficiency.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFb8Uqo1ssAdYpz7SexdiJdEFeWERRUOr267-Q7XHj0n5Ot3TOx4-3oyBOzXubL-yskb5Tei_psvgaRnu7btcQpLRwyl6jkS6BHZja58cPNsZDkWgclicbf-HuoouRI8wTn50xoetIpByXmfi5xou7rkpdBNyce1dkE2zRWqDsbnrRaLG__unMmA/s1024/IMG_20230131_174109525_HDR.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFb8Uqo1ssAdYpz7SexdiJdEFeWERRUOr267-Q7XHj0n5Ot3TOx4-3oyBOzXubL-yskb5Tei_psvgaRnu7btcQpLRwyl6jkS6BHZja58cPNsZDkWgclicbf-HuoouRI8wTn50xoetIpByXmfi5xou7rkpdBNyce1dkE2zRWqDsbnrRaLG__unMmA/w640-h480/IMG_20230131_174109525_HDR.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>February kept up the early 2023 momentum as I caught a Jazz game with the Cheetahman, and a couple of weeks later I attended the celebrity game when the NBA's All-Star Weekend came to Salt Lake City. But I had the most fun watching my oldest niece play her first season of Junior Jazz Youth Basketball, and even brought my camera along for her final game. Sadly, my church league continued to lie dormant, but I kept up a regular routine at the gym, and got plenty of fresh air when I joined my friend Brian for my first visit to the Midway Ice Castles since 2011.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznjU7HVc0tkt9cXBalKcyeRSAKYp5Gc3SSWHHRBOx7j5JcgAZySO4ovu9W9Ebk4rSvpeiXHajkm0UJEFP2hoePB63Jr4XrEjwJpOHr8Efdl34-Exdwsg5n3sdizc3lXICPoAWEy4Xsepr4OsqiHUJfqNoKWqsYrysrO8_rIVsZzQU5wkpCZe2RQ/s1620/jr-jazz_march-2023-46.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiznjU7HVc0tkt9cXBalKcyeRSAKYp5Gc3SSWHHRBOx7j5JcgAZySO4ovu9W9Ebk4rSvpeiXHajkm0UJEFP2hoePB63Jr4XrEjwJpOHr8Efdl34-Exdwsg5n3sdizc3lXICPoAWEy4Xsepr4OsqiHUJfqNoKWqsYrysrO8_rIVsZzQU5wkpCZe2RQ/w640-h426/jr-jazz_march-2023-46.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBC6T7n2nB6iv0nW2dGduaqgfiUIW_7q_-1tneWBF8z0sWvqQbFo6VtLsjiVfM161CDuybWUzoUBSBUObJBkd_AJ5VkSUs9kyZQ3AuQsM4lvOGahUE34AcVzpVvYrfHvvd-LjET6QFmNDMj7njdh3Nanl74ddqwgTF3vm6Mzds7A7fs-Ec0jDgIA/s1620/midway-ice-castles_feb2023-20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBC6T7n2nB6iv0nW2dGduaqgfiUIW_7q_-1tneWBF8z0sWvqQbFo6VtLsjiVfM161CDuybWUzoUBSBUObJBkd_AJ5VkSUs9kyZQ3AuQsM4lvOGahUE34AcVzpVvYrfHvvd-LjET6QFmNDMj7njdh3Nanl74ddqwgTF3vm6Mzds7A7fs-Ec0jDgIA/w640-h426/midway-ice-castles_feb2023-20.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>As February stretched into early March, traditional get-togethers for the Super Bowl and the Oscars helped offset the harsher-than-normal winter. Having made the recent trip to Zion, I decided to push my usual spring break road trip back a few weeks, and instead made the most of the local scenery, photographing a storm in downtown Bountiful with my friend Steve and showshoeing up Farmington Canyon with Randy. As I crossed the midpoint of the semester and looked ahead to spring, I noted that as challenging as the winter had been, I'd seen some genuine blessings alongside the difficulties.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijl_wPr4_ICR8TyPIU6Ve94gFumV1yA0PM21cHA6__BBMS6LFibSCGog1_SjL1lTziR3XbyHxTwC-rwdqaHkjsWcC1pQ_pS2GQaVs8_iLByIjZ3L2yV8OK7mArdJl2dc93VKF8tbiEO4UheL8Rb67-Mb7Dqh8P2zDaVAl_hKBUtM-08pkgnpmZ9g/s1620/bountiful-snowstorm_feb2023-12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijl_wPr4_ICR8TyPIU6Ve94gFumV1yA0PM21cHA6__BBMS6LFibSCGog1_SjL1lTziR3XbyHxTwC-rwdqaHkjsWcC1pQ_pS2GQaVs8_iLByIjZ3L2yV8OK7mArdJl2dc93VKF8tbiEO4UheL8Rb67-Mb7Dqh8P2zDaVAl_hKBUtM-08pkgnpmZ9g/w640-h426/bountiful-snowstorm_feb2023-12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4gDaNh2m8NRiMhzX-MMoAF1nYIUtlEFliGichd4YreOUerwumqfDCMrf-h1UQuxTfrzsdm1K5Szw5_Wbhx2KNSxTSvOdnjvADzrcwei1UNd_-HnV41oJA92obTl6Xd5TgMfsTW9954cYJOp0MiIZ8G8EkliNT5cOGKCp_EfLvNLJPeq6VryzTw/s1620/bountiful-snowstorm_feb2023-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4gDaNh2m8NRiMhzX-MMoAF1nYIUtlEFliGichd4YreOUerwumqfDCMrf-h1UQuxTfrzsdm1K5Szw5_Wbhx2KNSxTSvOdnjvADzrcwei1UNd_-HnV41oJA92obTl6Xd5TgMfsTW9954cYJOp0MiIZ8G8EkliNT5cOGKCp_EfLvNLJPeq6VryzTw/w640-h426/bountiful-snowstorm_feb2023-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7h6twOFP2qfm0Mow3AYBfCULa52PJRE3H-Py_ntRuG2LUoPVLmWtj98dBLc9qaHQzdpVNs-l69UZBcRw1paTPA08chKNSFn53kHfTxhMP-z32I8nM1rKDogZ-Hce0XUDyZ06AUlXoSIWfLCTg4ubkMdxc9t5_IC4iVOpxIx13OnZKrQt9twcjeA/s1620/snowshoeing-march2023-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7h6twOFP2qfm0Mow3AYBfCULa52PJRE3H-Py_ntRuG2LUoPVLmWtj98dBLc9qaHQzdpVNs-l69UZBcRw1paTPA08chKNSFn53kHfTxhMP-z32I8nM1rKDogZ-Hce0XUDyZ06AUlXoSIWfLCTg4ubkMdxc9t5_IC4iVOpxIx13OnZKrQt9twcjeA/w640-h426/snowshoeing-march2023-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We spent as much time getting my car unstuck as we did snowshoeing. I need to get a truck.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">S P R I N G</p><p>According to the calendar, spring started on March 20th, but Winter 2023 wasn't taking orders from anyone. By the end of the month, Utah officially set a record for snowpack, and it seemed like every couple of days I was out clearing a new inch or two of snow off the driveway.</p><p>For me, the spring season kicked off in the last week of March as I got behind the wheel and headed south to Joshua Tree National Park, stopping at Valley of Fire and the Seven Magic Mountains along the way. From there I broke west for my fifth visit to Death Valley National Park, and before making the long return drive north I visited a Nevada ghost town called Rhyolite. I arrived home just in time for General Conference weekend as the first quarter of 2023 timed out.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXhgCC6xSU8YfQNXpE87AwmLJq8QU579WblM4nW_BaIuTW9zhXOD0RyjeyJDSLwCJBlnLzbZhhvf-bSP0vHZZxqdzHX9wbt5vGGJBPREJCo_jwZivf4ZcmQVJMMwPmTRnsWVbpjTP2Pp45PKY2kOeDtzj3ecAVpcg3NIxwiWPj7iHpVTyGQdfkw/s1620/spring-break_mar23-day1-40.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXhgCC6xSU8YfQNXpE87AwmLJq8QU579WblM4nW_BaIuTW9zhXOD0RyjeyJDSLwCJBlnLzbZhhvf-bSP0vHZZxqdzHX9wbt5vGGJBPREJCo_jwZivf4ZcmQVJMMwPmTRnsWVbpjTP2Pp45PKY2kOeDtzj3ecAVpcg3NIxwiWPj7iHpVTyGQdfkw/w640-h426/spring-break_mar23-day1-40.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFHHpTN8mk5LlzQVO4cQ7ucW-DMd39y_hQWORS968p8EXcaY7aUMdx62rw7mEoNkcsn9jBMo192dQMypjcs3oPTZFhw0ZUOVWyck4jZkLCagcOEACGK8kS3T1jEzNO1Fq6FIvIMOYmrlHMzsb0r8olbEL3iji1WdqDvX3-RyENsy6jV-ZM0ewsg/s1620/spring-break_mar23-day2-75.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFHHpTN8mk5LlzQVO4cQ7ucW-DMd39y_hQWORS968p8EXcaY7aUMdx62rw7mEoNkcsn9jBMo192dQMypjcs3oPTZFhw0ZUOVWyck4jZkLCagcOEACGK8kS3T1jEzNO1Fq6FIvIMOYmrlHMzsb0r8olbEL3iji1WdqDvX3-RyENsy6jV-ZM0ewsg/w640-h426/spring-break_mar23-day2-75.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuai1ubt8zPagG5h1JYKr0L2KYNqNRJtXqyDg1yOryX_nvxhluitVscAKxt5flNH7uz7CAO2BRVkP1FZblXbYNFWkiM2_TxbPeiYZfxDxeUrdiCWX58DkI4R1wepfc5PKrMk6FcZRRNjvxXQ13kwLJUmj_3iOtREskoAD14mR8FjI-aPNP688e_A/s1620/spring-break_mar23-day3-80.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuai1ubt8zPagG5h1JYKr0L2KYNqNRJtXqyDg1yOryX_nvxhluitVscAKxt5flNH7uz7CAO2BRVkP1FZblXbYNFWkiM2_TxbPeiYZfxDxeUrdiCWX58DkI4R1wepfc5PKrMk6FcZRRNjvxXQ13kwLJUmj_3iOtREskoAD14mR8FjI-aPNP688e_A/w640-h426/spring-break_mar23-day3-80.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIph95Gm7j_U4Qt4ZuNCjhe1gQQtVoLjyitAxwEvt1y-gFt7WQefz5WYINRFU70AXqcKHdClZlotI7Px2vmjizRP-lw568iyWAUWfokTHPqtrYzOKixjOTooWACzqAjeSFts3vvmi_PAdeKWhm1oVACCVCVeiOW6A9Y4m4_QTtDvCPO8BzNryQFw/s1620/spring-break_mar23-day4-11.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIph95Gm7j_U4Qt4ZuNCjhe1gQQtVoLjyitAxwEvt1y-gFt7WQefz5WYINRFU70AXqcKHdClZlotI7Px2vmjizRP-lw568iyWAUWfokTHPqtrYzOKixjOTooWACzqAjeSFts3vvmi_PAdeKWhm1oVACCVCVeiOW6A9Y4m4_QTtDvCPO8BzNryQFw/w640-h426/spring-break_mar23-day4-11.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Tom Kelly's "Bottle House," just down the road from the Rhyolite ghost town.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The delayed spring break got me home with less than a month to the end of spring semester, and with a summer schedule that had me teaching brand-new courses, April became increasingly intense as I strained to finish one semester while prepping another. The weather kept pouring it on, conjuring up memories of the floods of 1983, but while traditional subjects like the state capitol cherry blossoms fell by the wayside, I kept busy behind the camera with a series of senior portrait shoots.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0oWm6ePNUbVJykf5PcmlGwaDas7MxgG_nYKvAfAoN881j_xf12R_lv45hQmyWZUD0mgLRzEaRuzflogzpUufeDI1mK1L5IuqP2boj-K16SzHtJzD7iPavMO1um2e9ZzQFIgdw4pF0E35t6U8jrobjkhcDS5NjbNW-9zq4J1dSGjOHQYYC14ymQ/s1350/olivia-grad-shoot_april2023-web-5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0oWm6ePNUbVJykf5PcmlGwaDas7MxgG_nYKvAfAoN881j_xf12R_lv45hQmyWZUD0mgLRzEaRuzflogzpUufeDI1mK1L5IuqP2boj-K16SzHtJzD7iPavMO1um2e9ZzQFIgdw4pF0E35t6U8jrobjkhcDS5NjbNW-9zq4J1dSGjOHQYYC14ymQ/w512-h640/olivia-grad-shoot_april2023-web-5.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0mgYbEpLJFJZvzCqF1D_4pUME0mH8-NnzTnF7XqRVGYJyHHGOCcIv20o17bAJWQAh8PdtspMgY-fPn6qbuP5KRvQr-nfmofNGHNZt2sM325Jt3yiNsewqKFj5vI44leZsdbEgEvZTw_lL-1lSF7BfurZbBrhmb2edyJKQveKGmcn2jpneUGyWA/s1350/cassidy-senior-pics_april23-FORWEB-33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx0mgYbEpLJFJZvzCqF1D_4pUME0mH8-NnzTnF7XqRVGYJyHHGOCcIv20o17bAJWQAh8PdtspMgY-fPn6qbuP5KRvQr-nfmofNGHNZt2sM325Jt3yiNsewqKFj5vI44leZsdbEgEvZTw_lL-1lSF7BfurZbBrhmb2edyJKQveKGmcn2jpneUGyWA/w512-h640/cassidy-senior-pics_april23-FORWEB-33.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0ksBXVaTy68qioURSCTpwfdC1OmoRMm8tCEexCbEi98CVehfEb2YxPSXYRSZLqF6907wuujF4JWbcV03kD8yruGMKuxe_9GtZyJ5dKLASTGw5mN2jQX5IXGqwU7kE7Lyc1bWOb5ZTVroftuemkUJmHxd54XqYwBt5h-viwyuc3lio7iR3Fb9PA/s1350/esther-rylee_senior-pics_may23-FOR-WEB-23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM0ksBXVaTy68qioURSCTpwfdC1OmoRMm8tCEexCbEi98CVehfEb2YxPSXYRSZLqF6907wuujF4JWbcV03kD8yruGMKuxe_9GtZyJ5dKLASTGw5mN2jQX5IXGqwU7kE7Lyc1bWOb5ZTVroftuemkUJmHxd54XqYwBt5h-viwyuc3lio7iR3Fb9PA/w512-h640/esther-rylee_senior-pics_may23-FOR-WEB-23.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>Things stayed busy as April turned to May and I jumped from spring semester into the summer term. As I started up a pair of online classes, a long-anticipated flooring install made things crazy at home, but not as crazy as driving through a swarm of bugs on the way to a sunset shoot at Antelope Island with Steve. There were no bugs on the way to shoot the Payson Temple with Brian, but while editing the results I used Adobe's AI software enhancements for the first time.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dykXWZALthmw4oyQxV-heDqhYehB5ZVVwT-3F2CoflDJU459uRlhUUTjU4Ox4gBTyvKkztdBGJNepo' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTTHeIwuGkjILi4OpQO9iee5WEuoOFMLTKEAXbLRZLsx-DAzKZeupEoB3cT-9cXQ5ROIA6UdiAfMhpsrcb_hyphenhyphenbxkbraR4vIg9UfZjynC2DxctB18O7UY26KbhliAIgiTCzZlW815v0-epm1Wy5zr1s-f3KNc1XgPHm8c8qJMvTRwpOLOYUwwjRWQ/s1350/various-shoots_may2023-10.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTTHeIwuGkjILi4OpQO9iee5WEuoOFMLTKEAXbLRZLsx-DAzKZeupEoB3cT-9cXQ5ROIA6UdiAfMhpsrcb_hyphenhyphenbxkbraR4vIg9UfZjynC2DxctB18O7UY26KbhliAIgiTCzZlW815v0-epm1Wy5zr1s-f3KNc1XgPHm8c8qJMvTRwpOLOYUwwjRWQ/w512-h640/various-shoots_may2023-10.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CSahog7ysqSs5tAWjvwppJPdExlwIiMIbRrjD2P7MyHBHglBWqco-Wu4NdzNzXKOkrnTvE3tFkp4JHNaZQZbp0Zh_QcoiVaDUc7z68Iba5u1lKq04XRW_6g3vSv-V4sNQTtk3VKpXQs4iRL_nAPxnSzJMX8zgFZZA4s8iOH0wuKVYBFgApsYkA/s1620/payson-temple-etc_may2023-10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CSahog7ysqSs5tAWjvwppJPdExlwIiMIbRrjD2P7MyHBHglBWqco-Wu4NdzNzXKOkrnTvE3tFkp4JHNaZQZbp0Zh_QcoiVaDUc7z68Iba5u1lKq04XRW_6g3vSv-V4sNQTtk3VKpXQs4iRL_nAPxnSzJMX8zgFZZA4s8iOH0wuKVYBFgApsYkA/w640-h426/payson-temple-etc_may2023-10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Between all the photo shoots and completing my first full year of service at the Bountiful Temple, Spring 2023 filled up the calendar, but luckily it didn't bring the flooding many feared. While the water runoff did cause some issues in places like Ogden Canyon, the Wasatch Front was largely spared a 1983 reboot. Instead, the most significant event for me came as the season approached its finish line in late May, when after trying a few test shots with Steve's Canon R5, I decided to take advantage of a promotional discount and pick up my first new camera* in eleven years.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgsA9swetOpI4fj9FxfWkT6N2idLm8U0IaL3cHbd5BV-1TujaaPk5RA9P2sPjKyO1bKKj-gM29V-ioayKVViogxKDHWyJ-zEJAUQnPEjD4aFYTfQHmbk8mCJphZTbv3fUb7DOe1Yje07eFk4Peos_jPVaSs-JQBYfGqkZUyvPBwrOcWFu-ZEEppw/s1619/r5-test_may2023-27.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgsA9swetOpI4fj9FxfWkT6N2idLm8U0IaL3cHbd5BV-1TujaaPk5RA9P2sPjKyO1bKKj-gM29V-ioayKVViogxKDHWyJ-zEJAUQnPEjD4aFYTfQHmbk8mCJphZTbv3fUb7DOe1Yje07eFk4Peos_jPVaSs-JQBYfGqkZUyvPBwrOcWFu-ZEEppw/w640-h426/r5-test_may2023-27.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spring runoff out of Holbrook Canyon...shades of 1983.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNHmfbu0fWQS4CkyBlpMlJxkpcWeOsawzmy0U-zjakgR9mzeTM-gutX_DdJyDYYqDVOFJGHoyuuIJCu0tvxubSwhwGFdtuHu5_cRxF2MB_914h8GBtsYg3FEscy_LqhL4LyYMmlWsiTFf5bn9bCjyrpGoblBHjfCuqCwDTm8qYO_56j9AjgLXLeg/s1024/IMG_0416.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNHmfbu0fWQS4CkyBlpMlJxkpcWeOsawzmy0U-zjakgR9mzeTM-gutX_DdJyDYYqDVOFJGHoyuuIJCu0tvxubSwhwGFdtuHu5_cRxF2MB_914h8GBtsYg3FEscy_LqhL4LyYMmlWsiTFf5bn9bCjyrpGoblBHjfCuqCwDTm8qYO_56j9AjgLXLeg/w640-h480/IMG_0416.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">S U M M E R</p><p>Picking up a new camera was the closest thing to a clean break from Spring to Summer 2023, since my summer semester courses and the summer movie season started back in May. But the camera wasn't my only new venture as I made my way into June. While handling the classes and the movies, I also took on some new responsibilities at the temple, and tried to integrate some new health practices after my yearly physical reported some disappointing results. Clearing excess growth out of the backyard wasn't a "new" venture, but it felt like a worthy follow-up to the new flooring.</p><p>Along the way, I photographed a couple of local car shows, and whenever I could, I tried to create meaningful images, whether catching one of my nieces while she got some screentime, or dragging a couple ward friends over to the chapel to photograph our pipe organ. I also kept my Funko project going at my church cultural hall, where I must have logged thousands of miles playing basketball over the years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_h9ftotij6xEn0cU2lUeWHNbnLeZJeQUprocegI6iBWLQP5QupApBW4Vcpsf3mOBlx1H32oWzQ9N1s_HYAMltemt9YiW-hmaDsx-HJ5HIUtbRhAZjjejuWBtlaFBHtymDbZXM4oboJ0miXpMFUg2dquh-znY6u__HKXo_geIy6py-Emwl0HrkA/s1620/cars-for-kids-parade_june2023-49.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_h9ftotij6xEn0cU2lUeWHNbnLeZJeQUprocegI6iBWLQP5QupApBW4Vcpsf3mOBlx1H32oWzQ9N1s_HYAMltemt9YiW-hmaDsx-HJ5HIUtbRhAZjjejuWBtlaFBHtymDbZXM4oboJ0miXpMFUg2dquh-znY6u__HKXo_geIy6py-Emwl0HrkA/w640-h426/cars-for-kids-parade_june2023-49.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-dBQokdlKtexac0bWImKdE9ux-19SlN6-lsvCRwrrznJsv9ELA5v1ASrwtzTwO6fj77h_Y2Jwli_89fbi7IEFrMrnc_ao8Gi5h2eiMMi8vjy4awX2J954ZUS37GHmFJtDF4KDs4B0jKfbuVcvHkQ1Lha3vRZzWDLOt6FDH8siS5TnQgUA12p5Q/s1619/eaglewood-car-show_july2023-10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-dBQokdlKtexac0bWImKdE9ux-19SlN6-lsvCRwrrznJsv9ELA5v1ASrwtzTwO6fj77h_Y2Jwli_89fbi7IEFrMrnc_ao8Gi5h2eiMMi8vjy4awX2J954ZUS37GHmFJtDF4KDs4B0jKfbuVcvHkQ1Lha3vRZzWDLOt6FDH8siS5TnQgUA12p5Q/w640-h426/eaglewood-car-show_july2023-10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdVk760BSXtwnQ-dHiIfiW594Mqkl8T5563vaBNX_IyG6cu1CnXVfAtK7zgoDt7tNGkuvS9XGs8NdT-T757Mcd7PYd6rxOqWkPfQ3hPsC9n155uTf08SUJ-u355QrmnmXV2IVPEnhfqfAKaBTYTMF76z1ftxLmKCTJK9JdHWwOsXOQGdwHc4DJQ/s1350/screentime-juju_aug2023.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdVk760BSXtwnQ-dHiIfiW594Mqkl8T5563vaBNX_IyG6cu1CnXVfAtK7zgoDt7tNGkuvS9XGs8NdT-T757Mcd7PYd6rxOqWkPfQ3hPsC9n155uTf08SUJ-u355QrmnmXV2IVPEnhfqfAKaBTYTMF76z1ftxLmKCTJK9JdHWwOsXOQGdwHc4DJQ/w512-h640/screentime-juju_aug2023.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQy20pZR-s8pI-n089tsowVAbIR2JCzgDQb2orl2565cojyZILLu5kn9jsX6idAvU8Y7cAr6LShr5er4jLqBbVRqmTNaYGxWiPPX53xSFY_pkyF7MBBH8CaEIOAYQqYI29c8Un4mLJkqeJKRTl9T8uteY3seiYN8tcVyrrTbHFlAvlNcBCesdnxg/s1619/various-july-shoots-ex1_july2023-WEB.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQy20pZR-s8pI-n089tsowVAbIR2JCzgDQb2orl2565cojyZILLu5kn9jsX6idAvU8Y7cAr6LShr5er4jLqBbVRqmTNaYGxWiPPX53xSFY_pkyF7MBBH8CaEIOAYQqYI29c8Un4mLJkqeJKRTl9T8uteY3seiYN8tcVyrrTbHFlAvlNcBCesdnxg/w640-h426/various-july-shoots-ex1_july2023-WEB.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tuQypgzlSAHhYp0-fIEy0iG-I6mc0ez7h_AMDnxQn5MUsnpHMfJ7EYdC1iloP2T5_UGytwBS6ulf0otwi3-vNRAQhKtb8jwMlfJ7CKtmQB9Rqh1rXckZJN4jGHftyKeGODwWz58ZtPtntAXMLPYJRHcDMUMXw1tE-n9LEwboG_kGOVi7q347TA/s1350/various-july-shoots-ex1_july2023-WEB-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tuQypgzlSAHhYp0-fIEy0iG-I6mc0ez7h_AMDnxQn5MUsnpHMfJ7EYdC1iloP2T5_UGytwBS6ulf0otwi3-vNRAQhKtb8jwMlfJ7CKtmQB9Rqh1rXckZJN4jGHftyKeGODwWz58ZtPtntAXMLPYJRHcDMUMXw1tE-n9LEwboG_kGOVi7q347TA/w512-h640/various-july-shoots-ex1_july2023-WEB-2.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>When July arrived, I joined my friend Tyler for Centerville's annual Freedom Run, and though we decided to skip out on the Independence Day fireworks, Steve and I lined up our cameras for the Mueller Park Pioneer Day show later in the month. Altogether, the first half of Summer 2023 was a hap-hazard, flurry of activity.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQPciHi4uzI6LJtNplhiGcpU9Vfh2h3k7CBEgNSL8-S0HvAJFSf9-SfU91dEFo2ckbyXuDaSCP1qp1719Qhzr4Rl8YwX85NuWhyKXTBPOc9l6FY5K4f5tiu0_G7Ipbz4lAcpX89jxGQQARRQAkjqnUmeLWBwFMOVJkSQ2oXOQ_toA2TsatViEng/s1024/IMG_0357.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQPciHi4uzI6LJtNplhiGcpU9Vfh2h3k7CBEgNSL8-S0HvAJFSf9-SfU91dEFo2ckbyXuDaSCP1qp1719Qhzr4Rl8YwX85NuWhyKXTBPOc9l6FY5K4f5tiu0_G7Ipbz4lAcpX89jxGQQARRQAkjqnUmeLWBwFMOVJkSQ2oXOQ_toA2TsatViEng/w480-h640/IMG_0357.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIVh_wZzjdCv3c42Ks6GQD7l4vIWwCgnzkck_N1Z0GPqZwMj6951e3il0y8V3hSVofDQew99toqjeRrVHSfqIByBJw4QHbFXxxXRfwGxvGe20fGmEUPXFT3YgCEh2axNCMVWD5X916a_lxqvMZsjrxa3D8fLpca1kCNqYqYaPN20OBOxlzKZMFeA/s1350/mueller-park-fireworks_july2023-15.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIVh_wZzjdCv3c42Ks6GQD7l4vIWwCgnzkck_N1Z0GPqZwMj6951e3il0y8V3hSVofDQew99toqjeRrVHSfqIByBJw4QHbFXxxXRfwGxvGe20fGmEUPXFT3YgCEh2axNCMVWD5X916a_lxqvMZsjrxa3D8fLpca1kCNqYqYaPN20OBOxlzKZMFeA/w512-h640/mueller-park-fireworks_july2023-15.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks again to my friend Melanie, whose roof made this view possible.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>As temperatures approached 100 degrees in Northern Utah, the Cheetahman and I made a well-timed escape to the Oregon coast for a few days in the middle of July. My primary objective was a third try at a sunset shoot at Bandon Beach, but sadly I found the same overcast conditions that thwarted last year's visit. Gratefully I found success elsewhere, and Randy and I enjoyed some great food and fun hangout time as we explored the coast, visiting the Goonies house in Astoria, doing product shoots at Cannon Beach, and even dropping by Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in Northern California...all at a pleasant 65 degrees. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYC7R9ezIKxUys8a-13poS8lyUtHOqTGmldMVjpDCnsVYypu0PSeLAEyILl1bQmFph1q-l0wHzMf-9_htyMIs6w7PBBQlljY7Wq1VZ2ovlF6_7rusrmxdw0fdLgMiXiYGfBtPiMW37e8QSYaL_MeSS4nWVCRzgUU5Pkx4RYv6d8FyP6_-5DDGLfQ/s1350/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYC7R9ezIKxUys8a-13poS8lyUtHOqTGmldMVjpDCnsVYypu0PSeLAEyILl1bQmFph1q-l0wHzMf-9_htyMIs6w7PBBQlljY7Wq1VZ2ovlF6_7rusrmxdw0fdLgMiXiYGfBtPiMW37e8QSYaL_MeSS4nWVCRzgUU5Pkx4RYv6d8FyP6_-5DDGLfQ/w512-h640/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-11.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix239lUI1MxPiZDqbal5AScOCUIbwbHDyG9iv6tdCWyH6wGbb9sdEDwB5cPAxLo9w6kBCaQRXXx3J_niLw9I-VSXB1BF2j7tyZQA0y3VJXjgPPGdlsGGz51Y3JUK8i9uwqAPJNsYMpxPzDT1DOL_EHsUn4mdUQKYpxtypMJUUejRuzD1LRAr7w8Q/s1619/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-61.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix239lUI1MxPiZDqbal5AScOCUIbwbHDyG9iv6tdCWyH6wGbb9sdEDwB5cPAxLo9w6kBCaQRXXx3J_niLw9I-VSXB1BF2j7tyZQA0y3VJXjgPPGdlsGGz51Y3JUK8i9uwqAPJNsYMpxPzDT1DOL_EHsUn4mdUQKYpxtypMJUUejRuzD1LRAr7w8Q/w640-h426/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-61.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBxQNc03AubEj4Chwc03nluWnFfxg6gstsvI0ewzMy2M4c6V6PtyuSQR2drKv1pLJVS389uxPCMYO9lRz5ByPimSA0rQ2q2x3hPC2ZXP7VPZn15SYvayn2EZJM1R6hxcesX1H1uxkD1ZviyivhawETX9Yc9gZtrbfM7F5Scc6GR8LHgdSGK3qwg/s1619/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-71.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDBxQNc03AubEj4Chwc03nluWnFfxg6gstsvI0ewzMy2M4c6V6PtyuSQR2drKv1pLJVS389uxPCMYO9lRz5ByPimSA0rQ2q2x3hPC2ZXP7VPZn15SYvayn2EZJM1R6hxcesX1H1uxkD1ZviyivhawETX9Yc9gZtrbfM7F5Scc6GR8LHgdSGK3qwg/w640-h426/oregon-coast_july2023-DAY-1-2-71.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2YRwynJ6OwNBwK3j3sSqTug-Dz1Om2mp1RvUDduPDNzpN6EHtvnRWdNGF_kQZsVkWGTarn4-WNP7DZb-6F-qrmWh_I86xy_H5KaMBZ3rjgD72N-OnTZpO85MfdAt3czxYIn_GLZ6Rja4TnZTBBmX2hyphenhyphensNFxLy0SccpagcUtRKU9Zu8nTK9pymw/s1619/oregon-coast_july23-DAY3-56.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR2YRwynJ6OwNBwK3j3sSqTug-Dz1Om2mp1RvUDduPDNzpN6EHtvnRWdNGF_kQZsVkWGTarn4-WNP7DZb-6F-qrmWh_I86xy_H5KaMBZ3rjgD72N-OnTZpO85MfdAt3czxYIn_GLZ6Rja4TnZTBBmX2hyphenhyphensNFxLy0SccpagcUtRKU9Zu8nTK9pymw/w640-h426/oregon-coast_july23-DAY3-56.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Once back from Oregon, I found those sweltering temperatures waiting for me along with crunch time for my English composition classes. But as I slogged through the back half of the summer, I still got out to get pictures where I could, including a special family session for my Utah FilmPod co-host. In an unexpected development, I also got got some use out of my macro lens, capturing dragon flies in my backyard and spiders out on Antelope Island. After investing so much time and money to shoot in exotic locations, it's always illuminating to see a macro lens reveal the beauty of the overlooked.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFN1KA5kxKzOn8Ut2LL25P5gvTUGF2fg7Uz8vwAHKzmwZzM9M0bitmiKXTK9VwwVSU9tK3jVmzaOvRP1dN2yGKjRkgfp2s9R3Vcu_H6sW9okLMf38R3Sh4frYKKJoFC1Av9B_dLdfg_yljtOoDmiP4NJoC5Vqfs-CNYdZQHiqsWeYfJ6ohfN3Yg/s1024/IMG_9999.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFN1KA5kxKzOn8Ut2LL25P5gvTUGF2fg7Uz8vwAHKzmwZzM9M0bitmiKXTK9VwwVSU9tK3jVmzaOvRP1dN2yGKjRkgfp2s9R3Vcu_H6sW9okLMf38R3Sh4frYKKJoFC1Av9B_dLdfg_yljtOoDmiP4NJoC5Vqfs-CNYdZQHiqsWeYfJ6ohfN3Yg/w640-h480/IMG_9999.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After the LaRocco family shoot, the hosts of the Utah FilmPod posed for their own picture.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwb0blm2UfmRZYpQI-hEyCCJloUFV2gxxqoYvMbGZbrGbIgu60Lvmtq0B_ubLFLc3v6LRXCXEaDVzbeK88hjA3L03kVnjQzsOlOHMyeI3drkka25NWdDsoc1Tln6OTgZbYLjM69j-XLYGxzxa7-LUwalTloZg23NzZcdgiNlBfkfYd0Ww9J9XXDg/s1350/macro-bugs_july2023-15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwb0blm2UfmRZYpQI-hEyCCJloUFV2gxxqoYvMbGZbrGbIgu60Lvmtq0B_ubLFLc3v6LRXCXEaDVzbeK88hjA3L03kVnjQzsOlOHMyeI3drkka25NWdDsoc1Tln6OTgZbYLjM69j-XLYGxzxa7-LUwalTloZg23NzZcdgiNlBfkfYd0Ww9J9XXDg/w512-h640/macro-bugs_july2023-15.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjckltvbyV7KEsE7Z6WAfWDBzMXcN11j2jELsGgZtfBhUs5IAjqO0r-7Y-Ge9lfgddnp22PsqI452SmtgzC_XHkFZM6qC-CPXFxA-YMAOgZMDvkmf9MatThncQg7cryyG_x4I7kKN88yU7v5QuoMXn3eNLy3jWA0aWaOEyNqHXjHpHbkgZzpLJw/s1619/bcf-spiders_aug23-7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjckltvbyV7KEsE7Z6WAfWDBzMXcN11j2jELsGgZtfBhUs5IAjqO0r-7Y-Ge9lfgddnp22PsqI452SmtgzC_XHkFZM6qC-CPXFxA-YMAOgZMDvkmf9MatThncQg7cryyG_x4I7kKN88yU7v5QuoMXn3eNLy3jWA0aWaOEyNqHXjHpHbkgZzpLJw/w640-h426/bcf-spiders_aug23-7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>As August neared its halfway point, I got news that my old friend, neighbor, and scoutmaster Frank Richardson passed away. He had played a key role in my adolescence, providing an unforgettable example of leadership while planting the seeds of my future photo expeditions on a summer scout camp in Zion. We had reconnected through Facebook, but hadn't met up in person, and I was disappointed to have missed the opportunity to catch up properly. But as a silver lining, at the funeral I was able to visit with his son Brad, who had <a href="https://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2017/04/easter-musings-john-cusack-sheer-cliffs.html" target="_blank">hiked to the top of Angel's Landing</a> with me on that camp all those years ago.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRUYN5hhXOf6Rs1OkE1vdOZRTSJNNCvsDqcCIXJp2PzlumxNo_18bMPURSJybUfNAVOFmMX5D891yQoZA-jX3M9XnHCNEOlc0xpXCryATkAFI3W9H5LzvfOd73R_HYcw7DccNYuI8j8_Cfrx0_56GnXr4AIJembtQrVGQrdz07WrurqLtclHqiw/s1024/IMG_0044.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRUYN5hhXOf6Rs1OkE1vdOZRTSJNNCvsDqcCIXJp2PzlumxNo_18bMPURSJybUfNAVOFmMX5D891yQoZA-jX3M9XnHCNEOlc0xpXCryATkAFI3W9H5LzvfOd73R_HYcw7DccNYuI8j8_Cfrx0_56GnXr4AIJembtQrVGQrdz07WrurqLtclHqiw/w640-h480/IMG_0044.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>By the time I attended Frank's funeral, summer semester was drawing to a merciful close. As I worked my way through the final grading and prepped my fall courses for another quick turnaround, I tried to enjoy the fresh produce and Maddox day trips that highlight every summer, and along the way I photographed waterfalls, temples, and other subjects around Northern Utah. Still, the late summer played out in a melancholy funk, and all the good things felt like they were under siege from a steady stream of discouragement and disappointment. My friend's passing was a sober reminder of things I hadn't accomplished in life, my summer classes revealed some concerning professional issues, and even a new camera couldn't offset a run of listless photo shoots. </p><p>No one event was catastrophic, but in sum they seemed to ask, "where is all this going?" So it helped to spend some time at the Syracuse Temple construction site one Friday night, and see a structure heavy in scaffolding, far from completion. As summer closed, I was well aware of my blessings in life, but also aware that I hoped for something better. I took heart in the idea that like the temple, I was somewhere in the middle of a process that was more planned than random. It was a perfect time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of my favorite coming-of-age movies, and I closed off Summer 2023 with Brian and his family at the Centerville Megaplex, watching a special screening of "American Graffiti."</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWKx4Ry_Nf-XMqc-cmPtIbBvpZj0U-9P-vyE7nbc6dgK2nX2P4wnuDOSpSPL8aGz3OECBfMVRKFCsCYHo6F_Z7HsbR6Vz8lPWBzXG70TIHuVHHzt9_Z_-b4sl1Uj58ILbiErNkvHoVRRD1FlZ00nfkxIMp74oj9LwHZ2jKngIFTiwlp23N30KDQ/s1619/syracuse-layton-temples_aug23-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhWKx4Ry_Nf-XMqc-cmPtIbBvpZj0U-9P-vyE7nbc6dgK2nX2P4wnuDOSpSPL8aGz3OECBfMVRKFCsCYHo6F_Z7HsbR6Vz8lPWBzXG70TIHuVHHzt9_Z_-b4sl1Uj58ILbiErNkvHoVRRD1FlZ00nfkxIMp74oj9LwHZ2jKngIFTiwlp23N30KDQ/w640-h426/syracuse-layton-temples_aug23-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG9Td1LDSr3k5JtYhuyqeYxM06e7uOV7nowat3vZLbaL3Gl9PDnkEsx5-_v6mg0V3BoOdX5OodWG53-cgCqHLio2nFBJJLzIvsVk7q27WsLW0WqwVc63oNUlL_m0CDjQKXaDiTPei-VgOagfuOkTbei2d9gYPe4AOYRqWxg-HDeouNao5dMx3LVA/s1366/IMG_0073.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG9Td1LDSr3k5JtYhuyqeYxM06e7uOV7nowat3vZLbaL3Gl9PDnkEsx5-_v6mg0V3BoOdX5OodWG53-cgCqHLio2nFBJJLzIvsVk7q27WsLW0WqwVc63oNUlL_m0CDjQKXaDiTPei-VgOagfuOkTbei2d9gYPe4AOYRqWxg-HDeouNao5dMx3LVA/w480-h640/IMG_0073.jpeg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Easily the best movie I saw in 2023.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;">F A L L </p><p>September didn't flip the switch on my summer funk any more than it lowered the summer temperatures, but it did bring some fun opportunities that got the year moving in a good direction, as well as a full slate of classes as I kicked off my eighth year of teaching at Weber State. Even having a green lawn at the beginning of September felt like an accomplishment. Things got rolling on Labor Day weekend as I joined Randy and his wife Alex for a special lunch drawn from fruits and vegetables straight out of Alex's garden. I used the opportunity to add her to my lineup of power lunch photos, which continued to grow at a modest pace throughout 2023.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfts5QTnjzmBcn8fhf05B6dbeJRaomR8f-h9H2HEBF9rv9wa3fQk92EfLM5wX2zel_BFOxfGura8Oc8vo4z9-hpi1AtMTsX3BQErw-DeLM3PDabEiSp1ytctE5EVo3IweF0dETaIXbGMPfJFk02qSlmLPb93w9R_gp4anLlB3wYz_-i_bUVzf8Q/s6834/sept23-miscellaneous-5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4558" data-original-width="6834" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBfts5QTnjzmBcn8fhf05B6dbeJRaomR8f-h9H2HEBF9rv9wa3fQk92EfLM5wX2zel_BFOxfGura8Oc8vo4z9-hpi1AtMTsX3BQErw-DeLM3PDabEiSp1ytctE5EVo3IweF0dETaIXbGMPfJFk02qSlmLPb93w9R_gp4anLlB3wYz_-i_bUVzf8Q/w640-h426/sept23-miscellaneous-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_NKxlREa1NxqOhpNXAN5Owxg5gOzW8pVnArk4hJEx-HkRV8r-UB-FM5c6TNGU49Yr2yrq5S7Vvs2hwYWisj0nqgIgWW3udOZfQWK7NZ3ETIZuKlHzFKAHN2PHc6HNu4l6oCeeXJeh5GuOZqUuFQV_BE6HKu2hIy1YXsj18c1TylsXA3-lI0RQjw/s1620/lunch-series_kharten_jan2023.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_NKxlREa1NxqOhpNXAN5Owxg5gOzW8pVnArk4hJEx-HkRV8r-UB-FM5c6TNGU49Yr2yrq5S7Vvs2hwYWisj0nqgIgWW3udOZfQWK7NZ3ETIZuKlHzFKAHN2PHc6HNu4l6oCeeXJeh5GuOZqUuFQV_BE6HKu2hIy1YXsj18c1TylsXA3-lI0RQjw/w640-h426/lunch-series_kharten_jan2023.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a self-portrait. This is my friend Keith, who joined me for lunch in January.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03RpAHPjO9OwYG03fha7RKziWfln1qYbdrds4bbo2j3InLzAECzI076o2b8tAJGseufv_PzwvvyieqgoQBKqlwqRQVyRvs8jprzdIlbPN7Z-3sfSdrC3PhER_Ute_RuCt59fpUuDzfgMMfBHqZo5Grsdu12sQmF7cgIhTT5ThMXDMZNrf1G4Jhg/s1620/various-shoots_may2023-4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh03RpAHPjO9OwYG03fha7RKziWfln1qYbdrds4bbo2j3InLzAECzI076o2b8tAJGseufv_PzwvvyieqgoQBKqlwqRQVyRvs8jprzdIlbPN7Z-3sfSdrC3PhER_Ute_RuCt59fpUuDzfgMMfBHqZo5Grsdu12sQmF7cgIhTT5ThMXDMZNrf1G4Jhg/w640-h426/various-shoots_may2023-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karl has been a family friend for many years, and may be getting into photography himself.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHpMAJjH2sE1oh-r9Dyqdbj-DLRUuKznSoom7ktaOs-cEzWxK4mTzemWbMEVQDyH9FXdQVpD1Sb5kgRG7R4IoevKrklS-PwpuBcsht6x1E6WRnRnLHQ0M-sv59gWkmP_wppEpq5rDYEKOzPxy_NQWGH_o0GtCfTu-fqreixA9r6yjpsDTDMe0cQ/s1619/lunch-series_dsmith_dec23.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHpMAJjH2sE1oh-r9Dyqdbj-DLRUuKznSoom7ktaOs-cEzWxK4mTzemWbMEVQDyH9FXdQVpD1Sb5kgRG7R4IoevKrklS-PwpuBcsht6x1E6WRnRnLHQ0M-sv59gWkmP_wppEpq5rDYEKOzPxy_NQWGH_o0GtCfTu-fqreixA9r6yjpsDTDMe0cQ/w640-h426/lunch-series_dsmith_dec23.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've enjoyed getting to know Daren while serving in the Bountiful Temple together.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>I don't know if it was the expectation I attached to my new camera, but several of my summer shoots had felt routine as the season drew on. Fortunately Fall delivered a much-needed jolt of creative adrenaline when Steve and I drove out to the Bonneville Salt Flats to photograph everything from Funko Pops to smoke grenades to random strangers who showed up with guitars. By the end of the night, we capped things off with my first Milky Way shoot in years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXA3HiJ8MLtNXAcqhyN2WEN0411ZRUptXG3CcP4ec6MxYcVxl0Qm5MTHsG1eD7DU_mjRtjCY4T40UHxsLfCmg2sQhPqjMf7zEX6WsiRO2B1TQGK0RhCYtu9juEy9U6PRe_-hK6u6W1UiMoZn_otN8SkES3es_D4xthrJSDrXZtn2sfnX8lmoV8OQ/s1619/salt-flats_sep23-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXA3HiJ8MLtNXAcqhyN2WEN0411ZRUptXG3CcP4ec6MxYcVxl0Qm5MTHsG1eD7DU_mjRtjCY4T40UHxsLfCmg2sQhPqjMf7zEX6WsiRO2B1TQGK0RhCYtu9juEy9U6PRe_-hK6u6W1UiMoZn_otN8SkES3es_D4xthrJSDrXZtn2sfnX8lmoV8OQ/w640-h426/salt-flats_sep23-14.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGtK9US3KG-eJbnhuo3zazEIVwrmJoLroQbVdvBvOKE2agyhuKRPtm-_0tejKzBB5sV1kVLMdDbPBLCfez7UYc314ubZMZDNR80euEvlDorceW2_F4v4tM9TcIILPg3_IEkHxQqDDZ8MyWTOX9E3w8m5SwyCeV33tMx5-uEuD4-Hn7V2qLjHRU1Q/s1619/salt-flats_sep23-44.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGtK9US3KG-eJbnhuo3zazEIVwrmJoLroQbVdvBvOKE2agyhuKRPtm-_0tejKzBB5sV1kVLMdDbPBLCfez7UYc314ubZMZDNR80euEvlDorceW2_F4v4tM9TcIILPg3_IEkHxQqDDZ8MyWTOX9E3w8m5SwyCeV33tMx5-uEuD4-Hn7V2qLjHRU1Q/w640-h426/salt-flats_sep23-44.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJC4Jvf1CM_VeLd27TtCT7bagfjFqN1dRWktlauEbwaRAsdJA40aoAL2pfYXx2ZphpvHdZnN_SSmjRIKpTkuYChexxLxNeMPDrnrFti8v-jVODK4XXcEvN5fKv3pajYnA6HxfmD-RjQLn-zVWn7z1u6jROhZ2uRs2ZGzRytGOXjeotLnouEueeA/s1619/salt-flats_sep23-34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPJC4Jvf1CM_VeLd27TtCT7bagfjFqN1dRWktlauEbwaRAsdJA40aoAL2pfYXx2ZphpvHdZnN_SSmjRIKpTkuYChexxLxNeMPDrnrFti8v-jVODK4XXcEvN5fKv3pajYnA6HxfmD-RjQLn-zVWn7z1u6jROhZ2uRs2ZGzRytGOXjeotLnouEueeA/w640-h426/salt-flats_sep23-34.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySjhJacvjtcsW8qh_rm4JqqsgjeEaS7O60WTzG9bpzEt75x5iSc1jHIzZfczMJNNR8-CQMJIG1izw02gkqaDDbEHSo80YG04XOVhzuiByn_6zPF3bMHo_84HGyMZocVPxoUhZkv2WdyDlErYMt23qhSbeRGg7TTJwTj7KYmFfD3mRdR_-UP7ltA/s1350/salt-flats_sep23-61.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgySjhJacvjtcsW8qh_rm4JqqsgjeEaS7O60WTzG9bpzEt75x5iSc1jHIzZfczMJNNR8-CQMJIG1izw02gkqaDDbEHSo80YG04XOVhzuiByn_6zPF3bMHo_84HGyMZocVPxoUhZkv2WdyDlErYMt23qhSbeRGg7TTJwTj7KYmFfD3mRdR_-UP7ltA/w512-h640/salt-flats_sep23-61.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>Late in September, as I waited for the leaves to turn, I joined thousands of fellow pop culture enthusiasts for my first visit to FanX since 2016. It was fun to get out and photograph the cosplayers, but my primary objective was to expand my autograph collection. After six hours of waiting in lines, taking pictures around the event floor, and enjoying friendly interactions with a handful of my favorite actors, I was completely exhausted.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZavgiAZEtAjX1X2xdki5fSpKkfPCL9iaacVdc9rbHgIN9lHezga_sPydIw1-0lGAmW5WTfaGPvQBWwHeheYylQiwiFfgTedYmYWahzEOhyphenhyphenLglpR2PsQzWi1l1X9eqqom42GS_H-Ykn8vl3wjk6wl_NsGfyfkT-vTczLNKkxQ1sAx8Yz_6HKLPA/s1619/fanx-sep2023-18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLZavgiAZEtAjX1X2xdki5fSpKkfPCL9iaacVdc9rbHgIN9lHezga_sPydIw1-0lGAmW5WTfaGPvQBWwHeheYylQiwiFfgTedYmYWahzEOhyphenhyphenLglpR2PsQzWi1l1X9eqqom42GS_H-Ykn8vl3wjk6wl_NsGfyfkT-vTczLNKkxQ1sAx8Yz_6HKLPA/w640-h426/fanx-sep2023-18.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jFsmko0lZcMkVBDsd10MsRyv7-yuh96mP_nG0Ayi1CL3tQcihEbG9O6a_0IPBUGUs-r-rHBswCNqeuWKdI4QNajV-ypGoyS5KMn7zFVbP0Zolq5v-Rbpf0ynvgeNurVsnFR6ZpAeITK52F8hB8kPVEYpsCVqpjCW4PFYROfOnS_ipJZ4DRS77g/s1024/IMG_0174.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jFsmko0lZcMkVBDsd10MsRyv7-yuh96mP_nG0Ayi1CL3tQcihEbG9O6a_0IPBUGUs-r-rHBswCNqeuWKdI4QNajV-ypGoyS5KMn7zFVbP0Zolq5v-Rbpf0ynvgeNurVsnFR6ZpAeITK52F8hB8kPVEYpsCVqpjCW4PFYROfOnS_ipJZ4DRS77g/w640-h480/IMG_0174.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>By the end of the month the fall season was at full clip, and when I wasn't slogging through student papers, I was enjoying peak produce, having dinner with friends, and heading up into Northern Utah's canyons to photograph the changing leaves. I also joined my sister and one of my nieces for the Owl City concert in Salt Lake, which delivered an unexpected but impressive keytar solo.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1acdVs-Cm0fnWTdBC-3PntuObLq5sA4cZF0dDR5s3ZT6N5bkqmlTV_zJERfRINLDm_yA0RdtEwM782cE7EgoBvTnIlS3xXA881152RcHEWJIgWB_TOzKwWx4MXHodK50DTeNjlPExMRCcnwBxZr0rmmYuqGa-yKU4Aczw00JR-pl9GxtcV7VlCw/s640/IMG_2477.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1acdVs-Cm0fnWTdBC-3PntuObLq5sA4cZF0dDR5s3ZT6N5bkqmlTV_zJERfRINLDm_yA0RdtEwM782cE7EgoBvTnIlS3xXA881152RcHEWJIgWB_TOzKwWx4MXHodK50DTeNjlPExMRCcnwBxZr0rmmYuqGa-yKU4Aczw00JR-pl9GxtcV7VlCw/w480-h640/IMG_2477.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3Kvs_9aGZq2OuiZYRicfDccMZiBRuuSZMxDeowd_0c1jD9Q5vx16Fc-oIsqjnCxBd52rZ_owGMI3HXBeXczI9Mp-hEN7BKJuYAIwLYZRYKuTvR1BRCIwcGMqxfAAy9kRNAHEcc9FKh8LvR1wJGbvdRBzEk67yj16H_f7UTtuQo5suCHwOW2HvQ/s1366/IMG_4575.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3Kvs_9aGZq2OuiZYRicfDccMZiBRuuSZMxDeowd_0c1jD9Q5vx16Fc-oIsqjnCxBd52rZ_owGMI3HXBeXczI9Mp-hEN7BKJuYAIwLYZRYKuTvR1BRCIwcGMqxfAAy9kRNAHEcc9FKh8LvR1wJGbvdRBzEk67yj16H_f7UTtuQo5suCHwOW2HvQ/w480-h640/IMG_4575.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw8to239K_jkgqkyJf_1MD_DB6jQj3icfuxf3erJfvjQYba8uXLAmd0_GvEruDIqsG1ZD4ig9lykX4' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUOLNDU475NJlRCYGaPLHqqWqfMCztocSfdr7x08IZrbxQ-4uy5BzA391gt_zTtZE3RIm-DS9T-TUUWI5KKQbAN5oa80Il4cmS8AgTOVx_ZI_r1qrK0IoBRiwqBKBCOF6p87GZhsmbuf1W0Rm1yAl1ZA48xR8_tiHFJ5kYWu9SBB_vVq1nmXFpA/s1619/willard-pettingills_sep23-21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBUOLNDU475NJlRCYGaPLHqqWqfMCztocSfdr7x08IZrbxQ-4uy5BzA391gt_zTtZE3RIm-DS9T-TUUWI5KKQbAN5oa80Il4cmS8AgTOVx_ZI_r1qrK0IoBRiwqBKBCOF6p87GZhsmbuf1W0Rm1yAl1ZA48xR8_tiHFJ5kYWu9SBB_vVq1nmXFpA/w640-h426/willard-pettingills_sep23-21.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The effort started slow, but my quest for fall leaves eventually became one of my bigger photographic successes in 2023. Traditional drives over Guardsman Pass and along the Alpine Loop were predictably gorgeous, but closer-to-home shoots up Davis Creek and Holbrook Canyons were unexpected surprises, and the best shoot of all might have been photographing my niece as she rode her bike up and down an Elm-lined street near my old elementary school.</p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5yO9S-LoEVEdcBtCOGyCzy5QOARf6SJ6MdfKhdSBrMtT24GJWd0YQRtqi6ShgvI4nPeI0wlhKtrsqkJLZ4NghG6wfb0yHM1Rd8tMFbzwFV-CTF41lpnyrbJp7v5V0EQXMCfhROJExxwpo56GkxQB60O7_VylgcEEibdnA1Om31Qlen2BGG2WBJA/s1350/guardsman-pass_sep23-11.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5yO9S-LoEVEdcBtCOGyCzy5QOARf6SJ6MdfKhdSBrMtT24GJWd0YQRtqi6ShgvI4nPeI0wlhKtrsqkJLZ4NghG6wfb0yHM1Rd8tMFbzwFV-CTF41lpnyrbJp7v5V0EQXMCfhROJExxwpo56GkxQB60O7_VylgcEEibdnA1Om31Qlen2BGG2WBJA/w512-h640/guardsman-pass_sep23-11.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-6RzW36x8TSToNpMRtS5hCHls1GK3G3Z-aSgKWabrnaGl7eBpPWtFnQe560_Ftjpu3vWNVHon4A2tacG4lqzkfd29upmUj1wWIL8E-d24L3y5iKhjscitx8-sF3Mn_4S8Rr6DLKHbdnNXgAsU8dug7kP4eNsUO1ctLSdacMnP_q7nWNTPl3TVQ/s1619/holbrook-canyon_oct2023-13.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm-6RzW36x8TSToNpMRtS5hCHls1GK3G3Z-aSgKWabrnaGl7eBpPWtFnQe560_Ftjpu3vWNVHon4A2tacG4lqzkfd29upmUj1wWIL8E-d24L3y5iKhjscitx8-sF3Mn_4S8Rr6DLKHbdnNXgAsU8dug7kP4eNsUO1ctLSdacMnP_q7nWNTPl3TVQ/w640-h426/holbrook-canyon_oct2023-13.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU5wOKUKdAFagnPyuIxbEDTGjygknItuQOAKDloM31gIgFbWqHdKJFlE4kfocHijurWSUXZ-i_Hgyj0jsetpLpXYLZK0-id6qjr2dNGbNkKsPeRS1OfWHQwK1BCgxDM3CaO-gaJTOk_lIcDavMYkXTxjipK6qBsVDTmLwdovMbEfkWl7iVYQbttw/s1619/holbrook-canyon_oct2023-18.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU5wOKUKdAFagnPyuIxbEDTGjygknItuQOAKDloM31gIgFbWqHdKJFlE4kfocHijurWSUXZ-i_Hgyj0jsetpLpXYLZK0-id6qjr2dNGbNkKsPeRS1OfWHQwK1BCgxDM3CaO-gaJTOk_lIcDavMYkXTxjipK6qBsVDTmLwdovMbEfkWl7iVYQbttw/w640-h426/holbrook-canyon_oct2023-18.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve and I found this sunset waiting for us after our hike up Holbrook Canyon.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhHkfaKalAWCBnf3dH9_uPHFFXzfK_9iKFfXJ4KNRUtGjMNoNWga4mwvhWGpBa9dog4bPc_T-5D6U7YgxWoHW2UQYGdYGr4l-g-Nuy6vqNEzjOJc-XRRwHR7L0FrpVPUMOkJ5sXFTViIjfr7b_VIMszkSDMjgr6F6YuFRLHQkR3b6n0pxlK0KEw/s1619/miscellaneous-oct23-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhHkfaKalAWCBnf3dH9_uPHFFXzfK_9iKFfXJ4KNRUtGjMNoNWga4mwvhWGpBa9dog4bPc_T-5D6U7YgxWoHW2UQYGdYGr4l-g-Nuy6vqNEzjOJc-XRRwHR7L0FrpVPUMOkJ5sXFTViIjfr7b_VIMszkSDMjgr6F6YuFRLHQkR3b6n0pxlK0KEw/w640-h426/miscellaneous-oct23-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAGnr-IF187SY4N0gd-0ppR4rrX3KSjMKTx2PU6LaR9Kwg2zAX8fEnoToLBeEX5n2dnDbfFBiESpvAcXyNxSusyS68WHMfqR_y30bGccPTCALy1tAUgiyGSorhk5xVQzOzAoBbhr82-jXqlT2KURTJ0FLbfPOZuj-s8u0zQ2lH2ckaHXHjDG58Q/s1619/miscellaneous-oct23-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyAGnr-IF187SY4N0gd-0ppR4rrX3KSjMKTx2PU6LaR9Kwg2zAX8fEnoToLBeEX5n2dnDbfFBiESpvAcXyNxSusyS68WHMfqR_y30bGccPTCALy1tAUgiyGSorhk5xVQzOzAoBbhr82-jXqlT2KURTJ0FLbfPOZuj-s8u0zQ2lH2ckaHXHjDG58Q/w640-h426/miscellaneous-oct23-14.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Getting pictures of the leaves kept me busy while some other autumn traditions saw delays. Thanks to some untimely car expenses, I decided to delay my traditional Fall Break road trip, and the general chaos of life postponed my birthday festivities. But when the family gathered for a taco fest in early November, and surprised me with pastries and artwork from my nieces, there was no doubt the delay was worthwhile.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnaEdD2TtXJ6XDD8WMJzmBwIhkgeU3P5JItZoKYVJMxlw0VkqAcQxwA359CfcPkvLY1Q1-tjakAWKX6pPVdOUCGzlDhxNVuEOyF4cX2ZaABPTYtRpStHF4Bp5vplxi_3qy-CbD2y3fr2n_EwB2teX9xLaEQZEBQUL93duONIJGW5EZ16rAE0_X0g/s1024/IMG_0232.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnaEdD2TtXJ6XDD8WMJzmBwIhkgeU3P5JItZoKYVJMxlw0VkqAcQxwA359CfcPkvLY1Q1-tjakAWKX6pPVdOUCGzlDhxNVuEOyF4cX2ZaABPTYtRpStHF4Bp5vplxi_3qy-CbD2y3fr2n_EwB2teX9xLaEQZEBQUL93duONIJGW5EZ16rAE0_X0g/w640-h480/IMG_0232.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>By mid-November the fall colors were well beyond their peak, and since my students were between major papers, I decided to head out of town. A week before Thanksgiving, I left for Southern Utah, determined to create some unique shooting opportunities in a few familiar locations. In Arches National Park I captured the red rock in dramatic golden hour light, and photographed a group of Norwegian rock climbers in the Garden of Eden. Then in Monument Valley I got a fun surprise during a sunrise shoot when a local Navajo musician started playing a flute just as the sun broke over the horizon. To cap things off, I enjoyed a spectacular drive home through Bears Ears National Monument, and even grabbed some footage of the last of the fall leaves along Highway 24 to put an emphatic exclamation point on a prolific fall season.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzTqqKZl8gMP1b1lnVOv3KlmaUKfHZTHEFDd4webOzNWUQgEeaA7oedb48PW33GEqtDHMDhar5r9BDGdiNe2rm-vjrgeKG0Vz8J3oqTVPlIYkAQlDgYgmGJUiAI942Hpd6AIjjR-MHOdRB8WESOqrEN8acb0da5YPlmxLb1JGUrZYeuZk2ma0nA/s1619/fall-break-nov23-day1-20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSzTqqKZl8gMP1b1lnVOv3KlmaUKfHZTHEFDd4webOzNWUQgEeaA7oedb48PW33GEqtDHMDhar5r9BDGdiNe2rm-vjrgeKG0Vz8J3oqTVPlIYkAQlDgYgmGJUiAI942Hpd6AIjjR-MHOdRB8WESOqrEN8acb0da5YPlmxLb1JGUrZYeuZk2ma0nA/w640-h426/fall-break-nov23-day1-20.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfb4LOcL6CUG_EnJPnWu9IJ-yJEzrAE655-AhLs8UyHWpIrVJx6m54CKTJv2aueu-i09chreTXOHf89Rk2QMXvRJHu8h6_gex0ANud9vRHHgEgMoMmMIKQbLL837fMfR0hdWUzQ5KSStCHRjJPkBYj5GkCiZruNSHk8qLRFTd6URlH5VH18x32g/s1350/fall-break-nov23-day2-44.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfb4LOcL6CUG_EnJPnWu9IJ-yJEzrAE655-AhLs8UyHWpIrVJx6m54CKTJv2aueu-i09chreTXOHf89Rk2QMXvRJHu8h6_gex0ANud9vRHHgEgMoMmMIKQbLL837fMfR0hdWUzQ5KSStCHRjJPkBYj5GkCiZruNSHk8qLRFTd6URlH5VH18x32g/w512-h640/fall-break-nov23-day2-44.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoouWqjZIhtH3LhMQZAD5BABwrzsPT4NY2NHRYbO3aCXWV5PTvZxTubxuD_E-pkmmsOpDbmorsxFSx-tB0u_CyV88jWXe1h2LbVUfM8WNnJw8HOt95x-GJmYKko_Q-WqlQ6GKFIgHqZW3QLZNF1oee5m39BELEmlYaxPOEkWEWzFb7FndT2B79ZA/s1920/fall-break-nov23_day3-55.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoouWqjZIhtH3LhMQZAD5BABwrzsPT4NY2NHRYbO3aCXWV5PTvZxTubxuD_E-pkmmsOpDbmorsxFSx-tB0u_CyV88jWXe1h2LbVUfM8WNnJw8HOt95x-GJmYKko_Q-WqlQ6GKFIgHqZW3QLZNF1oee5m39BELEmlYaxPOEkWEWzFb7FndT2B79ZA/w640-h360/fall-break-nov23_day3-55.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7f9FyUee7jLXo_OOwQ3MEjFFYj7s3It6Nj_PGbQQOMTB_twqxS6PqWoxJXI5I69YoxMj_wCQgwwUMQ8vy7lGvV0r8Chfm9GilG4xZhQvFz3qtzYF2Q3itRaNRVS4N3dyjQg2KPN4tGUcrqJpWW8VSnLC9jWMuWGJRiILLJQszCFXFLpn48id2Zw/s1619/navajo-sunrise_nov23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7f9FyUee7jLXo_OOwQ3MEjFFYj7s3It6Nj_PGbQQOMTB_twqxS6PqWoxJXI5I69YoxMj_wCQgwwUMQ8vy7lGvV0r8Chfm9GilG4xZhQvFz3qtzYF2Q3itRaNRVS4N3dyjQg2KPN4tGUcrqJpWW8VSnLC9jWMuWGJRiILLJQszCFXFLpn48id2Zw/w640-h426/navajo-sunrise_nov23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">H O L I D A Y S</p><p>A few days after I returned from Southern Utah, Thanksgiving kicked off the 2023 Holiday Season with a bizarre study in contrasts. Outside I was met with dreary gray overcast, and a miserable cold front that made my 60-degree Fall Break conditions feel like something from a past life. But inside, whether at home or visiting with friends, the holiday celebration was one of the warmest in recent memory. In the days that followed, life seemed to kick up a gear, and Fall Semester shifted into its final grading phase as the year-end movie screeners started to pile up in the mailbox. And even though it felt a little later than in previous years, a group of family photo shoots lined up as November crossed into December, starting with my own. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3eXWBJDthh2CFUHp8ezu_pdo25f8mfAAIdaJhkK6dH35q9JeG9Z_PEB1x2oZEkK5pSvMPoFnn6RI2uzUmd2mwZB14VKUhsJcrgSqYfr1IKPo56ZFeyOKvB5hQQHQQvj6_A0tP4-RpCuMjI-9r8RN93rM6mGMsNCgc7IYpOzqaviiVCb-7AAKvng/s1619/family-outtakes_nov23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3eXWBJDthh2CFUHp8ezu_pdo25f8mfAAIdaJhkK6dH35q9JeG9Z_PEB1x2oZEkK5pSvMPoFnn6RI2uzUmd2mwZB14VKUhsJcrgSqYfr1IKPo56ZFeyOKvB5hQQHQQvj6_A0tP4-RpCuMjI-9r8RN93rM6mGMsNCgc7IYpOzqaviiVCb-7AAKvng/w640-h426/family-outtakes_nov23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdoPllUn3BVw7ULCO1eR5qFsy4eZVXoFswE2sTOslbOn20dqWuSV3gC-eobRHMvvb60u-0_xTx0NJIUiuHoKqT06rFMLYGR6MKIJBET_lNP-GnY3jZ4v4gKutfkR7EKpAYRpj4-Ata857r5Rjjyb_wKZw-4B4jwqrXm49i0_7Q8ynaoH5QwxGDVw/s1350/black-family_2023-FORWEB-13.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdoPllUn3BVw7ULCO1eR5qFsy4eZVXoFswE2sTOslbOn20dqWuSV3gC-eobRHMvvb60u-0_xTx0NJIUiuHoKqT06rFMLYGR6MKIJBET_lNP-GnY3jZ4v4gKutfkR7EKpAYRpj4-Ata857r5Rjjyb_wKZw-4B4jwqrXm49i0_7Q8ynaoH5QwxGDVw/w512-h640/black-family_2023-FORWEB-13.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The outtakes are always my favorite shots.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEQNVEc3nI9aDap-fYYGnEcV0lRxAXGbxMSsIsrMdbutAFvsIAORWf7TqPHAHRvAJAleO5spAxVsGIgmLajpb3uN-t7J5VwRhMv6Gzsgte-BYdIrEwFW3LLoeKL63_AZlprJKW9qe7iLLly9wJMYjHikItmOXdgEzLa_Z-icBNaqvnldmOYhdXQ/s1619/dana-reese-birthday_dec23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEQNVEc3nI9aDap-fYYGnEcV0lRxAXGbxMSsIsrMdbutAFvsIAORWf7TqPHAHRvAJAleO5spAxVsGIgmLajpb3uN-t7J5VwRhMv6Gzsgte-BYdIrEwFW3LLoeKL63_AZlprJKW9qe7iLLly9wJMYjHikItmOXdgEzLa_Z-icBNaqvnldmOYhdXQ/w640-h426/dana-reese-birthday_dec23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Once December arrived it felt like someone stomped on the 2023 gas pedal. I knew going in that it would be a busy month, but the days seemed to fly by as I desperately tried to grade papers, screen movies, edit photo jobs, and attend to my other responsibilities. Luckily, by the time Christmas arrived, I had mixed lots of fun activities into the season; I attended family concerts and a holiday dinner with some longtime friends, made my favorite cookies with my sister and my nieces, and ventured out to several spots to capture the local Christmas lights displays.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKh9gctqeZKlQV7sATf-gDIlzgRLFI4XBwBI6ABTBeKdeBLfrczu-izX7p_j6u1P66cC9hofi7VIE0Ft8tUDukzpGibu-NkvvIswD9NSsOext1Rx6OgwaX57YQmPgEPKzMuk9njqhurPV26YSuxk5cpFQtU1b6DA5OCqvj9Rqi00J3SICscntrfg/s1350/christmas-shots.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKh9gctqeZKlQV7sATf-gDIlzgRLFI4XBwBI6ABTBeKdeBLfrczu-izX7p_j6u1P66cC9hofi7VIE0Ft8tUDukzpGibu-NkvvIswD9NSsOext1Rx6OgwaX57YQmPgEPKzMuk9njqhurPV26YSuxk5cpFQtU1b6DA5OCqvj9Rqi00J3SICscntrfg/w512-h640/christmas-shots.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifxGH71_pino1Am5dBhFvOjPKPmtnnGJ0SUtfqi4aZ4AH6enw9MoWYM6R3SAIYXrTO55yX-a-dAMdpgaeqWVu8UiZrnJgMD5NJoBnLiKMYogcM7IwzTN-jf3tbzlYyNWdMpQ3drvnnKAaa_e641-1v4LUYhbzY1mjDzAtdLt0-YozAQDT9rqwl1Q/s1920/christmas-shots-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifxGH71_pino1Am5dBhFvOjPKPmtnnGJ0SUtfqi4aZ4AH6enw9MoWYM6R3SAIYXrTO55yX-a-dAMdpgaeqWVu8UiZrnJgMD5NJoBnLiKMYogcM7IwzTN-jf3tbzlYyNWdMpQ3drvnnKAaa_e641-1v4LUYhbzY1mjDzAtdLt0-YozAQDT9rqwl1Q/w640-h360/christmas-shots-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "Tree of Life" at Draper City Park.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rFfH0KRRJAID2sEpm-p_xhH753EI8018pcvDNxYfQ-3Q_hl0EQnmp0zxZpYPQVN3GSWPiy1NdzctUgEDaWQE8joYXiO51uEk91eNzRzvzNCl6YzHAr0lILJjJe3v5Ix43KLQj735WFCnZV5iVaTAasdTIClfmXMXMP5ZtJCSybmblfFPYXoyrg/s1619/more-christmas-shots.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2rFfH0KRRJAID2sEpm-p_xhH753EI8018pcvDNxYfQ-3Q_hl0EQnmp0zxZpYPQVN3GSWPiy1NdzctUgEDaWQE8joYXiO51uEk91eNzRzvzNCl6YzHAr0lILJjJe3v5Ix43KLQj735WFCnZV5iVaTAasdTIClfmXMXMP5ZtJCSybmblfFPYXoyrg/w640-h426/more-christmas-shots.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Founder's Park in Centerville has become a go-to display for photos every Christmas.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4To2Z6sCvPVhnPZqYSm7osC7OLWJBsxob6AZBTa3mRKcQ_o7A6SwITRGtLtXHsG8QxaVcT9qxdgGjHmp1mEGTzgNi9POeq4XwlK5IVdv9XLlGvLkpKaDrbeJGr2iJGQJ3YtjuPugXBnSBXEG1CjCeWLgQIAuVbhU6haSQl26qMP0BW22h2DZ1YQ/s1619/ogden-lights_dec23.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4To2Z6sCvPVhnPZqYSm7osC7OLWJBsxob6AZBTa3mRKcQ_o7A6SwITRGtLtXHsG8QxaVcT9qxdgGjHmp1mEGTzgNi9POeq4XwlK5IVdv9XLlGvLkpKaDrbeJGr2iJGQJ3YtjuPugXBnSBXEG1CjCeWLgQIAuVbhU6haSQl26qMP0BW22h2DZ1YQ/w640-h426/ogden-lights_dec23.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Things got a little experimental in Downtown Ogden this year.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Along the way, I stumbled onto an image I had been scouting for over two months. Back in October, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip, and triggered a war that felt like 2023's answer to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This time around, though, the state capitol didn't fly the Israeli flag, and public signs of support were a little harder to come by. So I thought it was poignant when in early December I drove by the same house I photographed last year with an Ukraine flag, only to see that they now had an Israeli flag on display. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFTcfBpK0dtN3Oe2vROar5TUAmWb2dtvH_s5cxFeuflHO7oOF8fws27qAqbLjnqhZlAdGVNxXRQTiqymoVppEvt_btI61Gicm7TBSpF8wV_kFNnm-s55qOSS1UfQ5wGtFBlzkxrfVTMauBr6oAQ3Al_Z4qUg_nEuaBBZ1958sI-ESfldRSTzsHw/s1619/israel-flag_dec23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUFTcfBpK0dtN3Oe2vROar5TUAmWb2dtvH_s5cxFeuflHO7oOF8fws27qAqbLjnqhZlAdGVNxXRQTiqymoVppEvt_btI61Gicm7TBSpF8wV_kFNnm-s55qOSS1UfQ5wGtFBlzkxrfVTMauBr6oAQ3Al_Z4qUg_nEuaBBZ1958sI-ESfldRSTzsHw/w640-h426/israel-flag_dec23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Throughout 2022 I resolved to get some video footage whenever I went out to take pictures, and the result was a fun highlight video that took me back to my amateur filmmaker efforts from fifteen years ago. I kept the practice going in 2023, and once again, the effort paid off with something that put my creative exploits in a fun and different light. The video and the photos and even this blog post can only scratch the surface of a multi-faceted year, but they still serve as a powerful reminder that 2023 had its fair share of tender mercies.</p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zrqzmBVpdIU?si=vucknrwp6BoLwF8N" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * </p><p>Back in November, while still in Moab, I decided to hike out to Double O Arch. Somewhere along the way I lost the main trail, and by the time I realized what I had done, I was so far off course that I felt my only option was to head back the way I came and give up on my intended destination. Instead, while doubling back I was able to re-claim the right trail, and finish what I'd started. The hike was just one of many 2023 experiences that suggested setbacks are not final, and that extra effort and patience pay off.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDTk4HilAmSEqqUEubySbjlmk-IXUVhd-afQYIpSLYkYdiJuI7RcEDKi7S2RW6uKA5DLDNa0yfaz1ofCRtcBZ0OHUhB6TY9OZatj-yI0KXQmRPeai9SsnLTz7-Lz7mblJKfPvx3cnqBExLFY70t-Kb2y6FQmkhDDSEEJtW3aC71NHCPPuJkEw3g/s1619/fall-break-nov23-day2-15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1619" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifDTk4HilAmSEqqUEubySbjlmk-IXUVhd-afQYIpSLYkYdiJuI7RcEDKi7S2RW6uKA5DLDNa0yfaz1ofCRtcBZ0OHUhB6TY9OZatj-yI0KXQmRPeai9SsnLTz7-Lz7mblJKfPvx3cnqBExLFY70t-Kb2y6FQmkhDDSEEJtW3aC71NHCPPuJkEw3g/w640-h426/fall-break-nov23-day2-15.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The interesting thing about the hike was that while I definitely lost the trail, I was never lost in the traditional sense. I always knew where I was, and I always knew the way back. Getting to my destination required course correction--and turned a 2-hour, 4-mile hike into a 4-hour, 7.5 mile hike--but it was still worth the effort. It was still worth the wait.</p><p>A lot of life has seen me trying hard to reach a destination, only to get derailed somewhere along the way. But thanks to my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I've never felt completely "lost." So as 2023 closes out, I hope we can take some solace in the idea that in spite of our limited perspective, there is a plan in place, and that the outcome will be worth the wait.</p><p>Happy New Year, everyone, and all the best for 2024.</p><p>---</p><p>*Technically I bought a new camera prior to my Paris/London trip in the summer of 2019, but that purchase was always intended to be a "safe" travel camera, not my go-to system.</p>The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-74300658216129126812022-12-31T11:29:00.010-07:002023-02-28T17:17:39.797-07:00Crossing the Bridge: 2022 in Words and Pictures...and Videos!<p>Dear friends, family, social media bots, and time travelers from 2008 who still read blogs,</p><p>In 2022, I graded a bunch of papers, took a lot of pictures in lousy weather, and watched many movies. I started serving in the temple, and sadly, a lot of people I knew passed away.</p><p>That's the 21st Century, three-second-attention-span Twitter version of 2022, anyway. And for those of you who just want the pictures, you can always click over <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects-1/Best-of-Year-by-Year/New-for-2022" target="_blank">here</a> to get straight to the good stuff. But for anyone who appreciates a little "flavor," as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0kiS4ROWkQ" target="_blank">Edward Bloom</a> might have put it, the sprawling, painstakingly-crafted tome that follows is just for you: a 4,000-word, 75-image summary of all the year's highs, lows, and beautiful midtones that I feel comfortable sharing with the general public. I even stuck a highlight video at the end of it all.</p><p>Enjoy. And if you don't make it all the way to the end in time...Happy New Year!</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">- W I N T E R -</p><p>The new year opened at the height of the Omicron wave, which somehow had nothing to do with a Transformers movie, and like many people, I found myself asking, "is this STILL going on?" as the COVID-19 pandemic approached its second anniversary. While a number of my day-to-day activities had returned to some version of normal, sights like this comically long line outside the COVID testing center in Bountiful put a sobering tone on early 2022.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwrJx7rAtOmEMXM3-MfDFtb1KcZiX1XPcHUyONLK_pJju0MeApHRJC_iHwwPYDguWzsBqDhjW_wHnA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><p>2021 finished with a feeling of cautious optimism, but as usual, January and February opened 2023 like a brand new album from your favorite classic rock band. My mom's recovery from back issues was interrupted with a cancer scare that was mercifully just a scare, and the surprise passing of two family friends landed me at a pair of funerals to kick off 2022. It was especially bittersweet to say goodbye to Pat Reese, one of my favorite youth leaders growing up in the Bountiful 19th Ward. For the funeral, his family used the portrait I'd taken the previous November when they gathered for pictures on Thanksgiving weekend. It was sad to see him pass, but I was happy that my friends were able to get some photographs while the whole family was still together.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiktfEmmcFaCwqu-AImYHZNhiupVuHIAsU81-BtTTKznZCrx67Dd9VuGYfMTKBhGe0eaOrC_XgSB1EOY1W7Pjb1TIsrqUKUyKbiEnrAaicM_8DncCpJMnPROD1zdLuthEdN-1-P0OataLP-7uvt_VJVjIFt1r93EuoAPgpFKeevtpWxLucrK-I/s1620/reese-family-photos_nov2021-WEB-5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiktfEmmcFaCwqu-AImYHZNhiupVuHIAsU81-BtTTKznZCrx67Dd9VuGYfMTKBhGe0eaOrC_XgSB1EOY1W7Pjb1TIsrqUKUyKbiEnrAaicM_8DncCpJMnPROD1zdLuthEdN-1-P0OataLP-7uvt_VJVjIFt1r93EuoAPgpFKeevtpWxLucrK-I/w640-h426/reese-family-photos_nov2021-WEB-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Luckily the new year brought some blessings that were more than silver linings. The new semester at Weber State had me teaching a full load of classes, and I continued to review new movies for the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1qNuCUpDfcDddor69s5EP3" target="_blank">Utah FilmPod</a>. I took my oldest niece ice skating to celebrate her birthday--a rare season-appropriate winter activity for me--and thanks to my friend Tyler, I saw the Utah Symphony play live to the sixth "Harry Potter" movie at Abravanel Hall in February.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPubeheF4jiS1OR3LgpCKgYLQJT1LVYOUrxeKnQ-2BB1vj5U20y1VQ7SkOKjt9NnIIgvyHrs7_c61hkZCBZ21_Jhhz_LCq3BrBiZAM2ABKfJ7uS6crEMoeVMqJt7U1Mpux6kHSZYI_SlMD18BiSzkIt75wZwdeJ16_3SsQV6TV04w52xi_iM/s1024/IMG_8612%20(3).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPubeheF4jiS1OR3LgpCKgYLQJT1LVYOUrxeKnQ-2BB1vj5U20y1VQ7SkOKjt9NnIIgvyHrs7_c61hkZCBZ21_Jhhz_LCq3BrBiZAM2ABKfJ7uS6crEMoeVMqJt7U1Mpux6kHSZYI_SlMD18BiSzkIt75wZwdeJ16_3SsQV6TV04w52xi_iM/w640-h480/IMG_8612%20(3).jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvMkm7XfCUlyYrWLM9zgtbRgSKAtCqh9qwnqRD_HY_--qDarDa_WTDFRXjebllCX7No1mUgBIv4nu9vFSzWWpOoR-IipvPJCIrUzVntJVhiLgC-if8YaTLpWVkj0wpqK0xPfcdlVX3MwdXnJ-vPB7SgvCDZ1dW415bo79BcO3t6pHF-ogNp4/s1024/IMG_8656.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEvMkm7XfCUlyYrWLM9zgtbRgSKAtCqh9qwnqRD_HY_--qDarDa_WTDFRXjebllCX7No1mUgBIv4nu9vFSzWWpOoR-IipvPJCIrUzVntJVhiLgC-if8YaTLpWVkj0wpqK0xPfcdlVX3MwdXnJ-vPB7SgvCDZ1dW415bo79BcO3t6pHF-ogNp4/w640-h480/IMG_8656.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The good times kept rolling when a family portrait session with some ward friends got me behind the camera for the first time in 2022, and the year picked up steam as I set out on a pair of shoots with Brian Smith and Steve Jones, two longtime friends who have joined me in the vast photography rabbit hole in recent years. Over the course of the year, I enjoyed multiple shoots with both friends, and have yet to determine whether their wives are secretly planning my assassination, or are grateful to me for getting them out of the house periodically.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg06nBm7zxwy_9KEz8K-r0siEoLAB4hLgrnmcA0NbqrvTf9oQkFx2eEi-u4Ejeyc05BWfE_FB-iwyFtq2DAlZIHxVXIoqEdCn8Nj61pw6_m633LXMtNlMOHzFy9v4YLdHOZFjSHQACI0_TXII_YWyt3z0jDlhhPMmpX3V9m0tjDNg-YZD2tWE/s1620/saratoga-springs_feb2022-13.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg06nBm7zxwy_9KEz8K-r0siEoLAB4hLgrnmcA0NbqrvTf9oQkFx2eEi-u4Ejeyc05BWfE_FB-iwyFtq2DAlZIHxVXIoqEdCn8Nj61pw6_m633LXMtNlMOHzFy9v4YLdHOZFjSHQACI0_TXII_YWyt3z0jDlhhPMmpX3V9m0tjDNg-YZD2tWE/w640-h426/saratoga-springs_feb2022-13.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brian and I enjoyed the snowy mountain backdrop for this Saratoga Springs Temple shoot.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz_KcgClgEW6_It8edgjx8maFDv4MbtM90GnswZ1n5bHAMjwBdhc9_HHTCyr29Go-G_rqwMWlJjYBpuFPKkw0puIO1p6iBcK0Z-Jg96KRIfzKtLCo1inIyyUxCv-IeREh64hjZOTzVb929pqZk1s9APhAsDlUTD6XQsszRLX64oC-e4W-VSYw/s1321/saltair-colonel_feb2022-10.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz_KcgClgEW6_It8edgjx8maFDv4MbtM90GnswZ1n5bHAMjwBdhc9_HHTCyr29Go-G_rqwMWlJjYBpuFPKkw0puIO1p6iBcK0Z-Jg96KRIfzKtLCo1inIyyUxCv-IeREh64hjZOTzVb929pqZk1s9APhAsDlUTD6XQsszRLX64oC-e4W-VSYw/w524-h640/saltair-colonel_feb2022-10.jpg" width="524" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve and I found another pair of friends on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There was plenty going on in my own little world, but even with the pandemic fading, 2022's international news demanded attention. By the end of February, a story that had played out in the background of the winter months finally crashed into full public consciousness when the Russian military invaded the country of Ukraine. This wasn't the first time I'd heard of Russia carving territory out of its southwestern neighbor, but my childhood memories of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union made the invasion especially heartbreaking. It helped to see the quick rally of support that came from other governments and citizens, and the determined resilience of the Ukrainian people was inspiring and almost stunning as they battled throughout the year. The Monday after the invasion began, the Utah State Capitol building lit up in blue and yellow in a show of support, and I turned up the next evening to photograph the Ukrainian flag that flew over the State Capitol until sundown.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMqtaewqfNGnxp5zJHd4MQ6p0CSBvzbSNjqTYHHbfFRieiGB-PRPTuxv5d2YH2BbYFYOSTlyTJBFl4S2qHElgja7IcBDYU4ZAOHwmRSF6kOIOH30vKGoeFPDC39TEFn-NiFnt3AhovVA9_HVhYBPgIzD15COUuopWWYRnWeH4fZRhAD2T7kI/s1350/ukraine-flag-utah-capitol_mar2022-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMqtaewqfNGnxp5zJHd4MQ6p0CSBvzbSNjqTYHHbfFRieiGB-PRPTuxv5d2YH2BbYFYOSTlyTJBFl4S2qHElgja7IcBDYU4ZAOHwmRSF6kOIOH30vKGoeFPDC39TEFn-NiFnt3AhovVA9_HVhYBPgIzD15COUuopWWYRnWeH4fZRhAD2T7kI/w512-h640/ukraine-flag-utah-capitol_mar2022-2.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">- S P R I N G -</p><p>My spring break photo trips usually have me dealing with some kind of storm on the way down or back. Last year I even had to cut my trip short thanks to a rare Southern Utah blizzard, but my 2022 journey might be my most memorable weather battle so far...and it proved the harbinger of things to come. After a run of frigid shoots at The Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and Agathla Peak earlier in the week, I woke up on a Thursday morning to a complete whiteout and about six inches of snow in Monument Valley. As the snow piled up through the day, it started to feel like I would be lucky to just get home without incident, let alone get any pictures. But the storm broke mid-afternoon, leaving the park's famous red rock mesas adorned in white, and with a flash of last-second light at sunset, I was blessed with my most unique Monument Valley shoot in six years of visiting the iconic tribal park.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7T0EafQNgcZH7czhb9pDIGhEMMWJnZl-gVvqOj_1Q6spaGzi_rZD8YIp77DZlT2QSx5WrDhIFrGRYJu1nY5TCXDQNdWLiML_k_lBRAbRW1gFYbO-ebjhWt4xX284gSukxGhmubttBaTdkAQE9KuF6o9xaQ50Py8NE4YpZ_bMnfSD7967lqc/s1620/sb22_march2022-day2-47.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7T0EafQNgcZH7czhb9pDIGhEMMWJnZl-gVvqOj_1Q6spaGzi_rZD8YIp77DZlT2QSx5WrDhIFrGRYJu1nY5TCXDQNdWLiML_k_lBRAbRW1gFYbO-ebjhWt4xX284gSukxGhmubttBaTdkAQE9KuF6o9xaQ50Py8NE4YpZ_bMnfSD7967lqc/w640-h426/sb22_march2022-day2-47.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRpGr6-Kw15bl6jW2UI_DcXTFhyK25XItzkI29d5emO0a5ikfwY18c4BRSplZlNNmR3dye2iu9X5Ab1bpzWVAu3sY6lAoYWIwv9X8jc6svjqeOusCrpmpzP9EHfIt1lciMYVZGqeXNHg5YVXdoJGf3v46r24VLipmQSVswVT90X--OX36xn4/s1620/sb22_march2022-day3-34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRpGr6-Kw15bl6jW2UI_DcXTFhyK25XItzkI29d5emO0a5ikfwY18c4BRSplZlNNmR3dye2iu9X5Ab1bpzWVAu3sY6lAoYWIwv9X8jc6svjqeOusCrpmpzP9EHfIt1lciMYVZGqeXNHg5YVXdoJGf3v46r24VLipmQSVswVT90X--OX36xn4/w640-h426/sb22_march2022-day3-34.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvI98w17G_fpo9e7aevONLsac8fUdTIyn-E5PEVzxn7t97Za95YB8RVHiXunLVpiXbl8-ec6eWqF2VGjskJCkfTp14iJo7CUo1G0dQNXTcQYSwlDYqcFX8FHCLrl0ywfjJSEekVN6IkEq5zqvbrwQ8wt4Rsi6zxLEm13y2JgNwSUJRnmyHdrM/s1620/sb22_march2022-day3-103.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvI98w17G_fpo9e7aevONLsac8fUdTIyn-E5PEVzxn7t97Za95YB8RVHiXunLVpiXbl8-ec6eWqF2VGjskJCkfTp14iJo7CUo1G0dQNXTcQYSwlDYqcFX8FHCLrl0ywfjJSEekVN6IkEq5zqvbrwQ8wt4Rsi6zxLEm13y2JgNwSUJRnmyHdrM/w640-h426/sb22_march2022-day3-103.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6kclOFO5AWGe2N9KiW4O8NHSoBNgfxRz4GLFisTq1sbsr6zWzdjzkPm3mWbrVvoAbSK0qX_JJcM7cqMt-3HOFdJ7qndM8bw_VxEOL6hMSnNCWv1qVssZpeloF0dzJ1Vu-RDm_V4Wxqnrk1G_ADfUWHOFBzTBbwkKiX48fPaMsdAYo757XzSs/s1350/sb22_march2022-day4-62.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6kclOFO5AWGe2N9KiW4O8NHSoBNgfxRz4GLFisTq1sbsr6zWzdjzkPm3mWbrVvoAbSK0qX_JJcM7cqMt-3HOFdJ7qndM8bw_VxEOL6hMSnNCWv1qVssZpeloF0dzJ1Vu-RDm_V4Wxqnrk1G_ADfUWHOFBzTBbwkKiX48fPaMsdAYo757XzSs/w512-h640/sb22_march2022-day4-62.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>The road trip officially got me out of hibernation for 2022, and over the next few weeks I took advantage of more opportunities to bring out the camera. Later in March I made my first visit to Tepanyaki in three years, and a few days after that, my sister and I capped off a run of pre-birthday "Day of Kate" activities with a combination sunset shoot/watercolor session at Ensign Peak. The effects of the pandemic still lingered, but as it passed its two-year mark in mid-March, it felt like the world was finally putting COVID-19 in the rear-view mirror.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcoN7lloICicwZ4QpSIJ3QXNF157kyKZirAB5idinw3-GCcly8VRPum8mJK64JCDQ3WIBuOIuRpeRvcSc4KSp8bT_semQps3A1evrjj9sloxihXhDtT8ez9KH-2i1aqC42s5Fc4kYy6FaNTlQVB0mOtEgie4LkLWqZqmxtEMHO-S-CLHbHaIg/s1620/tepanyaki-chef_mar2022-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcoN7lloICicwZ4QpSIJ3QXNF157kyKZirAB5idinw3-GCcly8VRPum8mJK64JCDQ3WIBuOIuRpeRvcSc4KSp8bT_semQps3A1evrjj9sloxihXhDtT8ez9KH-2i1aqC42s5Fc4kYy6FaNTlQVB0mOtEgie4LkLWqZqmxtEMHO-S-CLHbHaIg/w640-h426/tepanyaki-chef_mar2022-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnAx9BlXm1ecK70jO0SwlbmQ-W0uQkS0b--EtXjTUg_e39BQSOd_D8pytmNvsx-Sfv-Pq_a-OA0kWf3k39qdVSISjL9HUySu6b7fePD-OJAxH8DV0ueQA50nM-6UjTcfjz8ENiHlSCCioB46FgabQzq_4m7aH45tyxv5zxef4DcBwVhWkVtQ/s1620/day-of-kate_mar2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnAx9BlXm1ecK70jO0SwlbmQ-W0uQkS0b--EtXjTUg_e39BQSOd_D8pytmNvsx-Sfv-Pq_a-OA0kWf3k39qdVSISjL9HUySu6b7fePD-OJAxH8DV0ueQA50nM-6UjTcfjz8ENiHlSCCioB46FgabQzq_4m7aH45tyxv5zxef4DcBwVhWkVtQ/w640-h426/day-of-kate_mar2022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0LZFp82zmNJCFwHyzQYegCUE_3wo_MVrBLIcT1BtxFg4QDVoSHZZRHd3zr9ZtsAzq2avVIau5vD9oTEaYRlTAKeMkwER71qB-ZNiFf7XFJQXs2EbQ6FvZH731gR6ss8US2KS7N0fUU5WsrryLKHLDpHR2Qt9TdEXJgrcgrATfzv1qAPJh8Q/s1620/day-of-kate_mar2022-8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc0LZFp82zmNJCFwHyzQYegCUE_3wo_MVrBLIcT1BtxFg4QDVoSHZZRHd3zr9ZtsAzq2avVIau5vD9oTEaYRlTAKeMkwER71qB-ZNiFf7XFJQXs2EbQ6FvZH731gR6ss8US2KS7N0fUU5WsrryLKHLDpHR2Qt9TdEXJgrcgrATfzv1qAPJh8Q/w640-h426/day-of-kate_mar2022-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>April brought the first General Conference in two years that allowed in-person attendance (I still watched it on TV), and that same weekend I ended over seven months of Instagram silence by launching a new account for my Funko Pop portraits, which I continued to shoot throughout 2022. To my surprise, actor/comedian Ken Jeong shared my first post to his own account--an image of his "Community" character Ben Chang outside my old south city SLCC stomping grounds. It was an encouraging if misleading return to the platform, since Instagram was also in the process of redirecting their algorithm to emphasize video content over still photography. Thanks, Instagram.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq2K7wYV13AoFMrfwqMe0MBQgiiUFTA092fpqh0Ygyi_WTsczfiFDkKTT_9aiauCcRobgNRfA4Y6TaaYFp_EENVt9YbB5a8mRyTQ-fHo5vPQBC8E64umNi7cv_4Dn171ctsc11akT_85xhi1n7gh6Pxz1VfRrDWP6Irnu_0uieTpf61_3Cge0/s1792/IMG_8715.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1792" data-original-width="828" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq2K7wYV13AoFMrfwqMe0MBQgiiUFTA092fpqh0Ygyi_WTsczfiFDkKTT_9aiauCcRobgNRfA4Y6TaaYFp_EENVt9YbB5a8mRyTQ-fHo5vPQBC8E64umNi7cv_4Dn171ctsc11akT_85xhi1n7gh6Pxz1VfRrDWP6Irnu_0uieTpf61_3Cge0/w296-h640/IMG_8715.jpeg" width="296" /></a></div><p>Thanks to the spring blossoms at the state capitol, I also got some non-Funko content to share with the world, and when Katie and I packed up all my nieces for a spring outing to the Park Cafe, I added the youngest member of the Power Lunch Club, which still enjoyed some memorable if limited growth throughout 2022.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFGJZwzS2WYgND2NFKB0sTR05wcnkIKUukr9dxOK-YOAPUIFeKLuUELq8WyCJFCoqjNmXzoHQ8BiUEH0NhdW2hXYHlIXgrFoHadjh-xBuBLfg_zEbXim0mCyL9NK_dqvFocycrQAhdC24pVrm7FVxJgXfDAcpWNZHsumkQjE1XaX7gsgUseo/s1350/capitol-blossoms_first-shot_apr22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFGJZwzS2WYgND2NFKB0sTR05wcnkIKUukr9dxOK-YOAPUIFeKLuUELq8WyCJFCoqjNmXzoHQ8BiUEH0NhdW2hXYHlIXgrFoHadjh-xBuBLfg_zEbXim0mCyL9NK_dqvFocycrQAhdC24pVrm7FVxJgXfDAcpWNZHsumkQjE1XaX7gsgUseo/w512-h640/capitol-blossoms_first-shot_apr22.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_TMTKY3MCV5QXMcQbJDUEPjRSov9GSOOcxIZr9F4fvi9JnjYKz2zhgNj85_uEOLYTg5nfZ-zFB37sGLn7eNd7Q9nQZ0I9Dc_SWjEDm8IVfp2vGzPeU943NL9NaNSRa55SDLkGOYw25soqkveUsip4jZPvtvMcLOACjl0duPO-6io4uxqpms/s1620/jules-pc_capitol-blossoms_apr2022-5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6_TMTKY3MCV5QXMcQbJDUEPjRSov9GSOOcxIZr9F4fvi9JnjYKz2zhgNj85_uEOLYTg5nfZ-zFB37sGLn7eNd7Q9nQZ0I9Dc_SWjEDm8IVfp2vGzPeU943NL9NaNSRa55SDLkGOYw25soqkveUsip4jZPvtvMcLOACjl0duPO-6io4uxqpms/w640-h426/jules-pc_capitol-blossoms_apr2022-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mickey Mouse pancake at the Park Cafe is always a winner for my nieces.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc_9r1NY8w2YuRRO07IxtQFu7pOwNCMo4QpB_zvR8GMMATv7MEqU3i4ho-pijNrBjo2rIhcpAbdWkbwBfzMaP-sm9zwDoXueq2odA5B2IP9_THXZ5bIvYvL9buQ05gPPaP9GFFYmPx9mZrqoVsTOilnZLrxiFmqUI_tcV9mrb-Iipc3dLsMr0/s1620/cc-trip_day5_apr-may2022-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc_9r1NY8w2YuRRO07IxtQFu7pOwNCMo4QpB_zvR8GMMATv7MEqU3i4ho-pijNrBjo2rIhcpAbdWkbwBfzMaP-sm9zwDoXueq2odA5B2IP9_THXZ5bIvYvL9buQ05gPPaP9GFFYmPx9mZrqoVsTOilnZLrxiFmqUI_tcV9mrb-Iipc3dLsMr0/w640-h426/cc-trip_day5_apr-may2022-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While visiting family in Ohio I had lunch with my cousin Jim.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVm8XRiR2yiLdeRNZQx7r5UGUfC3andmk_llLapVIGT_A5P3Tk3DCuI2ZifE6L7rhi9Yqh7kGGKNmu_WsCwvpQxek3PcW1KuiXnpFoj7kDvKSC3fjLaxG-LMKBGO4f__TVb7uTr0zAw2pOEWjgtMhxuoTgBr_eGvUkRPY_yXZfLY-GwzUBmGM/s1620/lunchseries_snewman_jul2022.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVm8XRiR2yiLdeRNZQx7r5UGUfC3andmk_llLapVIGT_A5P3Tk3DCuI2ZifE6L7rhi9Yqh7kGGKNmu_WsCwvpQxek3PcW1KuiXnpFoj7kDvKSC3fjLaxG-LMKBGO4f__TVb7uTr0zAw2pOEWjgtMhxuoTgBr_eGvUkRPY_yXZfLY-GwzUBmGM/w640-h426/lunchseries_snewman_jul2022.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend and Weber State colleague Sylvia had me photograph her yoga class in the summer.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4Wth_Cn9cAa1NGsdMROpxduPamzzE_wXmQqEAyNsPuYZ2v9hOZjoO-u7QENzQux2jaz01-enOCn9NDigSKMwxsheCm_OjQgbG5BvmBVfAKQOAEs2_SVg0UoIU0HoaC8lPrxrGS7MUCqNX436Au0TMohKVufH8-6VMZWRwrNNZSUACWT-wzk/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-58.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN4Wth_Cn9cAa1NGsdMROpxduPamzzE_wXmQqEAyNsPuYZ2v9hOZjoO-u7QENzQux2jaz01-enOCn9NDigSKMwxsheCm_OjQgbG5BvmBVfAKQOAEs2_SVg0UoIU0HoaC8lPrxrGS7MUCqNX436Au0TMohKVufH8-6VMZWRwrNNZSUACWT-wzk/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-58.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catching up with my cousin Jessica made up for some blah weather in Bandon, Oregon.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja9W0hPJiFUHS4Hz8TWJxPoBmSmYrs9tgvdl2dPjaP2ySTlFaiVsYDEQaItVktNP0-RdqKeA8Tey0ln-QRSbqIJjS6PxHLZmWNHX_mUwBmmtFQFWmbCCRjIU3IzxwRluKmsia5m9eEudd_L_qQCGiqyE97ZAxaCDIIzKiM_czLKb77FSu82g0/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-280.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja9W0hPJiFUHS4Hz8TWJxPoBmSmYrs9tgvdl2dPjaP2ySTlFaiVsYDEQaItVktNP0-RdqKeA8Tey0ln-QRSbqIJjS6PxHLZmWNHX_mUwBmmtFQFWmbCCRjIU3IzxwRluKmsia5m9eEudd_L_qQCGiqyE97ZAxaCDIIzKiM_czLKb77FSu82g0/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-280.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Aunt Barbara joined the portrait club on our way to a sunset shoot at Mt. Hood.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQ6bOUETos5GIUPmYXrPf6rWGrvVRv23IftqdkH4JNjGQNwnwmVFoZSlvh1zU5aexggb2PPscuG_lmHMIeMjw_L2XBNlaozcoj0NL5JhsPUl9lJgIoZb5kcrj2bmbYRl9bhLsvBkFrccdvVO-eMCGZkyWPRxN8wKwYSRexKBvzT7Qknpccss/s1620/november-odds-and-ends_nov2022-16.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQ6bOUETos5GIUPmYXrPf6rWGrvVRv23IftqdkH4JNjGQNwnwmVFoZSlvh1zU5aexggb2PPscuG_lmHMIeMjw_L2XBNlaozcoj0NL5JhsPUl9lJgIoZb5kcrj2bmbYRl9bhLsvBkFrccdvVO-eMCGZkyWPRxN8wKwYSRexKBvzT7Qknpccss/w640-h426/november-odds-and-ends_nov2022-16.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In November I met up with my old mission buddy Cameron Braithwaite in Ogden.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Late in April, as I was wrapping up spring semester, a concerning 2022 trend continued when my Uncle Jeff passed away unexpectedly out in Ohio. With Mom still fighting back issues, I arranged to represent the Utah branch of the family at the memorial in Cleveland. I was already planning to get out of town for the break, so I extended my trip to include some time in Chicago. The result was a rainy and bittersweet week in the Midwest, reconnecting with family and taking pictures over seven days as April turned to May. It was my first return to Ohio since 2018, and my first time on an airplane since the week before the pandemic officially started in March 2020. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfRvnZFbO0WKR8H86yRj6l14xs8Z8o3vyYYvtsfmH4v6ocDPnM6dEv0rDvThzY0FSOUDF4qlkept5eVdROENTL9p0mSX0U9yof6imD2htJrkMzDN4hulhlcykrNOrbHRkElhBmqhIIGehRkpJ0TdSrHzhoaUkh68o2Xo9P9CR2yiA5pPbCLo/s1620/cc-trip_day2_apr-may2022-18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyfRvnZFbO0WKR8H86yRj6l14xs8Z8o3vyYYvtsfmH4v6ocDPnM6dEv0rDvThzY0FSOUDF4qlkept5eVdROENTL9p0mSX0U9yof6imD2htJrkMzDN4hulhlcykrNOrbHRkElhBmqhIIGehRkpJ0TdSrHzhoaUkh68o2Xo9P9CR2yiA5pPbCLo/w640-h426/cc-trip_day2_apr-may2022-18.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW1bEpVMrL4PmzoZWs5ukuL8ixOFpX7yW1fLitI3R9U3PffQkgAFNSH8htUAeNQDnRuHnuXef0Iaxbevsl7AuAuApbmJtJruBeQUrxKRQoNvARWkDiHL98428quxJWuoZxrMiTPWuUf2ULrsDM2Xyc1dm_8m1Jvs-JZUEog8xp0FKJH-ir64/s1620/cc-trip_day2_apr-may2022-45.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghW1bEpVMrL4PmzoZWs5ukuL8ixOFpX7yW1fLitI3R9U3PffQkgAFNSH8htUAeNQDnRuHnuXef0Iaxbevsl7AuAuApbmJtJruBeQUrxKRQoNvARWkDiHL98428quxJWuoZxrMiTPWuUf2ULrsDM2Xyc1dm_8m1Jvs-JZUEog8xp0FKJH-ir64/w640-h426/cc-trip_day2_apr-may2022-45.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSlOQk1HLp8EnoVP0SMCY_gxRp-HXnjriqYXGOYECWtUYXrPzqN2cxwpw7f10vt96CgjlkUwhcDoIkcXuNMmStEEpMRADnQp_fCzNVrMCVtXgmSpZ19RAEORlWF4RbufDUYGldMaDeBLj15g6AtH2VkY9ELd90Ht_-9kj_DLM1dvmmlxqFX4/s1620/cc-trip_day1_apr-may2022-31.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjSlOQk1HLp8EnoVP0SMCY_gxRp-HXnjriqYXGOYECWtUYXrPzqN2cxwpw7f10vt96CgjlkUwhcDoIkcXuNMmStEEpMRADnQp_fCzNVrMCVtXgmSpZ19RAEORlWF4RbufDUYGldMaDeBLj15g6AtH2VkY9ELd90Ht_-9kj_DLM1dvmmlxqFX4/w640-h426/cc-trip_day1_apr-may2022-31.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr4YpMGSjj_hsxypKQ2YiZpTg_Cw2oaoRTRDyAqVV_3tMj5MHsSjKqmlzY5EUVpuEPaxSEU5vMGAFHzHG9mmsPKhEMQgSOQ3fq1_v-eD28PYoIYQ0cJKQsLJACqyAAYZWpwLBohfhQ3CrJ91u_yfeude-NCkaOKk6R9z7VFhSKw5foommVpE8/s1620/cc-trip_day6_apr-may2022-55.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr4YpMGSjj_hsxypKQ2YiZpTg_Cw2oaoRTRDyAqVV_3tMj5MHsSjKqmlzY5EUVpuEPaxSEU5vMGAFHzHG9mmsPKhEMQgSOQ3fq1_v-eD28PYoIYQ0cJKQsLJACqyAAYZWpwLBohfhQ3CrJ91u_yfeude-NCkaOKk6R9z7VFhSKw5foommVpE8/w640-h426/cc-trip_day6_apr-may2022-55.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFq8ti_s_fD2HXBdT85T-Cdtk_tN2KtxgNAHYulrTHzp-qlnF71BXLPn7yEWPEdxDWPQVTdX8fWbZxd6NrY8UG4AZ2QLdew7bV4h8oMua19l0Ev77k1VvyAOINps7Slq1p3IirTNMzh23UGCgHAHMGbdooZKQqV4b5pqjSfbHc0NiXgnQHcw/s1620/cc-trip_day4_apr-may2022-33.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFq8ti_s_fD2HXBdT85T-Cdtk_tN2KtxgNAHYulrTHzp-qlnF71BXLPn7yEWPEdxDWPQVTdX8fWbZxd6NrY8UG4AZ2QLdew7bV4h8oMua19l0Ev77k1VvyAOINps7Slq1p3IirTNMzh23UGCgHAHMGbdooZKQqV4b5pqjSfbHc0NiXgnQHcw/w640-h426/cc-trip_day4_apr-may2022-33.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I need to find a closer viewpoint for the Cleveland skyline...or bring my telephoto next time.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPpXjzoRYMJ0YWVagjtWrv6sTvUhU9hZxjOEOnXk5MyB18JPcnCcwjIwckWLib2kOiqkQhw5LN48NxoS8iowjW8yUvkzCfBBUjckhujoLUVVoJd6rSbCM4_qfJ5NXfEUiEbdhya_GlOOd7A1xmKS3-OeSRqnnpDaggEaMI4PbkQ7ViZ0cmbY/s1920/cc-trip_day5_apr-may2022-28.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMPpXjzoRYMJ0YWVagjtWrv6sTvUhU9hZxjOEOnXk5MyB18JPcnCcwjIwckWLib2kOiqkQhw5LN48NxoS8iowjW8yUvkzCfBBUjckhujoLUVVoJd6rSbCM4_qfJ5NXfEUiEbdhya_GlOOd7A1xmKS3-OeSRqnnpDaggEaMI4PbkQ7ViZ0cmbY/w640-h360/cc-trip_day5_apr-may2022-28.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I found this cool old power station on the south shore of Lake Erie.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Before flying back east, I began serving as an Ordinance Worker at the Bountiful Temple for a few hours a week. Over the years I have attended and photographed numerous temples, but it was illuminating to go behind the scenes of temple worship and provide assistance for others. And as May sped toward Memorial Day, my new responsibilities formed the centerpiece of an unforgettable day. </p><p>If March brought the Day of Kate, May delivered the Day of Pooped. It opened around 4:30am as my sister and I left to run a 12K race in association with the annual Ogden Marathon. I was in even worse shape in May than for 2021's Thanksgiving 10K, but the steady decline of the route down Ogden Canyon was much more forgiving and scenic than the up and down nonsense of the golf cart track at Thanksgiving Point. Having survived that, I enjoyed a celebratory breakfast with the family in Kaysville, then finished an afternoon shift at the temple just in time to speak at the Bountiful North Stake Conference...on the blessings of temple service. By the time I picked up takeout Thai food for a late dinner, I felt a strange combination of exhaustion and elation, and resolved to never run a race longer than 5K ever again.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrz4XQzny_13OHtaYSSdOtb635UmxIA8LmMyZ1abrb256-oiP3eGYkLp3xMyUzh8ZFEXsOVIpoDmRxQ84Bg5REBATwyQM-SXvoTHycon7yZoopkSzRVwSa68e9uYLQ4VfHPfG7-L0iI61S1xAjhvEQHScvoDzDK70F32ehKLWT1UcAwU37tc4/s1024/IMG_3905.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrz4XQzny_13OHtaYSSdOtb635UmxIA8LmMyZ1abrb256-oiP3eGYkLp3xMyUzh8ZFEXsOVIpoDmRxQ84Bg5REBATwyQM-SXvoTHycon7yZoopkSzRVwSa68e9uYLQ4VfHPfG7-L0iI61S1xAjhvEQHScvoDzDK70F32ehKLWT1UcAwU37tc4/w640-h480/IMG_3905.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>With the Day of Pooped behind me, I was hoping to get in one last photo shoot Memorial Day weekend to cap off spring. But that idea derailed the following Thursday when after two years, two vaccinations, a booster, and a whole lot of muffled conversations behind a mask, the Coronapocalypse finally caught up to me as I tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily I made it to the "Top Gun: Maverick" press screening earlier in the week, and was able to enjoy my favorite movie of the year at the Jordan Commons IMAX.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPzhtocETjZqtS0FqJrmgWmrZnLMt26wFifsIuAUvW_JLpP7EYE4Jb2bEPdpxf7t3-KEluRwg8gKEQI4jJ-3zJiWjl_FwkJ0MK-SaKRp1vem60UO-Abx1ZjGdMbH4VVHDxlMaX3tC4zBXDFsfQ1qGLAiQ9PEt641bkl-TbTMnk8-OHga07w8/s1024/IMG_8870.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIPzhtocETjZqtS0FqJrmgWmrZnLMt26wFifsIuAUvW_JLpP7EYE4Jb2bEPdpxf7t3-KEluRwg8gKEQI4jJ-3zJiWjl_FwkJ0MK-SaKRp1vem60UO-Abx1ZjGdMbH4VVHDxlMaX3tC4zBXDFsfQ1qGLAiQ9PEt641bkl-TbTMnk8-OHga07w8/w640-h480/IMG_8870.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />On the bright side, my mild symptoms suggested I only had the watered-down 2022 version of the virus, so I tried to stay productive in isolation, getting in a little reading, doing some spring cleaning, and photographing my positive test for the sake of the historical record. Honestly, getting through COVID in the spring of 2022 felt like calling myself a cancer survivor because my dermatologist has to zap me with liquid nitrogen at my annual checkup. Gratefully it was more of an inconvenience than an illness, and as May signed off and my quarantine ended, 2022 already felt like a year of significance.<div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- S U M M E R - </p><p>Thanks to COVID, my transition into summer was more of a sluggish stagger than a joyous leap to freedom, and if it weren't for a series of product shoots for the Cheetahman, I barely would have touched my camera for about six weeks from May into June. Luckily a few birthday dinners for friends and family helped keep me engaged, and I waded into my online English course while continuing to volunteer at the temple and review 2022's lineup of summer shlockbusters. By the end of June, summer finally started to feel like summer when I joined some friends to see Vertical Horizon play a free show at South Ogden Days. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFvff4zakBw7qw45rE6Pnl62M9OACZs1BwToU_ULm6umbgHHifDzLnNCdAICYK0mC9sLs0To4S04wABgvvH6ZJH19bDP2DZFJvn0wPdeknMQXbPYhbQGXW3CSmxdhDKgz-rMMjHByQHcUxkJvWS1er2tLOHrzB1B86LUkWwgcdvkgJqRxDTQc/s2400/bedding-shoot_june2022-web-96.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1920" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFvff4zakBw7qw45rE6Pnl62M9OACZs1BwToU_ULm6umbgHHifDzLnNCdAICYK0mC9sLs0To4S04wABgvvH6ZJH19bDP2DZFJvn0wPdeknMQXbPYhbQGXW3CSmxdhDKgz-rMMjHByQHcUxkJvWS1er2tLOHrzB1B86LUkWwgcdvkgJqRxDTQc/w512-h640/bedding-shoot_june2022-web-96.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisd57VZZDymjtdioQ1b13FRAYXrIVoOHxVH-wtO3NIqpdqI7X-e2SYh4xuz7ktjNlY0G621g6XUf8QkJg4tDDrrpmrnzsmU8MSL_rvaE83rMoIUqsY-S-r45BGTCH48btlbujmyGLYfymhe_Incdj-2rJVOmNHSlWRIFJVcSfkNSsF1jaRrFc/s1620/vertical-horizon_sogden_jun2022-13.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisd57VZZDymjtdioQ1b13FRAYXrIVoOHxVH-wtO3NIqpdqI7X-e2SYh4xuz7ktjNlY0G621g6XUf8QkJg4tDDrrpmrnzsmU8MSL_rvaE83rMoIUqsY-S-r45BGTCH48btlbujmyGLYfymhe_Incdj-2rJVOmNHSlWRIFJVcSfkNSsF1jaRrFc/w640-h426/vertical-horizon_sogden_jun2022-13.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of my more creative shots of 2022...and the main reason I rarely attend concerts anymore.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>As 2022 rolled toward its halfway mark, I got two pieces of good news: first, my friend Sylvia needed some pictures to advertise her campus Yoga class, and second, my sister had spotted my culinary white whale: mini-taco shells were back on the grocery shelves! Tack on a Friday night expedition to the Provo City Center Temple with Brian--which included a customary bacon jalapeno burger at JCW's--and June finished in a blaze of food and photographic glory.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGE7wrkz9OKRI81X2gD4eU1PZ_GbcAU4-MbLvSQZKWAUZs_Po5ZIZb3ffO59DRckzAvocyWWbx0cRY7hJxT8vyWWTX7567DAAzb_aYL9YHkwi72jDWXG0ZfKznHkeaZq1xVGSBPsFw9j1NerXRUlUcmeLsTnArVd0FjMcuQMwvmLX_w_39ZLI/s1350/yoga-shoot_final-edits_jun2022-web-22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGE7wrkz9OKRI81X2gD4eU1PZ_GbcAU4-MbLvSQZKWAUZs_Po5ZIZb3ffO59DRckzAvocyWWbx0cRY7hJxT8vyWWTX7567DAAzb_aYL9YHkwi72jDWXG0ZfKznHkeaZq1xVGSBPsFw9j1NerXRUlUcmeLsTnArVd0FjMcuQMwvmLX_w_39ZLI/w512-h640/yoga-shoot_final-edits_jun2022-web-22.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-bzkpN4EdTIcaUmjFgpHbK9MD4fZLg5mB-5FWQFq3JnVD_bb9nzOplyNG50nn7n_ccCTG3ZRqyQTjLo8sxi_1_2bkkGUtELNFuiurv6uklqTTv8ze2V31b457B7_RkioEQodvr8C0EHoI_i1JwzBYY-TaNwsiLWG_ZpF7ES3dMV5Fe2Hfto/s4489/mini-tacos_jun2022-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2993" data-original-width="4489" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-bzkpN4EdTIcaUmjFgpHbK9MD4fZLg5mB-5FWQFq3JnVD_bb9nzOplyNG50nn7n_ccCTG3ZRqyQTjLo8sxi_1_2bkkGUtELNFuiurv6uklqTTv8ze2V31b457B7_RkioEQodvr8C0EHoI_i1JwzBYY-TaNwsiLWG_ZpF7ES3dMV5Fe2Hfto/w640-h426/mini-tacos_jun2022-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSBM_hdMe-UKtS7F2G79tzSrkEqXPrD4JV-xIXWDsUmt7PIO9KhEsRQIqL47I0gdxe-LZmFk6yuyRQaeNifZnlDaoHgNZ8adpKCEtuJOcMXUgHUlMg7VuXKEbnFsqSlAgObJ8z0XVk8ZjZ-uwQNLPI2lCTpxVgpiNFPpD52OWTg9iBegXVI8/s1620/provo-city-center-temple_jun2022-7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSBM_hdMe-UKtS7F2G79tzSrkEqXPrD4JV-xIXWDsUmt7PIO9KhEsRQIqL47I0gdxe-LZmFk6yuyRQaeNifZnlDaoHgNZ8adpKCEtuJOcMXUgHUlMg7VuXKEbnFsqSlAgObJ8z0XVk8ZjZ-uwQNLPI2lCTpxVgpiNFPpD52OWTg9iBegXVI8/w640-h426/provo-city-center-temple_jun2022-7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Heading into the holiday weekend, I assumed the second half of 2022 would kick off with a fireworks-fueled bang, but reality delivered a burn instead. In the early hours of July 4th, I looked out my front window to discover that just like three years ago, the mountainside was on fire. A few minutes later I was aiming my camera at the Deuel Creek Fire as it loomed over Centerville. My results were nothing special, but I was glad I caught them when my attempt to photograph the West Bountiful fireworks display with Steve that night went down in metaphoric flames thanks to my miscalculated shooting position. We had better luck later in the month when we set up on my friend Melanie's roof to shoot the Mueller Park Junior High display a week before Pioneer Day.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMxyuqGBFWKsaBYT9QIvewUKej3iyFjPyItjoaFbeC7v6K8ENeKW4IjfW03Ueli4s6DjTKoFK3fPf-MoaGo5Yu_Sp475mLWmTnK12QWfIlmvHdTwPDgGJA7vHVivk1CYlSKs46t0CD4-RNfZzoiQc5eMglQjfcDe6rbgzLw9sy2MzmBFo0Jo/s1620/centerville_dc-fire_july2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMxyuqGBFWKsaBYT9QIvewUKej3iyFjPyItjoaFbeC7v6K8ENeKW4IjfW03Ueli4s6DjTKoFK3fPf-MoaGo5Yu_Sp475mLWmTnK12QWfIlmvHdTwPDgGJA7vHVivk1CYlSKs46t0CD4-RNfZzoiQc5eMglQjfcDe6rbgzLw9sy2MzmBFo0Jo/w640-h426/centerville_dc-fire_july2022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtrGWFncG6hHC5BCCb2pE2VddSqzGYY2JaAueBDjveVWZ1XlfF8Hq9hHN588kxonJGPfgGOJAVJ5_PgiCFiOxAtTC4fBRFfDQEPnwg9Hedqf2yQBql_9kJxdzxcnFfIYVkML08gJ7XvS-bG65a-2w9TPB0cCH6yqP6LnkDuU4wj0HCqDv-CTk/s1350/mueller-park-fireworks_jul22-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtrGWFncG6hHC5BCCb2pE2VddSqzGYY2JaAueBDjveVWZ1XlfF8Hq9hHN588kxonJGPfgGOJAVJ5_PgiCFiOxAtTC4fBRFfDQEPnwg9Hedqf2yQBql_9kJxdzxcnFfIYVkML08gJ7XvS-bG65a-2w9TPB0cCH6yqP6LnkDuU4wj0HCqDv-CTk/w512-h640/mueller-park-fireworks_jul22-14.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>Every year, temple photography is a consistent subplot to my creative efforts, and where possible, I've tried to add new subjects to my portfolio. With temples nearing completion in Layton, Taylorsville, and Saratoga Springs, it's been fun to anticipate the new options I'll have in the next few years, but ever since late 2021 the brand-new temple up in Pocatello had sat at the top of my to-shoot list.</p><p>A week after Independence Day, Brian and I checked my Pocatello Temple box at the tail end of a day trip that also included my first summer produce run to Pettingill's, a bison burger at Maddox, a choice visit with a missionary couple I knew in Chicago, and a nostalgic trip through our mutual academic past at the Utah State University campus in Logan. While it was fun to walk the Quad and step inside Ray B. West, the building where I spent so much time laboring on my master's degree and grading student papers, the real highlight was returning to room 006 in the Communication Disorders Building, where I taught my first section of English composition back in 2002.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWaBBF2IQf5vDkPNqsy6NOzZrWNC9eKh1LPs6vrI6b0wJ-8uXS8lD2exfzpVFshEWpAqY7DXPWA9GmEupd7-BaNkNYVyBXsaxKeNZ9XsywM-STkViPxA_nuyuJHlDqkoQfTLnEbTE1v0Exn78xtFofb9L9DCm0BvBVuyVl_m1ibvUw8axRQ4/s1512/pocatello-day-trip_july2022-17.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtWaBBF2IQf5vDkPNqsy6NOzZrWNC9eKh1LPs6vrI6b0wJ-8uXS8lD2exfzpVFshEWpAqY7DXPWA9GmEupd7-BaNkNYVyBXsaxKeNZ9XsywM-STkViPxA_nuyuJHlDqkoQfTLnEbTE1v0Exn78xtFofb9L9DCm0BvBVuyVl_m1ibvUw8axRQ4/w458-h640/pocatello-day-trip_july2022-17.jpg" width="458" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfpIeav3qKV8snK9rlMV2sjCVRHL7gGqPA2xEvYqMJ4dt9jpA31AboK7Jm_4b5sMRBNn9AqYHpUvszSYfmfNyP5huzchFaxcq7I6WLfRUmxTTm_UhNmLqW5C72_6MRCs90oHraFRaZUXKvLPGl6cVX2uNdGoppc0xiNwsAK5d9kGZ3q_UQA0w/s1371/IMG_8966.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1371" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfpIeav3qKV8snK9rlMV2sjCVRHL7gGqPA2xEvYqMJ4dt9jpA31AboK7Jm_4b5sMRBNn9AqYHpUvszSYfmfNyP5huzchFaxcq7I6WLfRUmxTTm_UhNmLqW5C72_6MRCs90oHraFRaZUXKvLPGl6cVX2uNdGoppc0xiNwsAK5d9kGZ3q_UQA0w/w478-h640/IMG_8966.jpeg" width="478" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The answer is yes: I did have hair back in 2002.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYtxIxV1M-xA2kRoOO5pHP0mIgUc6NwjmEEfBm7Ef6YAEByHnlkVToOIPU2ieJUDTdk89vuKphUeUXA46nATAXCvjaJ4U0F7Kwprzben9ctw2neXsLRsZEv3BIL9g7V4dqTMg1ED-w-25VYNcuGc5W52d3bEIQxH4817AzPaBRbiK9IIAhFVA/s1350/pocatello-day-trip_july2022-25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYtxIxV1M-xA2kRoOO5pHP0mIgUc6NwjmEEfBm7Ef6YAEByHnlkVToOIPU2ieJUDTdk89vuKphUeUXA46nATAXCvjaJ4U0F7Kwprzben9ctw2neXsLRsZEv3BIL9g7V4dqTMg1ED-w-25VYNcuGc5W52d3bEIQxH4817AzPaBRbiK9IIAhFVA/w512-h640/pocatello-day-trip_july2022-25.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br />Once it was up to speed, summer offered a consistent stream of fun and often unexpected opportunities. Soon after the Pocatello trip, I rejoined Brian and his family in American Fork to see his son Noah through the Mount Timpanogos Temple. When my sister (ironically?) spotted a katydid on my car, I got a rare opportunity to use my macro lens, and thanks to a couple of generous ward families, I did some more portrait work as July transitioned into August. The most memorable shoot during this stretch happened late one evening as I found myself sitting in my carport in the middle of an electrical storm, trying to score some lightning shots. The results were just so-so, but I did manage to immortalize the leftover McDonald's fries that scattered across the end of the driveway when the storm knocked over our garbage cans.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_jd3xwtgtDLdyV7Modc83zi91vuSRCWEubXh4U_BhzhVgbnumBK63IbixNd6erYbtqn7j9K0uFOSb8IvitnV_2vLpj4DAZoUsF163s-KWQSsxIcnSvegoVaqmGANSoDDTa4Uj3KssLOdjTWNKDtgzbi5UouiLgYcwM_pRs_kO9cBAaZhKVQ/s1366/IMG_1016_Original.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs_jd3xwtgtDLdyV7Modc83zi91vuSRCWEubXh4U_BhzhVgbnumBK63IbixNd6erYbtqn7j9K0uFOSb8IvitnV_2vLpj4DAZoUsF163s-KWQSsxIcnSvegoVaqmGANSoDDTa4Uj3KssLOdjTWNKDtgzbi5UouiLgYcwM_pRs_kO9cBAaZhKVQ/w480-h640/IMG_1016_Original.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikbXF_3IbQfhMvXmOg2aij3BlLI7nAFjhRKOelZbH7MsQamC5zi9qRNx0ldioKKlJn-cUhXHm43Ovu9L-24legZQYK4ZESxFDn0jldYW8Y1KVN0aF2pprDfdbASXFYHt87lB8_qlnsSUZmVAP7UXVJ7hP3yzxn6f0gTSA_o-7w-hf06Vh_Vdk/s1620/katydid-visit_july2022-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikbXF_3IbQfhMvXmOg2aij3BlLI7nAFjhRKOelZbH7MsQamC5zi9qRNx0ldioKKlJn-cUhXHm43Ovu9L-24legZQYK4ZESxFDn0jldYW8Y1KVN0aF2pprDfdbASXFYHt87lB8_qlnsSUZmVAP7UXVJ7hP3yzxn6f0gTSA_o-7w-hf06Vh_Vdk/w640-h426/katydid-visit_july2022-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxCr_cWeswzuDV5HgbbRy0E1U4WUQzKihvjwUQUGz1Cl-ZMjLUnhGc_w47i_1FwbSiLeyaajYVK2tD62rKetHXMrp6dsfB3n3MGkJow9kWwq60xgSekz5BV_5vYaomCg1kHp01L3c15uij_ZfVBzsqUsyDSBf37-TuCH2ZtHilIzXDHJtARk/s1620/driveway-lightning_august2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxCr_cWeswzuDV5HgbbRy0E1U4WUQzKihvjwUQUGz1Cl-ZMjLUnhGc_w47i_1FwbSiLeyaajYVK2tD62rKetHXMrp6dsfB3n3MGkJow9kWwq60xgSekz5BV_5vYaomCg1kHp01L3c15uij_ZfVBzsqUsyDSBf37-TuCH2ZtHilIzXDHJtARk/w640-h426/driveway-lightning_august2022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Summer was moving at full click as the calendar turned over into August, but even with the specter of a new school year looming at the end of the month, I enjoyed one of my best days of 2022 when I took one of my nieces out for a birthday lunch, then picked up her big sister to see the special 40th Anniversary screening of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" in IMAX. These days it takes a little more convincing to leave our home theaters for the local multiplex, and most of 2022's fare wasn't all that persuasive. But seeing "ET" at the Legacy Crossing Megaplex was a powerful reminder of why I fell in love with movies as a kid, and sharing that experience with two of my nieces was one of the year's genuine highlights.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghMypRr9W39OGavCq6HbL_6ZPCG9tbIAlLiMVSk_OD4kPneyOeuoi0yLAJpJH-HTnI7R6RNlozcFH_9t6A0JkeXS0pyuSa2H06_7DNzyQOzifza6sq6DANbjKMnYwK-GNAYI3mB7WkUzpLAwzJ8iCNyLkQRTpfa0rH5lkpdl_TjYjD9TV8PqM/s1620/lunch-series_hcowan-aug2022.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghMypRr9W39OGavCq6HbL_6ZPCG9tbIAlLiMVSk_OD4kPneyOeuoi0yLAJpJH-HTnI7R6RNlozcFH_9t6A0JkeXS0pyuSa2H06_7DNzyQOzifza6sq6DANbjKMnYwK-GNAYI3mB7WkUzpLAwzJ8iCNyLkQRTpfa0rH5lkpdl_TjYjD9TV8PqM/w640-h426/lunch-series_hcowan-aug2022.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYI_C54HGiFjGYASdhydM4LqDXOALFzoKRZNcZNFME88ctnZqnVbKq7_HgGYz9qpWRMT4xVKMjH8L_Nyqyk9aZuogBVVZL0AscHu1NuE9-skPy5ulBjPorCH2j0Qr74Zv6Sk_7W0R8LMdTa5mW3GFHPJ9qDNs8bUi9J0nCSgW4u6fJEH8D5Bs/s1024/IMG_9064.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYI_C54HGiFjGYASdhydM4LqDXOALFzoKRZNcZNFME88ctnZqnVbKq7_HgGYz9qpWRMT4xVKMjH8L_Nyqyk9aZuogBVVZL0AscHu1NuE9-skPy5ulBjPorCH2j0Qr74Zv6Sk_7W0R8LMdTa5mW3GFHPJ9qDNs8bUi9J0nCSgW4u6fJEH8D5Bs/w640-h480/IMG_9064.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p>A few days later, after concluding my summer class with an intense final grading session, I packed up my car and set out to resolve some unfinished business on the Oregon coast. I defied inflated gas prices and late paper submissions, but I could not defy the foggy coastal weather, which left my business in Bandon unfinished. Luckily conditions improved as I drove north, and shoots at Cannon Beach, Mt. Hood, and the Portland and Twin Falls temples were much more successful. Seven days, 2,000 miles, and five states after leaving, I returned with more than 1,700 images and some fond memories, including some valuable time spent with my extended family along the way.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EEbOH1fdJApZk9SXDip1gPaPtppDhrWpmsk0vuak-n9ekKD-2EkycEQsNFyzSvRCDwJLVAfBqnWF8gxG75PBMXiW2SVQB8gC_t_sIpRKJ7UeA8xX_YKGC_8iZ4e03WG0Sr9GdhxhagRnwRpi-HX5ZjtEUbhu5GZaRK2tATNYy-pMJwODYJo/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8EEbOH1fdJApZk9SXDip1gPaPtppDhrWpmsk0vuak-n9ekKD-2EkycEQsNFyzSvRCDwJLVAfBqnWF8gxG75PBMXiW2SVQB8gC_t_sIpRKJ7UeA8xX_YKGC_8iZ4e03WG0Sr9GdhxhagRnwRpi-HX5ZjtEUbhu5GZaRK2tATNYy-pMJwODYJo/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-26.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMZAbuR-bfWhyZhp0oEYgAVqXL1ZDlRFEHN43e-WuQGHGaq9JJ2aq7rFEnAQOtRXUMUyQ_WL1X5LDc5_XQnclKH8jD2YLtgKjHq9J_FgeToPWeb0i7C2gajB667ZYhwok5HF5rqiicQBndMAesgmF56LkrHLoetxV20LTcyCSzVci2e343C8/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-55.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCMZAbuR-bfWhyZhp0oEYgAVqXL1ZDlRFEHN43e-WuQGHGaq9JJ2aq7rFEnAQOtRXUMUyQ_WL1X5LDc5_XQnclKH8jD2YLtgKjHq9J_FgeToPWeb0i7C2gajB667ZYhwok5HF5rqiicQBndMAesgmF56LkrHLoetxV20LTcyCSzVci2e343C8/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-55.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I shall return, Bandon...I shall return.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTtrPIOBVqYJF1Opio1Smt_edIm2OaDc-Tvxg4tr8snmkXYXtSHhCn8pfWdBwsgGsT0NVosxiqcN-q6_2ycYdUkyoyGRh7h6CTPgA4VZmm4lwaD43-MeRuTi_n_TOGiug-oSruHNImVd1HUSo0guT9aK0sZhHm2CMrqGhJj-tB3bkHQH2Y48/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-243.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRTtrPIOBVqYJF1Opio1Smt_edIm2OaDc-Tvxg4tr8snmkXYXtSHhCn8pfWdBwsgGsT0NVosxiqcN-q6_2ycYdUkyoyGRh7h6CTPgA4VZmm4lwaD43-MeRuTi_n_TOGiug-oSruHNImVd1HUSo0guT9aK0sZhHm2CMrqGhJj-tB3bkHQH2Y48/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-243.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3sGp5kU6NK47yizzvFrLNbbceYajuRWEIaStqYNy3iXdhZzZ7vf4CDWYvn1m3u52voyI15xs9j9RkZpGEK8nnyfkHrVzGML7Hjyi8t1uAwqr55aIcubs0-3SxOI-2SiS5_myculNvdchHUwOutWfhR03ebAmEL-F6y7we2qbZkJjinAGA_E/s1620/oregon-coast_aug2022-289.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3sGp5kU6NK47yizzvFrLNbbceYajuRWEIaStqYNy3iXdhZzZ7vf4CDWYvn1m3u52voyI15xs9j9RkZpGEK8nnyfkHrVzGML7Hjyi8t1uAwqr55aIcubs0-3SxOI-2SiS5_myculNvdchHUwOutWfhR03ebAmEL-F6y7we2qbZkJjinAGA_E/w640-h426/oregon-coast_aug2022-289.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaP8uLOSUy9yIPkyHEqZquPHNe99uoIOOhj6NhahZM-xTKCfVxC0be7tyeG5vRLHxzRRfsjYY1u4layWEkHRbWLl3Zs-iGVWE1Ja1Ow4hAIg6pc7uREO83me66OAsvM2Rlv3NRFOX7vZ1GCMfqMm6EVkSYt1wjO_7UFyY1dAyFy7yV97-wjc/s1350/oregon-coast_aug2022-363.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOaP8uLOSUy9yIPkyHEqZquPHNe99uoIOOhj6NhahZM-xTKCfVxC0be7tyeG5vRLHxzRRfsjYY1u4layWEkHRbWLl3Zs-iGVWE1Ja1Ow4hAIg6pc7uREO83me66OAsvM2Rlv3NRFOX7vZ1GCMfqMm6EVkSYt1wjO_7UFyY1dAyFy7yV97-wjc/w512-h640/oregon-coast_aug2022-363.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: left;">A few days after getting back from Oregon, before I even had a chance to put off editing my results, Brian and I officially wrapped up the summer with an evening shoot in Ogden. On our way to photograph the Ogden Temple, we noticed some beautiful light in the clouds hovering over the Farr Ice Cream shop across the street. It was a perfectly appropriate way to cap off Summer 2022; from bedding shoots to wildfires to wildlife, the season delivered a generous variety of unexpected subjects and choice friends and family to enjoy them with.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZ86rvtqZsI7Jxb3US4VKHHRKs1x9ZYPyEEw8CGdyxCpo3XOxNy6jgLGfxjS8_WDTTdZnFbs98NUgbQpqXPvsMrpdqKjNJXS0p6l08KY6eM1IAJq62lmEq6vy86J2SVya6FWYzu18cIazQw7Q9AXQlRKafAN9UJz8M6HryqpRWsxsLMnzLas/s1350/farr-ice-cream_ogden-temple_aug2022-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjZ86rvtqZsI7Jxb3US4VKHHRKs1x9ZYPyEEw8CGdyxCpo3XOxNy6jgLGfxjS8_WDTTdZnFbs98NUgbQpqXPvsMrpdqKjNJXS0p6l08KY6eM1IAJq62lmEq6vy86J2SVya6FWYzu18cIazQw7Q9AXQlRKafAN9UJz8M6HryqpRWsxsLMnzLas/w512-h640/farr-ice-cream_ogden-temple_aug2022-3.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;">- F A L L - </p><p>As August transitioned to September, I was back in Ogden to start my slate of Fall Semester classes at Weber State, and this time I had a graduate student named Mariah shadowing me as I taught my first face-to-face section of English 2010 since my spring course was forced online in 2020. The new movie releases honored their long-held September tradition of mediocrity, but I enjoyed another anniversary showing when Megaplex screened "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" out in West Valley. In the end, September's biggest news was the passing of my friend Kris Montgomery, who finally succumbed to cancer after battling a brain tumor for almost two years.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGWZjuY7Rtrn3xodNFNpwIAgbupSjgff-DlWnG61HqLVEVksJLYGMjDtSVU8Qly4W-gFYwTA6bQXvYoaqVgYMKHLXODh0Ov9BeiS3DanCVpbvZoO3uJg-hQGXV7tX_Lmih_yR4wN2zpjMoWAHzTcmLpAX6Dj2ybWuo_mJhnQf91LakCuERaVc/s1024/IMG_7128.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGWZjuY7Rtrn3xodNFNpwIAgbupSjgff-DlWnG61HqLVEVksJLYGMjDtSVU8Qly4W-gFYwTA6bQXvYoaqVgYMKHLXODh0Ov9BeiS3DanCVpbvZoO3uJg-hQGXV7tX_Lmih_yR4wN2zpjMoWAHzTcmLpAX6Dj2ybWuo_mJhnQf91LakCuERaVc/w640-h480/IMG_7128.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grocery bagger reunion in 2021: (from left) Ben (Kris's brother), Kris, Brian, Me.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Three nights after his death, and about a week before I attended my fourth funeral of 2022, I staked out a position off Bountiful Boulevard with Steve to photograph another electrical storm. The dramatic image I caught above the Bountiful Temple felt like a tender mercy from an always-supportive friend who became a great example and inspiration to me in the last years of his life. In spite of my strong testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation, it was still jarring to see Kris in repose before the funeral; his service was the first I had attended for a friend my own age, though I have lost several of my peers in recent years. Once again, 2022 gave me the opportunity to think about the legacy my friends and family--and someday I--will leave behind.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEMrKXa14Vc4W3Wx-DnbrnPdNBYH1YUp-pqoSgtsrzQAYN4YawqjCnK_wSwtvIj8ANSTNtUH6E7exNn2XjZKD8o_54WtljS7R63WPo43C1aINoaMdk4JC5fLJmEpLVGw8iufxYeZiUBDOMbHvltPKvbJ-3fp4CnaOhL4K9SYff5qJEgLj9NU/s1350/bountiful-temple-lightning_sep2022b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNEMrKXa14Vc4W3Wx-DnbrnPdNBYH1YUp-pqoSgtsrzQAYN4YawqjCnK_wSwtvIj8ANSTNtUH6E7exNn2XjZKD8o_54WtljS7R63WPo43C1aINoaMdk4JC5fLJmEpLVGw8iufxYeZiUBDOMbHvltPKvbJ-3fp4CnaOhL4K9SYff5qJEgLj9NU/w512-h640/bountiful-temple-lightning_sep2022b.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>I doubt I will ever surpass 2020 for fall-related shoots and activities, what with all the hiking and leaf-peeping I did that year. But fall of 2022 still brought some welcome opportunities behind the camera, including season-appropriate expeditions up Millcreek Canyon and the Alpine Loop, and it brought some changes, as Dani Hatch decided to step away from the FilmPod to focus on other responsibilities. Through it all, whether I was photographing a youth soccer game, losing an argument with a two-year-old during a portrait shoot, or keeping the podcast going with my old editor/roommate/friend Mark LaRocco, my efforts always seemed to involve friends, family, or--on one memorable occasion--Storm Troopers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9UB9cz7iS5EoiTDgSu5bBofbT8m-qEtFwKaURQlde4bORxFnrBJs5jK9ek3RLWFAzVtdtjJGWbq5AuRzxcjiHdKB2olt6FhbLn1KMXyMiGah-ANoOQx6fJ67iERwH-cPtkEOwsjtj4_K-cqv8_X_YF4Gt-X9YHfqtcXDJta_RW8E8O4iiVe0/s1350/millcreek-canyon_oct2022-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9UB9cz7iS5EoiTDgSu5bBofbT8m-qEtFwKaURQlde4bORxFnrBJs5jK9ek3RLWFAzVtdtjJGWbq5AuRzxcjiHdKB2olt6FhbLn1KMXyMiGah-ANoOQx6fJ67iERwH-cPtkEOwsjtj4_K-cqv8_X_YF4Gt-X9YHfqtcXDJta_RW8E8O4iiVe0/w512-h640/millcreek-canyon_oct2022-14.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DR_GnEGBsOllclSFf1_C_GFLJuPGmzpFLV1pfdSwPkNsFSJxHx9nQtTDaRVd4Kew7i8Y0AESAf_GtJLZLeQx_3Tua3yGolAcqG5F3MQidC7IFZFbKGQ7WVpF3nQ_yrPXuc7irywxVMktfqvZxCbc1GAslNcFPwEo0sOKunuqxaxNhvnMIYA/s1620/various-edits_sept2022-36.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5DR_GnEGBsOllclSFf1_C_GFLJuPGmzpFLV1pfdSwPkNsFSJxHx9nQtTDaRVd4Kew7i8Y0AESAf_GtJLZLeQx_3Tua3yGolAcqG5F3MQidC7IFZFbKGQ7WVpF3nQ_yrPXuc7irywxVMktfqvZxCbc1GAslNcFPwEo0sOKunuqxaxNhvnMIYA/w640-h426/various-edits_sept2022-36.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBnOxjxobDnls1mmcDUZ8IF1qhEGtbzfRTkGZ7IOUqYbDt4E9S31Q3GGcsWtwLzThTELQwp9f562MKtfMXKe5aH-LlocfH-_qouGcN9gKRe0GNIjAyUAlEeDySyE5YxoJMjl8P8oFerKLimIbsxdIaeRLfA7Ztoq_z8uft-iUhpyNad517C0s/s1620/bubbles-crops_oct2022-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBnOxjxobDnls1mmcDUZ8IF1qhEGtbzfRTkGZ7IOUqYbDt4E9S31Q3GGcsWtwLzThTELQwp9f562MKtfMXKe5aH-LlocfH-_qouGcN9gKRe0GNIjAyUAlEeDySyE5YxoJMjl8P8oFerKLimIbsxdIaeRLfA7Ztoq_z8uft-iUhpyNad517C0s/w640-h426/bubbles-crops_oct2022-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMyWQe0cARkNmFzAhsr0kn8fJQkSd3gDV9F4qTeSnVFveDZvZaQDIkHlR6mixe3_P7c2A9SUQGTTWL41ZqdVfiz5goN1JMbxO9hvl79bcM9r3HTGBrVwXA5rVtQkU9Xv8UkgdXpABSTMxI9EwyRVK-LkxRzV-HyaD_XskXPkXskwDwDuJpXs/s1620/alpine-loop_oct2022-26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyMyWQe0cARkNmFzAhsr0kn8fJQkSd3gDV9F4qTeSnVFveDZvZaQDIkHlR6mixe3_P7c2A9SUQGTTWL41ZqdVfiz5goN1JMbxO9hvl79bcM9r3HTGBrVwXA5rVtQkU9Xv8UkgdXpABSTMxI9EwyRVK-LkxRzV-HyaD_XskXPkXskwDwDuJpXs/w640-h426/alpine-loop_oct2022-26.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9CQMwwcRl0uzvN-wD4xQkGG2aJLFx7xz9gRsIk-r1fCGHBFRcrhw2IkZ0exJpHt5l2Irzt_mMepc_1oD6dWA_MjxrFABwWIAniv5XQ0cZ8s0vxM_yS7jrmTRaxkQEpLnUX8_3ENJWGvjykYA9HT_QXDrnnFx2n-kLOXoIIG1gVC016QRcG3s/s1620/cannon-family_oct2022-forweb-61.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9CQMwwcRl0uzvN-wD4xQkGG2aJLFx7xz9gRsIk-r1fCGHBFRcrhw2IkZ0exJpHt5l2Irzt_mMepc_1oD6dWA_MjxrFABwWIAniv5XQ0cZ8s0vxM_yS7jrmTRaxkQEpLnUX8_3ENJWGvjykYA9HT_QXDrnnFx2n-kLOXoIIG1gVC016QRcG3s/w640-h426/cannon-family_oct2022-forweb-61.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I insisted that my friend Adam bring his cosplay gear along for his family photo shoot.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The friends and family theme continued when I called an audible a few days before leaving town in mid-October for Fall Break. The original plan was to follow a traditional route south through Las Vegas and Death Valley, with stops in Hollywood and Joshua Tree National Park. But since two of my best friends were going to be spending the same week in the Seattle area, it seemed logical to follow them north instead. The weather bug bit again when an ill-timed forest fire and some Pacific Northwest rain left my photography efforts with a heavy overcast haze. But it was fun to spend time with Randy and Brian, and at the midpoint of the trip, I marked a year of collecting Funko Pops with a visit to the company headquarters in Everett, Washington...where I picked up a custom pop of myself.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xV9MSl92IYhZI7FRBBDfxPl8YtvNzO6-z376fRDKGLP2KPgV4AfEqVl57940sAHz-K4CJoWKjnDPz1vDlsPuBbXX5XarsjcLrCa6K5Ertg6tEF0Tql7fo7IelaqnnAR22CtasnyYtV__orelQvBUeeyVaNaxCsBKWEH1yYwBZyOkYDKdrt4/s1620/fall-break_oct2022-day1-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xV9MSl92IYhZI7FRBBDfxPl8YtvNzO6-z376fRDKGLP2KPgV4AfEqVl57940sAHz-K4CJoWKjnDPz1vDlsPuBbXX5XarsjcLrCa6K5Ertg6tEF0Tql7fo7IelaqnnAR22CtasnyYtV__orelQvBUeeyVaNaxCsBKWEH1yYwBZyOkYDKdrt4/w640-h426/fall-break_oct2022-day1-11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26psuO7yKsuPxe5f_Y7iQReSl0XEQeMQRqaypccOedovOAGcUEgUoAnzZQobYDVTo9XD3SRlhoAL4C60f7Za3N5C54WulYmUVRTrx-83cGRAmmMBW6ZEXtfzhfqA5ixy4Pg-vXo-fTU3MW46tB2kIrZksblEDtIcWVwLyWQCdxONQFaHF8hQ/s1620/fall-break_oct2022-day1-22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg26psuO7yKsuPxe5f_Y7iQReSl0XEQeMQRqaypccOedovOAGcUEgUoAnzZQobYDVTo9XD3SRlhoAL4C60f7Za3N5C54WulYmUVRTrx-83cGRAmmMBW6ZEXtfzhfqA5ixy4Pg-vXo-fTU3MW46tB2kIrZksblEDtIcWVwLyWQCdxONQFaHF8hQ/w640-h426/fall-break_oct2022-day1-22.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHiTQxyyc6grOqAnvbr9OftghYXjTgrLvsrOZpgsV-2QS07T0wv0zSRJYHZiGwIjMGJoDi-RTzs1dqLAAjs5Ka20hHutUTWq3ZHjvUX5MnXozZSz2xjJfyrnORK4lcz0_R8VmL7WlZoUYEJGYJJXFFTWAHeGjjd0HvNwYjKl0wq5RDzHWQTs/s1620/fall-break_oct2022-day1-69.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjHiTQxyyc6grOqAnvbr9OftghYXjTgrLvsrOZpgsV-2QS07T0wv0zSRJYHZiGwIjMGJoDi-RTzs1dqLAAjs5Ka20hHutUTWq3ZHjvUX5MnXozZSz2xjJfyrnORK4lcz0_R8VmL7WlZoUYEJGYJJXFFTWAHeGjjd0HvNwYjKl0wq5RDzHWQTs/w640-h426/fall-break_oct2022-day1-69.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2EADFS8OMbyHSdhTj1DPf3M2vv5uYSru36Yu-Dom8Pxy6q_X95jvPCHBwTiWfuNA-XePWje7JD0ch5xsbjZXNarhjvGCUBLLAILdfsycClPv_EEYD2oeTVRaXAIe9kBAveDTsyMp04wxUy-pPqGhjDQAzTbJqNqNfj4iZf0PSWsaGTjjmrw/s2160/fall-break_oct2022-day2-92.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="2160" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL2EADFS8OMbyHSdhTj1DPf3M2vv5uYSru36Yu-Dom8Pxy6q_X95jvPCHBwTiWfuNA-XePWje7JD0ch5xsbjZXNarhjvGCUBLLAILdfsycClPv_EEYD2oeTVRaXAIe9kBAveDTsyMp04wxUy-pPqGhjDQAzTbJqNqNfj4iZf0PSWsaGTjjmrw/w640-h320/fall-break_oct2022-day2-92.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv58DhbRnbI1Ym5jXlh9wi_JVH_iqnrhlwhYEXZ7_N64oQuDCm0MSB2POJjKEroiELrnFE0VnYDKVHffGYMgAbmZCjocx75rqWfsWPkBOIpOKSbUrNjZfv7w0ViG3rUXXMhkjSD_snqFKoTNIUz0cmkKbb02HyGngqTRS9EQH6S6PSEUzg9yw/s1620/fall-break_oct2022-day4-34.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv58DhbRnbI1Ym5jXlh9wi_JVH_iqnrhlwhYEXZ7_N64oQuDCm0MSB2POJjKEroiELrnFE0VnYDKVHffGYMgAbmZCjocx75rqWfsWPkBOIpOKSbUrNjZfv7w0ViG3rUXXMhkjSD_snqFKoTNIUz0cmkKbb02HyGngqTRS9EQH6S6PSEUzg9yw/w640-h426/fall-break_oct2022-day4-34.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The weather finally broke by the time I reached Balanced Rock Park on the way home.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>On my way up to Seattle, I received some sad news from back home: after nearly 40 years in business, Top Hat Video was closing. I had enjoyed renting from Top Hat for years, and was always impressed by their enthusiastic customer service. I'd even had their manager Shanna come on my podcast earlier in the year. So it was heartbreaking, if not shocking, to get word that they had decided to close up shop. A few days after returning from Seattle, I photographed one of Top Hat's final Movie Club gatherings, and a few weeks later I returned to cover a special employees-only event. Once again, 2022 was marked with a sense of loss, and of inevitable change. But I remained grateful for the friendships and memories I was able to make in the process.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsYb2_GbRaYpywIAbZx7JNHXD0eEIzFCtXUEnsayzULNkv3ZT_I6rE6sYpklAsD7WwiOq2eHQgyaOiRZOjZvkLcQJxxVkhN9ArpbWLMMNvgA2TCBHw82X5wLi4QAsRs9afmnTmwDh_8u8fCetc-ywbknUsNeXO9l5CgUkeZZbrSvCVf02krc/s1620/top-hat_employee-day_nov22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYsYb2_GbRaYpywIAbZx7JNHXD0eEIzFCtXUEnsayzULNkv3ZT_I6rE6sYpklAsD7WwiOq2eHQgyaOiRZOjZvkLcQJxxVkhN9ArpbWLMMNvgA2TCBHw82X5wLi4QAsRs9afmnTmwDh_8u8fCetc-ywbknUsNeXO9l5CgUkeZZbrSvCVf02krc/w640-h426/top-hat_employee-day_nov22.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZUb26G1Aiy8DyzXcZwb_sLO6_JeRF_mnDhp204d4kbdv5Mq7pWtEGz3JMmD_MPZS7qMlGU6dW6tgzYUlcc2Y8VxkOmW7EAcx7zdREW2HNdNZVQzYyJfmuhJ5GOl3tH4FnNX1yt4vqACuTVIzp3wT3UpeaniF7E_o7z-mBw47guvH7_3DEuw4/s1620/top-hat_employee-day_nov22-12.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZUb26G1Aiy8DyzXcZwb_sLO6_JeRF_mnDhp204d4kbdv5Mq7pWtEGz3JMmD_MPZS7qMlGU6dW6tgzYUlcc2Y8VxkOmW7EAcx7zdREW2HNdNZVQzYyJfmuhJ5GOl3tH4FnNX1yt4vqACuTVIzp3wT3UpeaniF7E_o7z-mBw47guvH7_3DEuw4/w640-h426/top-hat_employee-day_nov22-12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Two days before Thanksgiving, I marked another occasion by celebrating 25 years since my return from missionary service in Chicago. I tried to write a commemorative Homecoming 2.0 address to capture the reflection of the moment, but my effort eventually became another half-finished, unpublished post in the archive of this blog. Instead, I celebrated my anniversary by driving to Orem with Steve to buy colored smoke grenades to use in future photo shoots. Very little of my life resembles what I expected it to become when I arrived home at Salt Lake International Airport on November 22nd, 1997. Were I to go back and meet my 21-year-old self at the terminal, I think I'd have a lot of explaining to do. But I think I'd be happy about the smoke grenades.</p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">- H O L I D A Y S - </p><p style="text-align: left;">Unlike years past, there was no Turkey Bowl, pickup soccer game, or even a merciless 10K to usher in the holiday season, but Thanksgiving morning I did complete one of my primary goals for 2022: read 22 books. For an English teacher, I have pretty lousy reading habits, so I resolved early in the year to step up my efforts. Thanksgiving morning I finished P. J. O'Rourke's "Parliament of Whores" to hit 21, and just for fun, I followed that up with a hilarious children's book called, "No One Likes a Fart" to reach #22. With more than a month left in the year, I eventually finished with a total of 24 titles, including memorable reads like my first Tom Wolfe novel ("The Right Stuff"), and a run through one of my all-time favorites: Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities."</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjB-H8l5fwHttSP6t8I6MLlKa4pEPkn4oDQG5f9qKx9tqXss5M4QSqRQW2US5LWwN7z7iMaGfgpYlTUN5n5FYRJlpR20YKUO5vgmazs_M7zrXzwlCZqcJVNX26BhhgIn6bWHm-dTle-p93hfdc3wc073vugtWKalH_kv4QCJSmY1YAb3CnDM/s1620/centerville-park-lights_december2022-8.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTjB-H8l5fwHttSP6t8I6MLlKa4pEPkn4oDQG5f9qKx9tqXss5M4QSqRQW2US5LWwN7z7iMaGfgpYlTUN5n5FYRJlpR20YKUO5vgmazs_M7zrXzwlCZqcJVNX26BhhgIn6bWHm-dTle-p93hfdc3wc073vugtWKalH_kv4QCJSmY1YAb3CnDM/w640-h426/centerville-park-lights_december2022-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit to my buddy Matt Hansen for the "picture of the books I've read" concept.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">Later that day, Thanksgiving arrived in style as my family gathered for a traditional meal up in Kaysville. I added a few leaf portraits to a growing collection, and spent some time with my oldest niece on Black Friday to get a jump on my Christmas shopping. Altogether, it was a strong start for the holiday season.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCKT4tql_COoRQAZOcm6bxJl4M2VcSJGquUattNdnwrRQn6G-MFVJe6aC_MgO1RkZiMPz7s8aM7D5nFYt8Qef27VyQjJro7y-4amTz2-EURR0IPzWLGvb4mYOvkHHYtmzo26uuxzCvgCZMbjddHB63HcD1SbdV6AvYgwLq7TTL1qh8XB8IFRw/s1350/thanksgiving-2022_nov22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCKT4tql_COoRQAZOcm6bxJl4M2VcSJGquUattNdnwrRQn6G-MFVJe6aC_MgO1RkZiMPz7s8aM7D5nFYt8Qef27VyQjJro7y-4amTz2-EURR0IPzWLGvb4mYOvkHHYtmzo26uuxzCvgCZMbjddHB63HcD1SbdV6AvYgwLq7TTL1qh8XB8IFRw/w512-h640/thanksgiving-2022_nov22.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplHA9msvXHcZpvGXNtIGWjBSyjIkDgXW3fWaYuL_gcQadNgFnl2mUb5WfnmXKi6gWyZipEVRxEQ-ur4_3XXLEHWmlI4jYmQxJfnedtWcJA66Fw1CKsLt99ZoHZ843un0cgEGXcLf5hDO1p_8oF0h7iy2CLwqxgCjzU_j7RTHhRqvOB87kVW8/s1350/thanksgiving-2022_nov22-25.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgplHA9msvXHcZpvGXNtIGWjBSyjIkDgXW3fWaYuL_gcQadNgFnl2mUb5WfnmXKi6gWyZipEVRxEQ-ur4_3XXLEHWmlI4jYmQxJfnedtWcJA66Fw1CKsLt99ZoHZ843un0cgEGXcLf5hDO1p_8oF0h7iy2CLwqxgCjzU_j7RTHhRqvOB87kVW8/w512-h640/thanksgiving-2022_nov22-25.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggnvp7AFpEtxMTQw2SCVoXtZVed2WUFQqap6F5VNuByD1vrpUSF-kzJUqxDlgkvsH7qGymy1DNPJTbuSI559loY-y9TryamZ9iTzRe_f1D3j2600agoeDm8Gp6oZu86ilAu-xGrV7r0IJsSnFViNGoXbr4Wjb2wmDg_SlFpCBYtaliodnJgYY/s1620/thanksgiving-2022_nov22-23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggnvp7AFpEtxMTQw2SCVoXtZVed2WUFQqap6F5VNuByD1vrpUSF-kzJUqxDlgkvsH7qGymy1DNPJTbuSI559loY-y9TryamZ9iTzRe_f1D3j2600agoeDm8Gp6oZu86ilAu-xGrV7r0IJsSnFViNGoXbr4Wjb2wmDg_SlFpCBYtaliodnJgYY/w640-h426/thanksgiving-2022_nov22-23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Things got busy in December, as they always do. While finishing off the semester's final grading and pushing through a lineup of award-hopefuls on my way to a UFCA vote, I joined friends and family for various holiday meals and Christmas parties, and part way through the month I was surprised with an adjunct teaching award courtesy of a great group of fall semester students. (I was also surprised when my desktop computer tried to commit suicide 10 days before Christmas; remember not to let your hard drives get too full, kids!) Once the major "to-do" items were finished, I got a jump on preparing my spring courses while doing more holiday stuff, like photographing the Christmas lights in Centerville and taking an impromptu drive up to Park City with my buddy Paul to buy socks and hot sauce (because nothing says "Merry Christmas" like hot sauce). By the time Christmas Day arrived, I was finally able to give my family the custom Funko Pops I had purchased in Seattle the previous October, but the most satisfying moment of the month may have been passing a yard with the Ukrainian flag on display, and knowing that after months of fighting, the brave country on the opposite side of the world was still intact.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzUCCIxh-DZTpGD4mUXsTikuflNi9lFeReLu7ChxCejvSCuRT9Z4rSSXrwpVGeo4dUFkW--QWC718vQNA4p03s1GLfkgiQcNujQ1VAfOC2eUejUXkPuqoargYCdJ3oQ3O6gzdTird2ouJZibN0EG0OHn719giXnJZCeEgpphXpvz9Iau7oFY/s1366/IMG_2460.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfzUCCIxh-DZTpGD4mUXsTikuflNi9lFeReLu7ChxCejvSCuRT9Z4rSSXrwpVGeo4dUFkW--QWC718vQNA4p03s1GLfkgiQcNujQ1VAfOC2eUejUXkPuqoargYCdJ3oQ3O6gzdTird2ouJZibN0EG0OHn719giXnJZCeEgpphXpvz9Iau7oFY/w480-h640/IMG_2460.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6K9XpsafbZkjR1lUIBwH_68pjyJ2QnBmrT8W2Vk2zTJ8j7SJ5QB1Es-8C8ocCFsn3ssGsMlgKdtKHrRC_HVeJmqi-l8G1Zfr9USFiIJK4_S4LPGyZVyeBmK5haWi-P09RTKqA9IfAkjDwJjqHC-IRL4MfWQQ0k-pLYSP39EM9pVdIkzlEI0/s1620/centerville-park-lights_december2022-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6K9XpsafbZkjR1lUIBwH_68pjyJ2QnBmrT8W2Vk2zTJ8j7SJ5QB1Es-8C8ocCFsn3ssGsMlgKdtKHrRC_HVeJmqi-l8G1Zfr9USFiIJK4_S4LPGyZVyeBmK5haWi-P09RTKqA9IfAkjDwJjqHC-IRL4MfWQQ0k-pLYSP39EM9pVdIkzlEI0/w640-h426/centerville-park-lights_december2022-13.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rTCMwi-Vj891lgJ9PLaE0A6XzFQOdCke_ZiD3JtMhLCSH8f0-bQRqxIqf7oyepHufAUurFURfkI8G3AfnEVHcpi-bCHqC79zwEKUZNpy5cDBfN63kk_rxLbpfUPzYCgPImLXabUURHJ5NYPiJJzrwtCJFxQ7gwgtka5WFL9YSgyDoKmCOn4/s1620/robinson-park-etc_dec2022-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5rTCMwi-Vj891lgJ9PLaE0A6XzFQOdCke_ZiD3JtMhLCSH8f0-bQRqxIqf7oyepHufAUurFURfkI8G3AfnEVHcpi-bCHqC79zwEKUZNpy5cDBfN63kk_rxLbpfUPzYCgPImLXabUURHJ5NYPiJJzrwtCJFxQ7gwgtka5WFL9YSgyDoKmCOn4/w640-h426/robinson-park-etc_dec2022-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>With Christmas 2022 in the rear-view mirror, I set about putting the finishing touches on the year, and in the week running up to New Year's Eve I spent some more time with family and got in a couple more shoots, photographing the Christmas Lights in American Fork with Brian and Antelope Island with Steve before immortalizing my custom Funko Pop outside the original Legacy Preparatory Academy in North Salt Lake, where I played my all-time favorite gig with Thunderlips for the kids back in 2012. I recorded one last episode of the Utah FilmPod and wrapped up the annual blog <strike>ramble</strike> post you are reading right now. Best of all, I completed one of my favorite projects of 2022: a highlight video of footage shot during the year's many photo sessions.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2XsKQTXVP0KBD3kjvwBPN3Inj_NRoBpeteyGywCXnyvQfEx0eLaGjB07xDy8AnbU3w6Nd4dvcJ08zbfI46d34BLjrIzu91QLVcp6xbPryE2_a0Cp3bMwgvodTeiO3O6Wt2-sGe4Rs1ZJUpVsuwg9IlWYCHCrRt4wgLY_TryPrWxd1n2V8GPs/s1620/robinson-park-etc_dec2022-39.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2XsKQTXVP0KBD3kjvwBPN3Inj_NRoBpeteyGywCXnyvQfEx0eLaGjB07xDy8AnbU3w6Nd4dvcJ08zbfI46d34BLjrIzu91QLVcp6xbPryE2_a0Cp3bMwgvodTeiO3O6Wt2-sGe4Rs1ZJUpVsuwg9IlWYCHCrRt4wgLY_TryPrWxd1n2V8GPs/w640-h426/robinson-park-etc_dec2022-39.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I started getting creative at the end of the American Fork shoot...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXXMMxztq2DRPb3MNQ1CeDqOEm7JazfUO-ZxUBuZsMtOdB4yeQGq0L1OOgwewF-f15C1f9h4XqehakpzVJwkM19njEWnWPu1vQsowi7wLpjUa4WG31UZyj2DHAC0rSWaU5hIbV1htCcCoHIG4bTJ0S7bTCu1P3CzkCqyAZmWxiHW_1YJw2xw/s1620/antelope-island_dec22-quickedit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXXMMxztq2DRPb3MNQ1CeDqOEm7JazfUO-ZxUBuZsMtOdB4yeQGq0L1OOgwewF-f15C1f9h4XqehakpzVJwkM19njEWnWPu1vQsowi7wLpjUa4WG31UZyj2DHAC0rSWaU5hIbV1htCcCoHIG4bTJ0S7bTCu1P3CzkCqyAZmWxiHW_1YJw2xw/w640-h426/antelope-island_dec22-quickedit.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YpI4ZEebsk0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p><p style="text-align: left;">Every year has its share of change, and 2022 was no different. For many of my friends and family, change came in the form of the passing of a loved one; I attended more funerals this year than ever before, and I didn't even make it to all the services I could have. For others, change took different forms, like the closing of a beloved neighborhood business after nearly four decades of service. But change wasn't just about endings. I'll always remember 2022 as the year I started serving in the temple, and that wasn't my only new venture: in September I learned that starting in Spring Semester 2023 I will begin teaching in Weber State's film program--my first official foray outside of the English department in twenty years of teaching. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizbc_4oXC6QD2vM1Z5nuGo4At80sa6UFIkbhoLYpXZouWYmRRem7doiGvInCkdwVgj1JkW5wCYu1S5XAnOttAKpPQlRxRTAOiozLmG3a3qD2CYOqVc2Oqj9EiirW715bSy-lbK19lFsfQcRX6ugYQwgXvRpaWtZ7NwXCf5LGQ5CsrS8hN0ZxM/s1620/custom-funko_dec22-quickedit.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizbc_4oXC6QD2vM1Z5nuGo4At80sa6UFIkbhoLYpXZouWYmRRem7doiGvInCkdwVgj1JkW5wCYu1S5XAnOttAKpPQlRxRTAOiozLmG3a3qD2CYOqVc2Oqj9EiirW715bSy-lbK19lFsfQcRX6ugYQwgXvRpaWtZ7NwXCf5LGQ5CsrS8hN0ZxM/w640-h426/custom-funko_dec22-quickedit.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">In pandemic terms, 2022 feels like the end of a trilogy, but for all its genuine challenges, I don't feel like I can label it the same way I did 2020 and 2021. 2022 is more than just, "Our Crappy Year 3.0." I'm feeling a sense of emergence and anticipation, and even the difficult changes are pointed at an open-ended future. It may take some time before I can fully put this past year into perspective, but right now I can feel grateful for all of the good things that happened in 2022 as I work to accept all of the bad things...or maybe just be patient with the things 2022 hasn't resolved. In that sense, maybe the last twelve months are more of a bridge than anything else, and 2023 will reveal what is waiting on the other side. One way or the other, I know for sure I'll have my camera ready.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Happy New Year, everyone...and best wishes for 2023!</p></div></div>The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-81126032061104027452021-12-31T11:15:00.002-07:002021-12-31T11:21:05.508-07:00Our Crappy Year 2.0: The 2021 Hangover in Words and Pictures<p>Dear friends, family, and everyone else who thought the Coronapocalypse would be over by now--</p><p>Once again it's time to dust off that relic of 2000's Internet media culture, post <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/2021/Best-of-2021-so-far/" target="_blank">a few pictures</a>, offer up a few thoughts, and put the finishing touches on 2021, in all of its brilliant, horrible glory. </p><p>It is impossible to make sense of 2021 outside the context of the year it followed. We all seem to agree that 2020 was pretty terrible, an insulting and unrelenting parade of kicks to our collective groin area. Yet <a href="https://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2020/07/2020-surviving-coronapocalypse.html" target="_blank">as I pointed out</a> last December, I'll remember 2020 with a stubborn fondness because of the way I responded to many of those blows. I didn't expect 2021 to automatically replace trial and conflict with bacon-flavored sunshine, but I hoped that I would counter the new year's lemons with some vintage lemonade. The results have been mixed, and I have to admit that lot of 2020's energy has given way to fatigue over the last twelve months. I don't know that I completely agree with the sentiments of a local marquee I noticed this past fall--everything is most definitely <i>not</i> awesome--but when I weigh the good and the bad, I am happy to report that 2021 offered up its share of awesome alongside its awful.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBlZAe0M0RG2iX4xTr1c97G8LwlQSXCmIOwXZ2kKmJ8XbCRfR76Lj2qa4GIiYmzKP3yxq8WB_DZRcsblVCA68zOEfSLLhjwAtjzfLaaJpxx8InqNJ_14uCkxajtj4j3pNttI0Pcwp0c-dFyeeS8O5QbKp0VJhHW_k1hv4sFTunWpFlsS_sy_o=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBlZAe0M0RG2iX4xTr1c97G8LwlQSXCmIOwXZ2kKmJ8XbCRfR76Lj2qa4GIiYmzKP3yxq8WB_DZRcsblVCA68zOEfSLLhjwAtjzfLaaJpxx8InqNJ_14uCkxajtj4j3pNttI0Pcwp0c-dFyeeS8O5QbKp0VJhHW_k1hv4sFTunWpFlsS_sy_o=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b>- W I N T E R -</b></p><p>Before it rode off into infamy, 2020 left me one parting gift. Well, technically two. A couple of days before New Year's, during lunch in Kaysville I bit into a sandwich and cracked a tooth on the right side of my mouth. Then after dinner, while favoring the left side of my mouth, I bit into a cinnamon bear and lost another one. You know those nightmares where all of your teeth are falling out? I lived them.</p><p>So while political riots captured the national news, for me 2021 opened with with a generous dental bill to pay for my first crowns. Unexpected medical bills are never fun, but this one stung just a bit more since January also marked a year since my time began to wrap up with the Deseret News. With the paper in the rear view mirror and the pandemic shutting down major releases, I kept my toes in the water by posting reviews to my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/moviereviewsbyjosh">YouTube channel</a>, and binged my way through a collection of Oscar bait releases since the Critics Association still wanted to vote on 2020's paltry offerings. But the experience just confirmed 2020's mulligan status on the big screen.</p><p>The best part of January was getting together with my family for my newest niece's baby blessing. Because of continuing Covid restrictions, it was an in-house affair, but it was also the first time I pulled out my camera in 2021. The second-best part of January was attending the temple for the first time since the pandemic started. My buddy Brian invited me to join his family at Jordan River one Saturday night as his oldest son Andrew prepared for his missionary service in Hawaii. Being back at the temple was great on its own, but joining one of my closest friends as he passed the missionary torch to his son was really something special.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMWebnwypXn5FnR2EX_D4qglJ-lGP69SelG8oC-Sf0W3UkDZYfgkS9iNepI_OPE16L8WwGSnWi2H_bmFQkZH-lOFRX20JDwtzdsAaI7LdmNwhhEXPqAgtsV8JYUHbakYa1OcnsBQ/s1620/jblessing_jan2021-8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMWebnwypXn5FnR2EX_D4qglJ-lGP69SelG8oC-Sf0W3UkDZYfgkS9iNepI_OPE16L8WwGSnWi2H_bmFQkZH-lOFRX20JDwtzdsAaI7LdmNwhhEXPqAgtsV8JYUHbakYa1OcnsBQ/w640-h426/jblessing_jan2021-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcpzqtTkIeKv3rHbNsQ0J8R3fhK3crev1pow_N__WD-LnnITVHYVbmqOBHsZ1hc3GeNgV8NV23eKaof8RlCoxzbLewFlVGMreP0zgO3EJe5Qqkth7GjVogbYLMzGkvlNZsjx5HIMqp1FxNKk8mvyAjQ3cUbJMkCfM4hFaPJIF3JwvRvYYm72g=s1134" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1134" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcpzqtTkIeKv3rHbNsQ0J8R3fhK3crev1pow_N__WD-LnnITVHYVbmqOBHsZ1hc3GeNgV8NV23eKaof8RlCoxzbLewFlVGMreP0zgO3EJe5Qqkth7GjVogbYLMzGkvlNZsjx5HIMqp1FxNKk8mvyAjQ3cUbJMkCfM4hFaPJIF3JwvRvYYm72g=w578-h640" width="578" /></a></div><p>Even though two different vaccines were making their way through the population, early 2021 still saw plenty of pandemic restrictions, and as a result my life took on a kind of remote quality. After teaching three straight semesters online, for Spring 2021 I taught English 2010 on the Zoom platform for the first time. Combined with the weekend broadcasts for church, I spent a lot of time in the new home office I'd completed late in 2020.</p><p>Spring was still a couple of months away, but the sun started to shine in mid-February when my mom qualified to get her vaccination series. The majority of my anti-Covid efforts in 2020 were targeted to protect my mom from infection, so it was a huge relief to see her get her shots safely. I knew it would still be a while before masks and the pandemic in general would fade into history (insert your favorite Omicron joke here), but for me, the victory had been won. After spending the last year photographing the <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/Featured-Projects/Signs-of-the-Times-Coronapocalypse-2020/">signs of the Coronapocalypse</a>, it was nice to start seeing images like these around town:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBFe7ESPEzARb7eo3ueSAacbToQ06si9b7A1THDO8N5nxJFsM4B27WJGNYCmaI2D_azsl_6ajra3JtiR7q66olZtxe5Z3Dk4ODTwFt8_pH-D38sQF4LVnNsCEL4snZ7_aYkvBWRCnIxW-SlRIvV1x1LeqfxBrkdUW9aMg90Fwvfbd_iC7k_4A=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBFe7ESPEzARb7eo3ueSAacbToQ06si9b7A1THDO8N5nxJFsM4B27WJGNYCmaI2D_azsl_6ajra3JtiR7q66olZtxe5Z3Dk4ODTwFt8_pH-D38sQF4LVnNsCEL4snZ7_aYkvBWRCnIxW-SlRIvV1x1LeqfxBrkdUW9aMg90Fwvfbd_iC7k_4A=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><p>Photography was an afterthought during this stretch, as it often is at the start of the year. Between the cold and the creative hangover from the previous calendar year, I typically need some time to hibernate and work on other things. In late February, I forced myself out one promising evening to get 2021's creative juices flowing. But my best stuff was still to come.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HQcLaPJLjOf__ucx2h70FDJyfxletLCBxN9_EJyeZa_oGV2Xff_0NgLRyY8hBmYyRsL75UlSxoSoKlDvoJD2tYItxDnPHVOLFHIvYYPOZhZGiu_CeGIGmA9uklkgXiLHvDCaxg/s1620/bountiful-icebreaker_feb2021-45.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_HQcLaPJLjOf__ucx2h70FDJyfxletLCBxN9_EJyeZa_oGV2Xff_0NgLRyY8hBmYyRsL75UlSxoSoKlDvoJD2tYItxDnPHVOLFHIvYYPOZhZGiu_CeGIGmA9uklkgXiLHvDCaxg/w640-h426/bountiful-icebreaker_feb2021-45.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b>- S P R I N G - </b></p><p>Back in December, after a successful four-year run, I reluctantly decided to postpone my Christmas Break photo trip, since 1) time moves fast now that I'm old, and 2) saving money is a good thing. As a result, a mid-March trip to the Four Corners area was my first time out of the state in five months. The first stop on my desert loop took me to Moab, where I explored new territory in Canyonlands National Park and shot the sunrise in Arches at the Courthouse Towers district. From there I headed to New Mexico, where I photographed the famous Shiprock volcanic formation at sunset, and again the next morning. The weather was getting sketchy as I made my way west for my first "official" visit to Lake Powell, so the morning after a nice sunset shoot at Lone Rock, I decided to cut the trip short and head north before a rare Southern Utah blizzard completely cut off my path home.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtMQd5ybENoQuE2IdBNzZOFS4IY1AnLwjBn3VWTCIVsPj_QdElSIELASTsgknHtFBtCDNpfv5GS-_Hm9LITsQPYJFUOHnfsGIdN7ycKctKNvNQwDhEowTmIheMTGDMVEyPghgsw/s1350/spring-break-2021_day1-54.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtMQd5ybENoQuE2IdBNzZOFS4IY1AnLwjBn3VWTCIVsPj_QdElSIELASTsgknHtFBtCDNpfv5GS-_Hm9LITsQPYJFUOHnfsGIdN7ycKctKNvNQwDhEowTmIheMTGDMVEyPghgsw/w512-h640/spring-break-2021_day1-54.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyVpm2-hWt4aKBBMMA6okzHalsikK2iGCbl9l18BEBDb4Tul5981THSLbF1t_Wne1kwYUY8IlrRXCU3gspQAzaZOIpVOJfxCk8I5-kIMna5dFFPTdQEnHqy-wNQRC9dwIpXvaBXg/s1620/spring-break-2021_day2-19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyVpm2-hWt4aKBBMMA6okzHalsikK2iGCbl9l18BEBDb4Tul5981THSLbF1t_Wne1kwYUY8IlrRXCU3gspQAzaZOIpVOJfxCk8I5-kIMna5dFFPTdQEnHqy-wNQRC9dwIpXvaBXg/w640-h426/spring-break-2021_day2-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw6MjN-yx8pBJEwvTHI6eNgzKJ7imJAmRZ5kqK8tdJBGtfIm4WzXsz6JeoKVhDCEFijPhe40DmLwLU4SWnkW6Y-BqxvHkqnmr9a1lutrYUQ4f76ISAbaDGiTRNu45zXI7xMJ-hGg/s1620/spring-break-2021_day2-112.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw6MjN-yx8pBJEwvTHI6eNgzKJ7imJAmRZ5kqK8tdJBGtfIm4WzXsz6JeoKVhDCEFijPhe40DmLwLU4SWnkW6Y-BqxvHkqnmr9a1lutrYUQ4f76ISAbaDGiTRNu45zXI7xMJ-hGg/w640-h426/spring-break-2021_day2-112.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />After the extended wait to get out of town, the abrupt ending to the trip felt like history repeating itself after the botched end to my Yosemite trip the previous November. But I still made the best of my circumstances, adding a fantastic mural to my <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/Featured-Projects/Signs-of-the-Times-Coronapocalypse-2020/">Signs of the Times project</a>, and meeting up with my buddy Brian and his wife Natalie for dinner as I neared home. That dinner was a rare opportunity to jump start my <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/Featured-Projects/Power-Lunch-Series/">Power Lunch series</a>, which mostly lay dormant through 2020 thanks to the pandemic. Things were still pretty slow in 2021, but I did manage to add some choice friends to the project, including my friend Kris, who spent the year battling brain cancer.<div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMHeyo9xcCJXBe5kzUEEpjCN8Ej0Ahcnzv8PLz_d81byKUZKF1BOk1AZHVYGpSJ3v6kRIUjtbFQGZ1c_dM-qyw0_6gN6hh0yiQIUua5PMsWNTw9PXbroRNiJWhD-thh3Lw-Ii2UA/s1620/spring-break-2021_day3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMHeyo9xcCJXBe5kzUEEpjCN8Ej0Ahcnzv8PLz_d81byKUZKF1BOk1AZHVYGpSJ3v6kRIUjtbFQGZ1c_dM-qyw0_6gN6hh0yiQIUua5PMsWNTw9PXbroRNiJWhD-thh3Lw-Ii2UA/w640-h426/spring-break-2021_day3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhey9Bwwd-qTUY1QTAmaCadIwOAMMHHNAVoMfcNUB0D7nEGJ4_iPZA4kJuCnQc3fpz2GpHY8kEEQuITmLJAPW5nnWUWmUi1nSQhT9lmvC2NuPjEmGyKo16rVF0O122UPO-GLXjjdDa3KloNw59xvamTxMF4g_VsBukzV5cl_2OJlUbdB8mJVj0=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhey9Bwwd-qTUY1QTAmaCadIwOAMMHHNAVoMfcNUB0D7nEGJ4_iPZA4kJuCnQc3fpz2GpHY8kEEQuITmLJAPW5nnWUWmUi1nSQhT9lmvC2NuPjEmGyKo16rVF0O122UPO-GLXjjdDa3KloNw59xvamTxMF4g_VsBukzV5cl_2OJlUbdB8mJVj0=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimawjiFEOBXLO9YkQX81lV6SrpHmkYQtmJa9VM46yhaNndSNSxi8oUKXb9oZG6ZpTUE7-yAmuIFGaDs8hEro_JVV11oBwGvmMeIx0oNbkxTDrNPb_bSBNlAHELatrSjmo3Hl9Fx1U3HzIcEiE7Jr4cDsuqnUByR0MtmCqUYQV_hgO9LFipoxM=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimawjiFEOBXLO9YkQX81lV6SrpHmkYQtmJa9VM46yhaNndSNSxi8oUKXb9oZG6ZpTUE7-yAmuIFGaDs8hEro_JVV11oBwGvmMeIx0oNbkxTDrNPb_bSBNlAHELatrSjmo3Hl9Fx1U3HzIcEiE7Jr4cDsuqnUByR0MtmCqUYQV_hgO9LFipoxM=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><p>The spring break trip represented the majority of the season's photography efforts, but I did manage to get out here and there. Along the way I officially added Farmington Bay to my short list of last-minute local sunset options, but the most "springy" spring shoot came when the cherry blossoms took off at the state capitol. I think there still would have been hundreds of people at the capitol in a normal year, but the crowds I encountered there and at national parks throughout 2021 were one of the more bittersweet effects of the continuing pandemic. The crowds were a pain, but at least people were getting outside more often.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg2ZwWYH4raFCJGXxMdPz7ySSwpZMKiCwsVHIC6MxHnOBF5CM-AyOz0Urb_D6qrLY_0GvZzPgl8fkywDGuYZbOOqCLL1Nv9FS8jpGpZDQ0CbGVtgWqLp0j3FBOVTfv61HoMuk87w/s1620/farmington-bay-sunset_may21-30.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg2ZwWYH4raFCJGXxMdPz7ySSwpZMKiCwsVHIC6MxHnOBF5CM-AyOz0Urb_D6qrLY_0GvZzPgl8fkywDGuYZbOOqCLL1Nv9FS8jpGpZDQ0CbGVtgWqLp0j3FBOVTfv61HoMuk87w/w640-h426/farmington-bay-sunset_may21-30.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-lzV-Kj25I_Sa0iEz0aHbIdwQ-VxWlgYTSBaTFWSPnDJTqlg7xb6NbWmdNhGTUnk9zolV058N9EDtq2LQk0TyhAAl0JLXLv0dYQpz38ARytMNf-I6lQjOVJYjd0iZztI-IFN8A/s1350/state-capitol-blossoms_apr2021-42.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy-lzV-Kj25I_Sa0iEz0aHbIdwQ-VxWlgYTSBaTFWSPnDJTqlg7xb6NbWmdNhGTUnk9zolV058N9EDtq2LQk0TyhAAl0JLXLv0dYQpz38ARytMNf-I6lQjOVJYjd0iZztI-IFN8A/w512-h640/state-capitol-blossoms_apr2021-42.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>Part of it was the natural effect of spring, and I think part came from the sense that the pandemic was finally on its way out, but things started to happen as the weather got better. I got a new calling in the 19th Ward Sunday School presidency, and by mid-April I rolled up my sleeve for my first vaccination shot. My modest social media efforts crossed an organic follower goal on Instagram, and there were even rumblings of a Thunderlips reunion to inspire my weekly drum practices.</p><p>But in spite of some fun pictures and a few scattered good times, Spring 2021 was primarily marked by some unexpected health problems which hit my mom around Easter, and led to knee surgery by the end of April. After a couple of weeks in a skilled nursing facility to start her rehabilitation, she returned home, and with the help of some home aides and excellent therapists, I took over some extra home care duties. </p><p>As May drew to a close, I set out for one more spring shoot, and wound up on the northwestern tip of Antelope Island photographing a unique sunset. Even though the clouds were hanging low enough to leave me with some doubts, a timely glow on the horizon capped a worthwhile outing as spring took its last bow.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZZg-L_sN81azHt-lAKkhnow1W8o4IbzJVDZpRtGN_QG8di-0-d0YhxXZlH0T3_IQ9Y7tq6FyhQNy8S8QsenUbWetvZxy24UmL4bm-HL_zC3HHDVWFtNO-KvIHFmUkk7CI0Rh-Y-j9lGo9otm45_crFdA3UBuynBxYArYO8LgReJMBmrRld9g=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZZg-L_sN81azHt-lAKkhnow1W8o4IbzJVDZpRtGN_QG8di-0-d0YhxXZlH0T3_IQ9Y7tq6FyhQNy8S8QsenUbWetvZxy24UmL4bm-HL_zC3HHDVWFtNO-KvIHFmUkk7CI0Rh-Y-j9lGo9otm45_crFdA3UBuynBxYArYO8LgReJMBmrRld9g=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b>- S U M M E R -</b></p><p>The transition from spring to summer was mostly lost between the close of spring semester and the start of my accelerated summer course--my final virtual Zoom effort. But with my vaccination behind me and fewer and fewer businesses requiring masks for entrance, it felt like life was edging into a post-pandemic state.</p><p>It was a far cry from my pre-pandemic output, but a steady uptick in major film releases saw me dipping back into the world of film criticism, and to explore some new outlet options, Wounded Mosquito Productions once again <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQPQ0f-GTU" target="_blank">took on an intern</a>. Dani was invaluable to keeping me in the movie game amid the chaos of my 2021 life, and by the end of the summer we were both writing for a remodeled <a href="http://Utah.film">Utah.film</a> website and co-hosting a <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/utah-filmpod/id1580148185" target="_blank">brand new podcast</a>. The movies? They were OK. "F9" put a Pontiac Fiero in outer space.</p><p>Though it was nice to see some major movies again, my best moments still seemed to come behind the camera, and even though I couldn't justify a more traditional road trip, I still managed to catch a good local sunset here and there--preferably near a body of water like Bountiful Pond or The Great Salt Lake. One night I was able to shoot Utah Lake for the first time, alongside my longtime friend--and now aspiring photographer--Brian.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Oj-DlTS2155gRJge_l-kG9dzEmYr-4VXk-KVMCraqQLheh_scvYvi2B8QgQuOYma9UC6-ozoF2_hnk_gZeu3YncnGHC1V_ypJ0PElvY7KhdTZzI4RVFCv6BzmWIe1HQthDNI0g/s1620/utah-lake-sunset_jun2021-28.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8Oj-DlTS2155gRJge_l-kG9dzEmYr-4VXk-KVMCraqQLheh_scvYvi2B8QgQuOYma9UC6-ozoF2_hnk_gZeu3YncnGHC1V_ypJ0PElvY7KhdTZzI4RVFCv6BzmWIe1HQthDNI0g/w640-h426/utah-lake-sunset_jun2021-28.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7f1FiQM9fsGykcBuHhtqfnvOuwDK2hBcIfWU-9a2Lu5n1Q3x6gOkSOHKD-B2gHDps2-AfFTHA_Ox_AtQWoYCrAvYOFNSzK7G6tOKfjH5BWC-rRbOIiOlN2gyAIMM5W7K1CP-isw/s1620/gsl-marina_june2021-18.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7f1FiQM9fsGykcBuHhtqfnvOuwDK2hBcIfWU-9a2Lu5n1Q3x6gOkSOHKD-B2gHDps2-AfFTHA_Ox_AtQWoYCrAvYOFNSzK7G6tOKfjH5BWC-rRbOIiOlN2gyAIMM5W7K1CP-isw/w640-h426/gsl-marina_june2021-18.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieeFceiltcgTfWrJ9pf_wKpzhkUCL3llAtZNJxdlWZ2m4wbG_OQGjwwdq6weqxa1b8gaQMToURhM7_DBEffmGCGoF6yh_yrWQCp5_Oz9lriuHwGdGVutRhSVRxdP3AFHeGZPRkw/s1350/bpond-wbrian-july2021-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieeFceiltcgTfWrJ9pf_wKpzhkUCL3llAtZNJxdlWZ2m4wbG_OQGjwwdq6weqxa1b8gaQMToURhM7_DBEffmGCGoF6yh_yrWQCp5_Oz9lriuHwGdGVutRhSVRxdP3AFHeGZPRkw/w512-h640/bpond-wbrian-july2021-14.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>After taking 2020 off thanks to Covid, both my traditional Davis County fireworks displays were up and running again in July, and though the results were nothing new, it was nice to have some interesting local subject matter to shoot. Still, my biggest 4th of July achievement was running my first official 5K race in almost ten years, and as a bonus, netting a third place finish in my age division.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-e031lH1iGb0G8mwr321msQ4VOjwuSv9qR48ky-6ZDgU4ID2zzxeCqzLaoJohzXlfa4gj1BW21GCCxelz-7qe0pRZ2PU5nNoFrFxFWBndT7Bq9_GgrtufA71rD8SHT8bTp2tvQ/s1350/eaglewood-fireworks_july2021-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-e031lH1iGb0G8mwr321msQ4VOjwuSv9qR48ky-6ZDgU4ID2zzxeCqzLaoJohzXlfa4gj1BW21GCCxelz-7qe0pRZ2PU5nNoFrFxFWBndT7Bq9_GgrtufA71rD8SHT8bTp2tvQ/w512-h640/eaglewood-fireworks_july2021-13.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><p>Once my mom got up to speed with her right knee, her doctor decided to perform the same procedure on her left knee, so I figured that the safest window for me to get out of town during the summer was going to be before that second surgery. With my summer class officially behind me, I packed up my gear and hopped into the Cheetahman's Toyota Tundra for a quick overnighter to Southern Utah.</p><p>Ever since I noticed a striking image on Instagram in mid-2020, I'd ranked the Utah Badlands high on my photo bucket list. So after shooting the sunset in Cathedral Valley, Randy and I woke before sunrise the next morning to photograph some rock formations that looked like they'd been pulled directly out of J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth. By the time we returned home that night we added a pit stop at Goblin Valley State Park and an excellent lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Mount Pleasant to our itinerary.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_D3M66UfaHs-HBGKIwy6JgczvBvQtyv1hfQxUT9sYAY9zwTnVWn8h1K9hR7DkftrGSQ6Qmr6yXX32VInzDtnQYX-2M25EkDNvJ1WMQAH85NtEdet9-HFnqKRCgeN2bx5zcIe6ZA/s1350/badlands-trip-D2a_july2021-15.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_D3M66UfaHs-HBGKIwy6JgczvBvQtyv1hfQxUT9sYAY9zwTnVWn8h1K9hR7DkftrGSQ6Qmr6yXX32VInzDtnQYX-2M25EkDNvJ1WMQAH85NtEdet9-HFnqKRCgeN2bx5zcIe6ZA/w512-h640/badlands-trip-D2a_july2021-15.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5CS837dP_-urDx197tvfVzri21vGKoYvw1cXd6xzp7k7PykfQ3XobhknzypZ6VEPY_EztdbCRowpmnJAw5QRe60VvvqBGaqpvPJeFrvU4UOw2LdBq8G80BygxcjEW9UDk3dbYYg/s1620/badlands-trip-D2a_july2021-62.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5CS837dP_-urDx197tvfVzri21vGKoYvw1cXd6xzp7k7PykfQ3XobhknzypZ6VEPY_EztdbCRowpmnJAw5QRe60VvvqBGaqpvPJeFrvU4UOw2LdBq8G80BygxcjEW9UDk3dbYYg/w640-h426/badlands-trip-D2a_july2021-62.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>2021 offered its share of body blows, even if they tended to be more personal than 2020's headline-grabbers. One of the hardest landed on a Tuesday afternoon in July when I learned that my gym buddy John had passed away only a week earlier. To add insult to injury, I discovered his obituary a day <i>after</i> his funeral. With my faith intact, I felt confident I would get another chance to visit with my good friend when the time was right, but after brushing off numerous promptings to call him over several weeks, I strained under the immediate consequences of my procrastination. I only knew John for a short time compared to many of my longtime friendships, but I can think of few people who could put a smile on my face the way he would whenever I'd walk into VASA and catch his twinkling, mischievous gaze from some random exercise machine. I don't think I'll ever get through a workout without missing my old friend.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniLjMFk9QG_iD_ztVXq9BIp3jIQtC859aUqY_aWmZSxBrTgxlhHD5R-ca0R8-NHSIn7to4aAIoGdVtX-oMDjC2HKq53AnupwJRciUyniuApYUOiXfCGjJPIkie5lJUomUxDg7WA/s1080/late-march-19-edits-7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiniLjMFk9QG_iD_ztVXq9BIp3jIQtC859aUqY_aWmZSxBrTgxlhHD5R-ca0R8-NHSIn7to4aAIoGdVtX-oMDjC2HKq53AnupwJRciUyniuApYUOiXfCGjJPIkie5lJUomUxDg7WA/w640-h426/late-march-19-edits-7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>I found out about John the day of my mom's second knee surgery, and luckily her operation had a more positive outcome. Still, it was hard for her to get knocked back into recovery mode after she'd made so much progress rehabbing her other knee. The hazy, smoky air and smothering heat outside didn't help, especially as water restrictions left me watching my 2020 landscaping efforts die off in big patches of brown grass. By the time my Honda dealer backed a brand-new CRV into the side of my car during my buyout inspection, I was just trying to roll with the punches, but when two of the bookshelves in my still-new office broke over the course of a couple weeks, I was left with the feeling that everything I'd worked to build in 2020 was going to fall apart in 2021.</p><p>Once again, I just had to find a way to seek out the roses along my checkered, crooked path. Often that involved hanging out with my nieces; other times, it was a lunch with a friend or a late practice session on a Saturday night at my drum kit. Eventually, those elements all came together.</p><p>Rumors of a Thunderlips reunion began circulating early in the year, and by spring members of the band were getting together to try out new songs and dust off old ones. Soon the event was confirmed: the band would perform at a party for Randy's wife Alex, who finished her MBA and earned her US citizenship during the pandemic. It would be our first public show in six years, and my first chance at redemption after a clumsy set at Viewmont High School's Class of 1995 20-year-reunion. Four months of grinding rehearsals followed, and finally on a Saturday night late in August, we set up shop on a basketball court in Farmington's Heritage Park as friends and family enjoyed catered Puerto Rican takeout and a foreboding thunderstorm gathered in the distance. We only made it through eight songs before the weather literally blew us off the court, but it felt like an accomplishment to play at all, and in an act of meteorologic mercy, we were able to get through both of the special songs that featured Alex and Randy's daughter Olivia on keyboards before the curtain fell.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaqj8GJQmdNvJLcoS0uhJKTaxUsnNgYjVUk4NntvAr-93jXtIuuxQ9dCVdt7zuU2hSRByb3N5AhNV0ZrqJU41-vA5Yp-oBtnK88bt54EtiBQ2LSTNJZtFN3HmhbNWeTuqveNVPML2suKZrK3328OnLcBsxBTaZnjgw8mR27iuR3qX0oCYuJNw=s1944" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="1944" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaqj8GJQmdNvJLcoS0uhJKTaxUsnNgYjVUk4NntvAr-93jXtIuuxQ9dCVdt7zuU2hSRByb3N5AhNV0ZrqJU41-vA5Yp-oBtnK88bt54EtiBQ2LSTNJZtFN3HmhbNWeTuqveNVPML2suKZrK3328OnLcBsxBTaZnjgw8mR27iuR3qX0oCYuJNw=w640-h216" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Brian Smith</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMtEMWHfr7t1td3-nx3PNNGbP7AtdRVvaKRvLm2eqUimbceNhIpTqGLtSKVLhTyaTVSRzda8iKioxOeH0vyt69JruhALvrP2Um2NDEYuNY9e9DXybLUSTObxBmxxnqVM66xDFvdiGVBItLWSIphkTc4bVzhJn-chvCTn4AQGSOYe19DM_r6PM=s1024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiMtEMWHfr7t1td3-nx3PNNGbP7AtdRVvaKRvLm2eqUimbceNhIpTqGLtSKVLhTyaTVSRzda8iKioxOeH0vyt69JruhALvrP2Um2NDEYuNY9e9DXybLUSTObxBmxxnqVM66xDFvdiGVBItLWSIphkTc4bVzhJn-chvCTn4AQGSOYe19DM_r6PM=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>- F A L L -</b></p><p>By the time Fall came knocking on the door in early September, the new semester at Weber State had me face-to-face with students for the first time in 18 months, and back on the Ogden campus for the first time since Fall Semester 2019...all in spite of the Delta variant-driven pandemic resurgence. It was nice to see my English department friends in person again, and crazy to navigate through the updates and changes that had taken place while I was teaching over Zoom. But all that took a quick backseat to one of the biggest highlights of the entire year.</p><p>On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, my family gathered in a Kaysville chapel to witness Niece #2's baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A week before the event, we did a portrait session over at the Bountiful Tabernacle, and for the baptism itself, she asked me to give a brief talk on the Holy Ghost. Unlike so many plans over the last couple of years, the baptism came together perfectly, and thanks to Zoom, my mom was able to watch the ordinance from home while she continued to recover from her surgeries. The event kicked off a run of niece-related outings that produced some of my happiest photographs--and memories--of 2021.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tpcmOFACO6ToHcu0YyU8DL8_oPdbdNAahm10JL5pPwKABAflfSk3WRwUV74p9qZko0vH_Tao66R3JrBu_EVUOFgAocA7AbaXvY_Rg8tsOLsIEAcCLtofkoSDQW_afOkvKJLqDQ/s1620/hannah-baptism-dress_aug2021-33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6tpcmOFACO6ToHcu0YyU8DL8_oPdbdNAahm10JL5pPwKABAflfSk3WRwUV74p9qZko0vH_Tao66R3JrBu_EVUOFgAocA7AbaXvY_Rg8tsOLsIEAcCLtofkoSDQW_afOkvKJLqDQ/w640-h426/hannah-baptism-dress_aug2021-33.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWzl1F6zt5c0EOitCTmMeApXyhjco-Fg0ENmGyDL7SQS08Lp6dhk2uBGlFga-mW86ZhydIeSi9R4neUN5qhPPdDqrCArxx2iYfVMhlxUKjmBsBavISiE9DhwoXNDzCWVJjVm7IJg/s1620/lunch-series_clara-cowan_sep2021.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWzl1F6zt5c0EOitCTmMeApXyhjco-Fg0ENmGyDL7SQS08Lp6dhk2uBGlFga-mW86ZhydIeSi9R4neUN5qhPPdDqrCArxx2iYfVMhlxUKjmBsBavISiE9DhwoXNDzCWVJjVm7IJg/w640-h426/lunch-series_clara-cowan_sep2021.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYG4lnfwYY0K2jC_fPEuAtPGolM14CD7bYJ00SA7DbHs_90zSBXipcIAJLmo3ISG3u7GApsL__ezmatlPtI4AFKFcV4CKNTP1I7siuA_usUyMTiybPvjWlpv7PUaCoZzP_AlAYZT2etLmj1u4Fs8qhls6m05I_mroU4QF8D8IXlCNk52TvZ8Y=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYG4lnfwYY0K2jC_fPEuAtPGolM14CD7bYJ00SA7DbHs_90zSBXipcIAJLmo3ISG3u7GApsL__ezmatlPtI4AFKFcV4CKNTP1I7siuA_usUyMTiybPvjWlpv7PUaCoZzP_AlAYZT2etLmj1u4Fs8qhls6m05I_mroU4QF8D8IXlCNk52TvZ8Y=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDM4FCkRAWLkm9LLvHUpErF9RyyD1kS4SKLRWE8YwjIdVi9wedWtbuMhSZUHlXVNRrIjn7G8xkIMv4XuJibyDd42gENXHH8hUDGJXUZOoFX9jWkVcCkWxcUfqv9l9D7bwqj271fGZFSgTgx3T4DoBo017jWUU4xrks8MOTMA6kTeeln5olIW4=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDM4FCkRAWLkm9LLvHUpErF9RyyD1kS4SKLRWE8YwjIdVi9wedWtbuMhSZUHlXVNRrIjn7G8xkIMv4XuJibyDd42gENXHH8hUDGJXUZOoFX9jWkVcCkWxcUfqv9l9D7bwqj271fGZFSgTgx3T4DoBo017jWUU4xrks8MOTMA6kTeeln5olIW4=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOJYqmvkTdW8KpyVmJfWcnzChmYlkE1BFA3JLDTvWxapbPfPa1vdvGy3i5827BTNiErNtzIiPJzktU7e8d945ibNGG_XddTKbpBBlwGdvWkPanOmhb8bmBX9OQczoI8QwyEe_4gQ/s1620/terry-cowan_oct2021-photopia-WEB-40.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOJYqmvkTdW8KpyVmJfWcnzChmYlkE1BFA3JLDTvWxapbPfPa1vdvGy3i5827BTNiErNtzIiPJzktU7e8d945ibNGG_XddTKbpBBlwGdvWkPanOmhb8bmBX9OQczoI8QwyEe_4gQ/w640-h426/terry-cowan_oct2021-photopia-WEB-40.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Compared to 2020, my efforts to hike new trails and photograph the fall leaves fell off dramatically. I only made one drive along the Alpine Loop in 2021, which produced some nice sunrise photographs of Mount Timpanogos, and I only went on one real hike (a return to Lake Blanche), which produced a week of sore calves since I was so out of practice. But an evening visit to the Lagoon Trail and an outing to Brigham City gave me an excuse to expand the portfolio a little bit, and a ward talent show gave me an excuse to frame a couple of favorite shots from the last few years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZfthkkCq3xAZq_PYEBTNiuxeG-KIcQLVmhEzfKu_1pTPpoAzEuKfutYXbf38q0j6Z8N2X9lF355Ovvm7Kp4Q6bVqpyAtcAMlQ-w6WXwr2ZHoqwhCZzvWc_obgEkadU6oBYYMoE_J_oonr-W75ba6Azdpn97Q28YWyl4KjTqtwBIbHRnWTPKo=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZfthkkCq3xAZq_PYEBTNiuxeG-KIcQLVmhEzfKu_1pTPpoAzEuKfutYXbf38q0j6Z8N2X9lF355Ovvm7Kp4Q6bVqpyAtcAMlQ-w6WXwr2ZHoqwhCZzvWc_obgEkadU6oBYYMoE_J_oonr-W75ba6Azdpn97Q28YWyl4KjTqtwBIbHRnWTPKo=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08OE9Btm1zbm2aQ64oVbH-wie8FIYAJcqcX-eXjKhOT8okDzcnvaRrYl66BdH0831lrAV_vV4_GlnuorIBTmJWTlMLxskWkP4_Wy0IDSjboatoaPKu8qa2cM9Moq6zTqcUowoAwga-XH4ofWOPAfOiHOEoSCGCorv_WIeuftxGOn6mrP9UB8=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08OE9Btm1zbm2aQ64oVbH-wie8FIYAJcqcX-eXjKhOT8okDzcnvaRrYl66BdH0831lrAV_vV4_GlnuorIBTmJWTlMLxskWkP4_Wy0IDSjboatoaPKu8qa2cM9Moq6zTqcUowoAwga-XH4ofWOPAfOiHOEoSCGCorv_WIeuftxGOn6mrP9UB8=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOIdWLLCKYmpq5zqmvBUVMjf04zPwpMCUpdswz4B1o_6k38B5OhSP5gfwTWrp28OqWmBIcROT3Uy2AtWZ8i8BKlrRX0bU0EAbvYRKzLk7cUYQA7hpmUVTJysjYVCkRyrK1tDmliPD1jsGl1jlavKEH1eSxlvHUqVR4Rox8X6wjhdaOG5CDEi0=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOIdWLLCKYmpq5zqmvBUVMjf04zPwpMCUpdswz4B1o_6k38B5OhSP5gfwTWrp28OqWmBIcROT3Uy2AtWZ8i8BKlrRX0bU0EAbvYRKzLk7cUYQA7hpmUVTJysjYVCkRyrK1tDmliPD1jsGl1jlavKEH1eSxlvHUqVR4Rox8X6wjhdaOG5CDEi0=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGaMx6GWdHhe_FvG40j81E2oeSPqqft9Fdnj84RNChBPZ_x5OKJZnqpOO7GPPU4kMVcM3Hm8a_iwvi_L0o1v7wbfmG8DPsd4U-8BSirpN2MA6VTQuUmdVhMFkDdiueZRWqbpkRNGwwb8-3a7H0Sp7IecPajIZwI-rXx6SMNZdCROqQFyQiaCg=s1024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGaMx6GWdHhe_FvG40j81E2oeSPqqft9Fdnj84RNChBPZ_x5OKJZnqpOO7GPPU4kMVcM3Hm8a_iwvi_L0o1v7wbfmG8DPsd4U-8BSirpN2MA6VTQuUmdVhMFkDdiueZRWqbpkRNGwwb8-3a7H0Sp7IecPajIZwI-rXx6SMNZdCROqQFyQiaCg=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><p>By the time October rolled around, Mom had made enough recovery progress that I felt OK heading out on a road trip for a few days. My number one option was a long-planned return to the Oregon coast, and I considered a return to Yosemite, but eventually weather and financial considerations led to a more local itinerary. But even as I returned to Moab and the Four Corners area, I zeroed in on different destinations, enjoying time in Dead Horse Point State Park, photographing a cool sunrise at Corona Arch, doing some tentative off-roading through Valley of the Gods, and touring Upper Antelope Canyon outside Page, Arizona. Luckily, instead of driving through a snowstorm, this time I finished the trip with a visit with my aunt and uncle in Cedar City before enjoying a relaxing cruise home on Utah's scenic back highways.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRAeR0w92DSsxHfV5VYk6xkT0E_30h9MnsXd7qtihP2pcC6vXmdSpKZpZaQGS5Ybzgw53F0sqYVgIdXvJ-zLueECAC8B78zgx4v4Qx7Ar42pIMfA0VBWUVwI403Jd2MObsTEJrY7xFv9GlmjkK3-QQBBXMJHx9G2l_iatk9pjsB1l-0ux4qAI=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRAeR0w92DSsxHfV5VYk6xkT0E_30h9MnsXd7qtihP2pcC6vXmdSpKZpZaQGS5Ybzgw53F0sqYVgIdXvJ-zLueECAC8B78zgx4v4Qx7Ar42pIMfA0VBWUVwI403Jd2MObsTEJrY7xFv9GlmjkK3-QQBBXMJHx9G2l_iatk9pjsB1l-0ux4qAI=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTDG78HPgGg4TnG4OSTDhFr3MBUOxL995sT7VA6KVaSkIgB_UujaM-XNECRlTFkcTQPpoWUHE4bxjwaxn6tPJjaiDs-6WUu5AZhjjM9VgbCn4jqr0WYWtk0zkWcA2MXTDcsXJYL0bSKF6bTOX2xsfh5Rmegn5X2By5vBau_hlpL-gCsOLNrFM=s1350"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTDG78HPgGg4TnG4OSTDhFr3MBUOxL995sT7VA6KVaSkIgB_UujaM-XNECRlTFkcTQPpoWUHE4bxjwaxn6tPJjaiDs-6WUu5AZhjjM9VgbCn4jqr0WYWtk0zkWcA2MXTDcsXJYL0bSKF6bTOX2xsfh5Rmegn5X2By5vBau_hlpL-gCsOLNrFM=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhb2cats3bWSnOO1d7w2DmGGYdE_cMcPnp4BgSZYJHwk3oBemc2O-x9ynunTlWNQEq6dzccC7u8ARgCcWTyHU77JMNrLRpAb2737RHHKBDDpwKfGg6e_PyMSTKsJRBLLooRjsLIISRfIaWVa0SipWYh60TokRhLnE4KfuyOyN0N9-Qq82kDVsk=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhb2cats3bWSnOO1d7w2DmGGYdE_cMcPnp4BgSZYJHwk3oBemc2O-x9ynunTlWNQEq6dzccC7u8ARgCcWTyHU77JMNrLRpAb2737RHHKBDDpwKfGg6e_PyMSTKsJRBLLooRjsLIISRfIaWVa0SipWYh60TokRhLnE4KfuyOyN0N9-Qq82kDVsk=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmLVg2g1piOYZZVAtZsLpwA2hM3IGUtDQ3I7xxDam97c-ZbfbwKsF1rPQGosYpnydDZbJOq-dsSCF2zAj5xx3VOqWDagS7XdvayyYZD2CJfcBpekPAM5k4jNbJWOnXRnH1kKoaxBS02Qa3oqNSsphpRgTIZQapNIXehgI1eei3-NzuXgM6JUE=s1620"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmLVg2g1piOYZZVAtZsLpwA2hM3IGUtDQ3I7xxDam97c-ZbfbwKsF1rPQGosYpnydDZbJOq-dsSCF2zAj5xx3VOqWDagS7XdvayyYZD2CJfcBpekPAM5k4jNbJWOnXRnH1kKoaxBS02Qa3oqNSsphpRgTIZQapNIXehgI1eei3-NzuXgM6JUE=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyf38s-s8hRRdnWgdKJEE_v-JmdfMNqguPjnIG_tjRMLH7nB4yl7WGZJ3HVkgf_RTaeSwDc3I30eHwj8-r2dnjTtMapKY6e_WKkFmjiDcniETsU2DmXvdPriI04jW9qh06FawsiU5co7k4Y8gO1GIHnQShQ-8R67ctnqSo7XIDZGxEbyF4JQE=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyf38s-s8hRRdnWgdKJEE_v-JmdfMNqguPjnIG_tjRMLH7nB4yl7WGZJ3HVkgf_RTaeSwDc3I30eHwj8-r2dnjTtMapKY6e_WKkFmjiDcniETsU2DmXvdPriI04jW9qh06FawsiU5co7k4Y8gO1GIHnQShQ-8R67ctnqSo7XIDZGxEbyF4JQE=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">After leaving Valley of the Gods, I stopped at a famous turnoff to check a special image off my "to shoot" list. When I saw a Funko Pop rendering of Forrest Gump while browsing Amazon back in September, I knew I had to photograph it at the famous straightaway outside Monument Valley that was featured in the movie. It was a tricky shot to pull off, and I don't know that the effort justified the money I spent on other Funko Pops over the last few months of 2021. But it was fun to add a creative twist to a favorite location.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQsHYc12_WBQ3Qc9qMbRVvI2rnVczbzZnqXAurno-9LeoJyZB-Q-tc74tTPtU21q7HYm1lvUzuIKdjW0W2CX-2tgPLGj56Zj2IboevPyl77YJKDIU7jHxUrMBJUeYCGq_jqSXc-q072xe7hVF6KX_Y_pjW710VxA-q23wtULSySw6lh-Z4Fxo=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQsHYc12_WBQ3Qc9qMbRVvI2rnVczbzZnqXAurno-9LeoJyZB-Q-tc74tTPtU21q7HYm1lvUzuIKdjW0W2CX-2tgPLGj56Zj2IboevPyl77YJKDIU7jHxUrMBJUeYCGq_jqSXc-q072xe7hVF6KX_Y_pjW710VxA-q23wtULSySw6lh-Z4Fxo=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><p>Less than a week after getting back from my Fall Break trip, I was on the road again, this time with my longtime friend and fellow ex-Chicago missionary Brad. Ever since Chicago's most celebrated pizza franchise expanded into Las Vegas, he and I had considered a quick getaway, and on the Wednesday before Halloween our speculation became reality. In addition to some spectacular deep dish pizza, we enjoyed a visit to the Las Vegas Arts District, and we burned off a few of those pizza calories on a hike through the petrified dunes in Snow Canyon State Park on our way home. Best of all, I enjoyed the company of a great friend who I've known for many years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv1WGtuKneZNRQfoktz8y-P2YnuiZYypnCTj2A5woB-R116xrBU4F-GYpenQWM1CSHqdezgCoHGvOSlHpHrZVpfcsZBPG88M3_J5DbbxPT47FjUfvrG9m9EDNM6N9gUV__kJS6gJnAx7_y3B9tztnlMql_2v_jvV32HJGGvMcbU2LhPZ4JCjQ=s1366" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiv1WGtuKneZNRQfoktz8y-P2YnuiZYypnCTj2A5woB-R116xrBU4F-GYpenQWM1CSHqdezgCoHGvOSlHpHrZVpfcsZBPG88M3_J5DbbxPT47FjUfvrG9m9EDNM6N9gUV__kJS6gJnAx7_y3B9tztnlMql_2v_jvV32HJGGvMcbU2LhPZ4JCjQ=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjffFDsUp9njZuvyhgDL0FLSaN0GOTbEwFwTfBmTawAxoU5kuqYu9doC5yfcjA0D_E8KJic03p0iCZeRoRWw5fLxtW5uwuhgOakJfq5qVhzyyzwFXbprDTalWi-gZuhl_VEl8gfePk8XeYEZx7f2NDuQSVOMHN4D9IygxRC3ezTHKSb6KBeoLk=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjffFDsUp9njZuvyhgDL0FLSaN0GOTbEwFwTfBmTawAxoU5kuqYu9doC5yfcjA0D_E8KJic03p0iCZeRoRWw5fLxtW5uwuhgOakJfq5qVhzyyzwFXbprDTalWi-gZuhl_VEl8gfePk8XeYEZx7f2NDuQSVOMHN4D9IygxRC3ezTHKSb6KBeoLk=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><p>It was great to get out of town and take pictures, but it took a while to get my Fall Break and Snow Canyon shots edited thanks to a rush of portrait jobs that came up around the same time. Over several weeks I spent time with some fun families--including my own--and though I still don't think of myself as a wedding photographer, I really enjoyed shooting engagements and bridals for a young couple before attending their sealing in November. As always, I was grateful for the work, since there are so many other portrait photographers to choose from.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpKz-iS9UwPw1GwwNaGbDzHzIm6nidxc-UHTW_9nEaN4oKd-mOMi1RF8Y_1FWylnpv9bOixBjrn8HsjxWjf4eri4mL2AcIUyJdgodaHFw9QHygKbZQpzvyCgBXC0TlrWeRG8myHKSb1rC4piVAAbldSRPrTB21lIiId8rLq0jHhUcsfa-4mSA=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpKz-iS9UwPw1GwwNaGbDzHzIm6nidxc-UHTW_9nEaN4oKd-mOMi1RF8Y_1FWylnpv9bOixBjrn8HsjxWjf4eri4mL2AcIUyJdgodaHFw9QHygKbZQpzvyCgBXC0TlrWeRG8myHKSb1rC4piVAAbldSRPrTB21lIiId8rLq0jHhUcsfa-4mSA=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGQNgUkLiN4Fo5LODUw5azkQKYVy1xhcKdBIBdQGkfPQ8l7zBgCo8Ii5f6hWuIiyJOHtc5AZQ9B45kgPFydSIXgvaYNo_j1Ojx6CZNF1Xj4zj10qzpxQPF2fjeqM-z13TMFWSKmV81lTc9l3ygQ7-0D33GseJOj3m-xU8JjeLxUg9kTQcX3ro=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgGQNgUkLiN4Fo5LODUw5azkQKYVy1xhcKdBIBdQGkfPQ8l7zBgCo8Ii5f6hWuIiyJOHtc5AZQ9B45kgPFydSIXgvaYNo_j1Ojx6CZNF1Xj4zj10qzpxQPF2fjeqM-z13TMFWSKmV81lTc9l3ygQ7-0D33GseJOj3m-xU8JjeLxUg9kTQcX3ro=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzlX0svHgVEC0Mmsd7dQ2ojcC0D00OiZDe26Zy-JH5fazMmE0DwKUN343VY72FEmGHpT5ioOD3onm6r5GYo5TOe6X8WwWPV_kEZvr2ZkXT0dLQB_54t9fSQQ4zmD-kRjXAvP8d6RwLLprEx_3FezfxcNhBkrG7FcMWME0XmkrmEUNEf1CLk1k=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzlX0svHgVEC0Mmsd7dQ2ojcC0D00OiZDe26Zy-JH5fazMmE0DwKUN343VY72FEmGHpT5ioOD3onm6r5GYo5TOe6X8WwWPV_kEZvr2ZkXT0dLQB_54t9fSQQ4zmD-kRjXAvP8d6RwLLprEx_3FezfxcNhBkrG7FcMWME0XmkrmEUNEf1CLk1k=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigVOgUM8meOuaG35NVGhABq-ebnslJrCDq4aDUlFEtEV_8MUF55YB0HrPbVVFSnUC4DP5Ju-pRTe3qKCLFP3xmpVFXY7HZeY8hmwYkH4J-KLlZAYp9QZGYxduan7M1jXsRVxn-DoBcec-5Qj_EaO5YKdq14e2oD44PPLLQyKyYiVHjBn5J41w=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1350" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigVOgUM8meOuaG35NVGhABq-ebnslJrCDq4aDUlFEtEV_8MUF55YB0HrPbVVFSnUC4DP5Ju-pRTe3qKCLFP3xmpVFXY7HZeY8hmwYkH4J-KLlZAYp9QZGYxduan7M1jXsRVxn-DoBcec-5Qj_EaO5YKdq14e2oD44PPLLQyKyYiVHjBn5J41w=w640-h512" width="640" /></a></div><p>By the time I reached November, the photo jobs, the Weber classes, and even the movie reviews were clicking along at a steady pace, and 2021 finally felt like it was hitting its stride. With the holiday season in sight, I photographed one more echo of 2020 when the tree stump remains of last year's windstorm were removed from my parents' backyard. Then I capped off my fall efforts in a familiar spot, photographing the Bountiful Temple with a ward friend who had just enough interest in photography to scramble around game trails on a steep hillside at dusk while his neurotic neighbor hunted for the perfect composition angle. It was a perfect lead-in for 2021's well-earned finale.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_eC7I9b7bKIuWmLm2RatoGuF8u7uEDvdimZLz1xKErF4JN2KRnrOHIXqWIB8h6hrzeknXfwSMOm04yUsYgb8RYeNcVGUrZyjB4DSWMDUmGfcIBxp_H-Roo1yUpM5-9HhqMqLXpR7QKbzqSEQgisHYAO-62q7-w9rSx9XOZhQcfTdttWgESB8=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_eC7I9b7bKIuWmLm2RatoGuF8u7uEDvdimZLz1xKErF4JN2KRnrOHIXqWIB8h6hrzeknXfwSMOm04yUsYgb8RYeNcVGUrZyjB4DSWMDUmGfcIBxp_H-Roo1yUpM5-9HhqMqLXpR7QKbzqSEQgisHYAO-62q7-w9rSx9XOZhQcfTdttWgESB8=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWDiXy-rgYw1TNC7mQB0bT3X-t7Sa-DiE95IvdraTqepmDA1MF0bVLV-eaWrErLLhpor1HybHR39nDrPP5SoUE_m5nT0u1d3tI1DdIQ2A2_EVnNxApNZ_8Y_9-P98KsbhU5W4KSyAZCOv0jqU7Ta1t5zA2WKDQSuGUiwfaH7UhWjK8PRyP3Lw=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWDiXy-rgYw1TNC7mQB0bT3X-t7Sa-DiE95IvdraTqepmDA1MF0bVLV-eaWrErLLhpor1HybHR39nDrPP5SoUE_m5nT0u1d3tI1DdIQ2A2_EVnNxApNZ_8Y_9-P98KsbhU5W4KSyAZCOv0jqU7Ta1t5zA2WKDQSuGUiwfaH7UhWjK8PRyP3Lw=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b>- H O L I D A Y S -</b></p><p>I put up the Christmas lights a week before Thanksgiving, and tried to get an early jump on my Christmas shopping, too. But the holiday season didn't officially arrive until my sister and I drove into Lehi early Thanksgiving morning with approximately 10.6 million other runners for a holiday loop around the Thanksgiving Point golf cart track. Though my weekly run was only a 5K, I pushed through the 10K, and combined with the stifling crowds and hills throughout the course, the experience left me more proud of my finisher medal than for my 3rd place ribbon from July's 5K.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQrq-yf7ydpREWUpeCUzBFgMmHB51MOV08yPzJ4xarNrjbO_OmVUqRHRSXUBsTkvIo8jb_O8bOBuicJI8N-uYoboZcIq4SfagudVAlwkcba48U4KSq8vkv_HjG9Fmy_FVqPV1Kup8peYZ4bveuWsmxwQwkiud2jdUjfvcy1oMcS74EX38Vgvs=s1366" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhQrq-yf7ydpREWUpeCUzBFgMmHB51MOV08yPzJ4xarNrjbO_OmVUqRHRSXUBsTkvIo8jb_O8bOBuicJI8N-uYoboZcIq4SfagudVAlwkcba48U4KSq8vkv_HjG9Fmy_FVqPV1Kup8peYZ4bveuWsmxwQwkiud2jdUjfvcy1oMcS74EX38Vgvs=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><p>With Thanksgiving behind me, the Christmas season arrived in full force, as my movie coverage and teaching duties crashed headlong into the holiday festivities. For a stretch, it felt like I was driving into Salt Lake every night to review some award-hopeful prestige release, but I would have gladly watched a dozen more depressing "House of Gucci's" to discover the heartwarming <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10366460/">"CODA,"</a> my <a href="https://www.utah.film/featured-2/joshs-ten-best-of-2021/" target="_blank">favorite movie</a> of 2021. My composition classes delivered their obligatory final grading hassles, but a group of enthusiastic students made my English 0955 course an especially happy return to face-to-face teaching. I tried to squeeze in holiday activities like a fun outing to Fuji Sushi between all the routine "to-do" items, and I crossed off a 2021 bucket list item early in December when I photographed a brand-new temple in Saratoga Springs. But nothing felt as significant as watching Mom hike a flight of stairs on two surgically repaired knees on the way to get her first back injection in mid-December.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3McWAjD7PYkpc4cJrq3KgQp8fGRPbN20m_iRY9ZPMjge5r6Q2hSGMsoq8EnTcsMIBWUT_EmF3MTad6yCUoRLzLkpJD4EkN8yky8KlqrAyNLpAzgH93tN0oyBHna8WU9VNexJAs20aP4aYbuNGjQhR24v-8LIQx0UzRaFIcME5Ad7Zk3O1hHY=s1024" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3McWAjD7PYkpc4cJrq3KgQp8fGRPbN20m_iRY9ZPMjge5r6Q2hSGMsoq8EnTcsMIBWUT_EmF3MTad6yCUoRLzLkpJD4EkN8yky8KlqrAyNLpAzgH93tN0oyBHna8WU9VNexJAs20aP4aYbuNGjQhR24v-8LIQx0UzRaFIcME5Ad7Zk3O1hHY=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-gY-JSxVsCFEu9_rNiXr6okVsAS0_BQA_MzuVOgCjxpADAD5JMQy_COI-QlYUKgBdjzFZO6x4BeP6luE5Ep0Nc8HcuXxokcqHrk3tcE2tu9p_HbQFvbf0Vzx7TI_7MPuF02njkT-R3jl6XWSYlzWozn8820MYNPsikEDu3RqwigLerb4GufI=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-gY-JSxVsCFEu9_rNiXr6okVsAS0_BQA_MzuVOgCjxpADAD5JMQy_COI-QlYUKgBdjzFZO6x4BeP6luE5Ep0Nc8HcuXxokcqHrk3tcE2tu9p_HbQFvbf0Vzx7TI_7MPuF02njkT-R3jl6XWSYlzWozn8820MYNPsikEDu3RqwigLerb4GufI=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><p>Once I wrestled Fall Semester into submission and capped off my movie marathon with a three-hour UFCA voting session, I was free to get out of town one more time before Christmas. Over three December days I logged 1,400 miles looping through Cathedral Gorge State Park on the way to Las Vegas before heading west to Death Valley, and then I caught the International Car Forest coming up through rural Nevada before capping things off with a sunset shoot at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Along the way, armed with a couple of new purchases, I turned that Forrest Gump shot into a budding series.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbThJYTyXAIYYMFsYDml1X7uY-NAmIasLOgrNa9rLDQbezPwt7qECopEDxgNyTf7TUiJMXXzyErW_KdRBOVlteSAIGvLQgxWPD5p3vTfFBjIGLPjbf8GyRMS_eSWqb8zUwDhrh7HPC055Wos82-PiElEdAAS9jyyfwFsHt5jvvzQemOSPqcDk=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbThJYTyXAIYYMFsYDml1X7uY-NAmIasLOgrNa9rLDQbezPwt7qECopEDxgNyTf7TUiJMXXzyErW_KdRBOVlteSAIGvLQgxWPD5p3vTfFBjIGLPjbf8GyRMS_eSWqb8zUwDhrh7HPC055Wos82-PiElEdAAS9jyyfwFsHt5jvvzQemOSPqcDk=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlxbdojoHiXTOQ8hXWUxt4_vo5wHNDzHhlZ0FBcCfQ2iFRVx0Cmu3pDOJNLFm5YZQ0wSo3f_usjfF4nsCZ39JQFHH5mPySFF9zwxVmAOIvLa3vhNNfWyql6XLqETxBiNsRNiVIoxD_djTsHMQoZquV34B8YZs44Vid5Ac6Tn_DHWoRbKIky30=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjlxbdojoHiXTOQ8hXWUxt4_vo5wHNDzHhlZ0FBcCfQ2iFRVx0Cmu3pDOJNLFm5YZQ0wSo3f_usjfF4nsCZ39JQFHH5mPySFF9zwxVmAOIvLa3vhNNfWyql6XLqETxBiNsRNiVIoxD_djTsHMQoZquV34B8YZs44Vid5Ac6Tn_DHWoRbKIky30=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7fYNHx95hwe2vhE4K53z4tV1qAHsTS3toMc5saoaVniwCyIvQ9ktLu6stPcEHHvorsL23-fBjqmOKEeRE7Szm3vEp0vb-IoVJPBvTbF-vk-LEq1-GG08EPFKzyUDmnSnbz5sc59WcfH-hpHILB5n0CmloD2VlsnsEFq1ImICfrYjtDaOF14o=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7fYNHx95hwe2vhE4K53z4tV1qAHsTS3toMc5saoaVniwCyIvQ9ktLu6stPcEHHvorsL23-fBjqmOKEeRE7Szm3vEp0vb-IoVJPBvTbF-vk-LEq1-GG08EPFKzyUDmnSnbz5sc59WcfH-hpHILB5n0CmloD2VlsnsEFq1ImICfrYjtDaOF14o=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgY9HHa-YrvggwRB_h8UuHOOrpgfbO8zZ1544TmAxhgs7QCDPFb44FLSF3nnJqApMZW0UzBsmXbqnoJMS8Kd4qb8tkrkIhMjg0tAzuebhANnF3hEYGje97ftDru39YoHc6NrmI4QpwUlBoA-owyvc407uUiZRb6HHkBPzbGmBJ_N2uwRyZxhCM=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgY9HHa-YrvggwRB_h8UuHOOrpgfbO8zZ1544TmAxhgs7QCDPFb44FLSF3nnJqApMZW0UzBsmXbqnoJMS8Kd4qb8tkrkIhMjg0tAzuebhANnF3hEYGje97ftDru39YoHc6NrmI4QpwUlBoA-owyvc407uUiZRb6HHkBPzbGmBJ_N2uwRyZxhCM=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOTQ5OWQ9g-OX8K7DphC0yru92p15FPgy1zJmE0cX3aCR75PR_TQIw6LurKvDeVp_vRZ7gd-XDs0Rp9Fb1n5TL51ybo0bDBO7mfJh9VjEccKhjFpcSUmAj3O7DYUSt-ahFt0aIMwNbUyC3bekxa45tLy-0cLVut9yuWCbGHXn0huIYwzq1trM=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOTQ5OWQ9g-OX8K7DphC0yru92p15FPgy1zJmE0cX3aCR75PR_TQIw6LurKvDeVp_vRZ7gd-XDs0Rp9Fb1n5TL51ybo0bDBO7mfJh9VjEccKhjFpcSUmAj3O7DYUSt-ahFt0aIMwNbUyC3bekxa45tLy-0cLVut9yuWCbGHXn0huIYwzq1trM=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLdVn5CQxdoFB4V5rkZUPHicQD8h7gESYX-ulmRkRsAbdSbKbNBGNHylcM9TC3HN9f-LiQKRYVhB8BncxHXdVBceDFU8fW32J_R-4t7CZI6JHRTvBdCeHrmxZNIfXSLfjakqpZEG7t3T1X7HiCZknDvsjkbqdcv0P2Zhu6TyOBq9_MvT5LINg=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLdVn5CQxdoFB4V5rkZUPHicQD8h7gESYX-ulmRkRsAbdSbKbNBGNHylcM9TC3HN9f-LiQKRYVhB8BncxHXdVBceDFU8fW32J_R-4t7CZI6JHRTvBdCeHrmxZNIfXSLfjakqpZEG7t3T1X7HiCZknDvsjkbqdcv0P2Zhu6TyOBq9_MvT5LINg=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><p>The Christmas holiday was packed with family activities, making cookies, attending concerts, and of course, exchanging gifts. At times this year I felt like I let my obligations get in the way of the season, so I was especially grateful on Christmas Eve when my family took a quiet moment to watch a special church video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWoKi5x3lw" target="_blank">The Nativity</a>. Then, a few days after Christmas, as the year drew to a close, I set up one last holiday shoot, and officially put a photographic bow on another checkered year.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiu94_LAl02CxUHKi792E_Yinoh9WBJ2s6VhxoXAqviUMQOn6CvXaJ8WyPyViHqJYWusyjQFG7xBLYaXI_5vfRZ-pvfCcKKQunUqj2prx9iGlYLsBmuLpz3lsRS7tkT4tEzawVe20YKaGWz6hK6YneWnHUhSEAwYfyv6tekS9BKk_UkvVphU6Y=s1350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiu94_LAl02CxUHKi792E_Yinoh9WBJ2s6VhxoXAqviUMQOn6CvXaJ8WyPyViHqJYWusyjQFG7xBLYaXI_5vfRZ-pvfCcKKQunUqj2prx9iGlYLsBmuLpz3lsRS7tkT4tEzawVe20YKaGWz6hK6YneWnHUhSEAwYfyv6tekS9BKk_UkvVphU6Y=w512-h640" width="512" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">*<span> *<span> *</span></span></p><p>For better--or more likely--for worse, 2021 will always be tied to 2020. Even twelve months removed from its bitter conclusion, the effects of that infamous year ripple and linger. On Netflix, Jim Gaffigan compared 2021 to changing a diaper, only to feel your baby immediately make a second deposit, and maybe that's why more often than not I felt like surviving 2021 was the best I could do. I won't miss 2021 with the same peculiar nostalgia I hold for 2020, but I will be grateful for the way I was able to navigate <i>through</i> its trials and challenges, rather than simply be spared them. If 2020 was about resilience, maybe 2021 was about enduring to the end. </p><p>Looking ahead to 2022, I'm feeling pretty positive. It will take some time to resolve our current issues, and I'm sure the new year will bring plenty of its own challenges. But every December when I compile these posts, it's easy to see that life has a way of delivering a lot of good alongside its bad, and I'm excited to see the good 2022 will bring. </p><p>Happy New Year, everyone, and congratulations for making it through 2021.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaKXhKZ6mjNf0kap0_kNpevrz9c58G_tda4wQfgLzU27lREKg2JLdiEXe9mS1HIEqKtBdN68E2zHtcpgLLm8Sr6KE7ucmdSGZR1sW7uNjiYVsMqJKdtpdNc0mQaDpe7q3-PJy3f8N8UwuLFWZWGOD4WzzU6BVFOpnWcLjWA8fj-fFPV2G-pWU=s1620" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgaKXhKZ6mjNf0kap0_kNpevrz9c58G_tda4wQfgLzU27lREKg2JLdiEXe9mS1HIEqKtBdN68E2zHtcpgLLm8Sr6KE7ucmdSGZR1sW7uNjiYVsMqJKdtpdNc0mQaDpe7q3-PJy3f8N8UwuLFWZWGOD4WzzU6BVFOpnWcLjWA8fj-fFPV2G-pWU=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p></div></div>The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-15407416463465720892020-12-30T13:12:00.006-07:002021-01-02T12:53:33.963-07:00Our Crappy Year: Surviving Coronapocalypse 2020<div class="separator">Well, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7tgX_Uaqs" target="_blank">that escalated quickly...</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Putting together my annual post-Christmas, year-end wrap up photo essay thing feels a little different this year, and not just for the obvious reasons. Yes, I'm writing in the middle (or hopefully somewhere in the second half of) a pandemic, and yes, the consensus is that 2020 was a pretty awful year. But what really feels different is that where I usually write about stuff that was exclusive to my own experience, 2020 was a shared trauma. So this year's post is more a document of "our" experience, or at least my perspective of it. And maybe that's one of the few saving graces of the last twelve months: that we went through it together.</div><div><br /></div><div>In spite of the circumstances, I managed to take a lot of pictures in 2020, and there was a more journalistic theme in a lot of my efforts. Throughout the year I noted a number of images that seemed to capture the general sentiment of 2020, and I'll lead with one of my favorites: a message of optimism flanked by the sneaking suspicion that something else was getting ready to run us down:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMidJh0mwqZhZhmb51F6vItEzgXbwuLMB9X1Hkq_qZuOEqWBSvVsfPzTXV9SIhQ8sHraIrbhJ9PFB0H5UUZu-kMuvM9mCvQ_QJYIadOldtinIjOGDadkZS8VSwmXcsN-XhoYppw/s1560/welcome-to-may_2020-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMidJh0mwqZhZhmb51F6vItEzgXbwuLMB9X1Hkq_qZuOEqWBSvVsfPzTXV9SIhQ8sHraIrbhJ9PFB0H5UUZu-kMuvM9mCvQ_QJYIadOldtinIjOGDadkZS8VSwmXcsN-XhoYppw/w640-h426/welcome-to-may_2020-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>As always, if you just want to see the full "best-of" gallery, go to <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/2020/Best-of-2020-so-far/" target="_blank">my official website</a>. It's got a lot more images, and if you're on a desktop computer (or at least a laptop), you'll be able to see the details that tend to get lost in the social media/smartphone format. If you're interested in my noble attempt to contextualize an event we still haven't emerged from, then read on...</div>
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W I N T E R</div>
<br />For most people, the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic was a hard left turn that arrived somewhere in March after a couple months of distant rumors and other priorities. For me, the beginning of 2020 was more of a gradual, painful bend, like getting your arm twisted behind your back by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbzObyvBslw" target="_blank">Scott Farkus</a> instead of just getting kicked in the head. Thanks to a variety of excellent experiences, I finished 2019 with high hopes for the new year. My resolution was to be "all in," and to enhance the good things I was trying to do already. But January must have sensed my good intentions, because it came out swinging.<div><br /></div><div>I entered 2020 at the state capitol, surrounded by strangers, deafened by a throbbing PA system, vowing to never attend another single's dance. That ugly start got substantially worse a few days later when I found out that my weekly contributions to the Deseret News were about to be drastically reduced. This also meant that for the first time in seven years, I wasn't knocking around the Sundance Film Festival at the end of the month. Combined with a schedule reduction at Weber State, it was a bleak and financially strained start to the year.<br />
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I tried to stay focused on the good things, and gratefully, there were always good things. At church I started teaching the three-year-old Sunbeams, which was hilarious and adorable and inspiring all at once, and I also helped to coach the young men's basketball team. I managed to get out and take a few pictures here and there, and I made a special trip to a Jewish deli in Salt Lake to formally wrap up the first year of my <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/Featured-Projects/Power-Lunch-Series/" target="_blank">Power Lunch project</a>, but overall January 2020 was especially January-like, and the year was just getting started.<br />
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February started to get a little traction as I worked my way into my Weber class while attending annual Super Bowl and Oscar parties, and though the pace was greatly reduced, I kept trying to add friends to the Power Lunch series. But things really got into gear at the end of the month, when I joined my longtime <a href="https://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/06/fifteen-minutes-of-infamy-or-how-i.html" target="_blank">adventure partner</a> Chidsey for a cross-country train trip on Amtrack's famed California Zephyr. We spent the better part of two days winding through the Rocky Mountains and across America's Heartland before arriving in Chicago, where I spent a couple more days showing my friend around my second home. After two Illinois winters as a missionary, I was a little nervous about visiting Chicago in February, but the weather was surprisingly mild, and the timing really couldn't have been better.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsM-e6J-iHhxqJLQpokDZWVGeUUGMymzN7ZFxJAgfde9kgW9dUU1780VBdh-XuQ8XWMUG2rt4a0QASGh_ATzZb3lkNsWbegAnHCUNw8I-Ww0NY5bHZ0_Tec6xRjx4oyBPJAdfFyw/s1620/amtrack-feb2020-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsM-e6J-iHhxqJLQpokDZWVGeUUGMymzN7ZFxJAgfde9kgW9dUU1780VBdh-XuQ8XWMUG2rt4a0QASGh_ATzZb3lkNsWbegAnHCUNw8I-Ww0NY5bHZ0_Tec6xRjx4oyBPJAdfFyw/w640-h426/amtrack-feb2020-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKrZLPC-ku7OzNc4aZSLoboV0tTMAA2KOCAf-FbdUKJu-AWy1xSZDlOuo2OnuwHJkT9uSJA3H1EZc-Ukrrxe6dya_MhyV2Xs6qZn8xT1gFkRu8Ag6eNcvz4PUkM03C2LIt0GMiBw/s1620/chicago-trip_feb-mar2020-35.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKrZLPC-ku7OzNc4aZSLoboV0tTMAA2KOCAf-FbdUKJu-AWy1xSZDlOuo2OnuwHJkT9uSJA3H1EZc-Ukrrxe6dya_MhyV2Xs6qZn8xT1gFkRu8Ag6eNcvz4PUkM03C2LIt0GMiBw/w640-h426/chicago-trip_feb-mar2020-35.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />After flying home from Chicago, I still had several days left on Weber State's Spring Break, which is typically scheduled for the beginning of March. I was a little worried about being over-indulgent, given my low-tide employment situation, but I eventually decided to head south for a few days, hitting favorites like Monument Valley, Horseshoe Bend, Zion, and Bryce Canyon before heading home. As always, I tried to mix in new locations with the old favorites, and came away with more than enough files on my SD cards to justify the effort. And as with Chicago, my timing was more fortuitous than I realized.</div>
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S P R I N G</div>
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">Back on the last night of January, I was at Ensign Peak taking pictures of Downtown Salt Lake City when I met a tourist from Australia. Over the course of our conversation, he remarked that just after leaving home, someone down his street had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the killer virus that had been rampaging through China. I wasn't sure whether I should be concerned, whether my new friend might constitute any danger. But it was the first time the virus caught my attention.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfaETmUF59kcLwMzwGwJNe5ezloKADHa6ENQym7dTo4kd6xpDRYj48iO5Nj0STgPge3bRe0aYiTvudwr75ZPGrJonxb1lMtjkoXLghjXRyF6I4ogdD1ZlCtjIB8muNtRCqubVaQ/s1920/slc-skyline_jan2020-5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfaETmUF59kcLwMzwGwJNe5ezloKADHa6ENQym7dTo4kd6xpDRYj48iO5Nj0STgPge3bRe0aYiTvudwr75ZPGrJonxb1lMtjkoXLghjXRyF6I4ogdD1ZlCtjIB8muNtRCqubVaQ/w640-h360/slc-skyline_jan2020-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">By the time I returned from Southern Utah to resume class at Weber, the virus had seized center stage on a news cycle that already included a presidential impeachment, and was working its way through a fierce Democratic primary. Things officially got serious in my world when the church announced that its long-awaited April General Conference, which would mark 200 years from the First Vision, was going broadcast-only for the first time. Later that night, the entire NBA shut down as my hometown Jazz were about to face off with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Coronapocalypse had officially begun.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The next day, Weber State's classes officially went online, and for the next week or so, we all watched the news to see what was going to happen next. My reduced role with the Deseret News became a moot point as every film release for the foreseeable future was either postponed or canceled, and shortly after I decided to shift to home workouts, the gym closed anyway. We'd officially <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=going%20to%20the%20mattresses" target="_blank">gone to the mattresses</a>, with or without toilet paper, and as if I needed any more reason to think we'd entered The Twilight Zone, on March 18th Utah suffered a significant earthquake right around the spot where I'd been taking pictures at Saltair a few weeks earlier.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHOsbMGPX6zXtzINP3kYFMcZy758nLJ023xjWDGgBVFv99XQEJqNQYTeYZTaUB9m-5Ujl1_nIdmehoeDYctv8NgEKRQeRAf-8E4x-2IsUCZZq0lWrYYZeTVnlajHIK7O40ZbM6fQ/s1620/saltair-sunset_feb2020-21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHOsbMGPX6zXtzINP3kYFMcZy758nLJ023xjWDGgBVFv99XQEJqNQYTeYZTaUB9m-5Ujl1_nIdmehoeDYctv8NgEKRQeRAf-8E4x-2IsUCZZq0lWrYYZeTVnlajHIK7O40ZbM6fQ/w640-h426/saltair-sunset_feb2020-21.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During those first uncertain days, it helped to hear from President Russell M. Nelson, as he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1i5-ew2l9k" target="_blank">assured the faithful</a> that though challenging, our situation was temporary. Over the coming weeks, driving around town, I started to notice evidence of the shutdown, particularly the various billboards and business marquees posting uplifting and unifying messages. Since I wouldn't be heading out of town anytime soon, I started to document what I was seeing close to home, and the <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/Featured-Projects/Signs-of-the-Times-Coronapocalypse-2020">"Signs of the Times"</a> turned into a side project that I continued to populate throughout the year. (Big thanks to my mom here, whose willingness to drive helped me get a number of I-15 billboards I couldn't have photographed on my own.)</div><div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-D0weDSCHqoCOugnjKhLRxUuNZyY08o5402ikxxo1utw3gv862eaZ2Vap2yjleUC4TYD7t4XZpBFIlds7F4mgmQwUT8WVlr66QLoCnzJO-XSomCQ-1zyOyBsIPNRT_JQ1OndJ4A/s1620/signs-of-the-times_apr2020-10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-D0weDSCHqoCOugnjKhLRxUuNZyY08o5402ikxxo1utw3gv862eaZ2Vap2yjleUC4TYD7t4XZpBFIlds7F4mgmQwUT8WVlr66QLoCnzJO-XSomCQ-1zyOyBsIPNRT_JQ1OndJ4A/w640-h426/signs-of-the-times_apr2020-10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6CYcgEDjqzehsLk-bVVhL1X80urAVyQTO_XkscEB2rsq7lzSmIJe8rSennsfG_Mu_Ej5X5JyMT18xLDTTquj_HRH7qzJ8R82rAftPLnhgVijL4ps6CZmNfiyA0piezryJ9YLVKQ/s1620/signs-4_apr2020-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6CYcgEDjqzehsLk-bVVhL1X80urAVyQTO_XkscEB2rsq7lzSmIJe8rSennsfG_Mu_Ej5X5JyMT18xLDTTquj_HRH7qzJ8R82rAftPLnhgVijL4ps6CZmNfiyA0piezryJ9YLVKQ/w640-h426/signs-4_apr2020-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-V1bVsOTvo-SXfHAJTTzTuDsNJJmKkQyBs2vX21yd9RW7iXCirWvfdp38Gy47L9xIZJlA_y2-sEqmxVzP-TGtZqNUWjXAieflCwY1JJ4HtAc9rylvyepF0HA7RYjEe76x0g-Jg/s1620/signs_5-6_apr2020-16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS-V1bVsOTvo-SXfHAJTTzTuDsNJJmKkQyBs2vX21yd9RW7iXCirWvfdp38Gy47L9xIZJlA_y2-sEqmxVzP-TGtZqNUWjXAieflCwY1JJ4HtAc9rylvyepF0HA7RYjEe76x0g-Jg/w640-h426/signs_5-6_apr2020-16.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">As frustrating and ambiguous as the situation was during a few weeks that felt like a few years, the billboard reaction helped. Even social media seemed to be more positive than usual. Then sometime in April my longtime friend Steve approached me with a project idea. His wife Sarah had noticed a fun trend online featuring Covid-themed family portraits, taken on their front porches to document the "shelter in place" experience. She suggested that Steve and I do the same for our neighborhood, and when our first shoot went well, we wound up making our way through our entire ward. It turned out to be a very valuable experience, partially because it was just nice to interact with our friends and neighbors. But it also became a timely effort when the ward was split for the first time in 40 years the following fall.</div>
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGLk5W5rHZcwY8HcO8-g6kpCiXLqs2OYPxCcNBSlg0kPC7XIpHkqF1VS1_xJ4UJYev4s1O-khrfX3INIo_FPtv3LyiGBSxtsaamEEDu9vbAtNk5p4TBAsF-4F60ASu18Id5Q6tMg/s1620/porch-portraits_vol4-5-16.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGLk5W5rHZcwY8HcO8-g6kpCiXLqs2OYPxCcNBSlg0kPC7XIpHkqF1VS1_xJ4UJYev4s1O-khrfX3INIo_FPtv3LyiGBSxtsaamEEDu9vbAtNk5p4TBAsF-4F60ASu18Id5Q6tMg/w640-h426/porch-portraits_vol4-5-16.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGEA_ZzES8lgmJmdSHIVcPUmF2JadD-UanxkRQq3vMnjz1NkfTT-ayzp-phhk4-c3gOIsD-EKGD1gAlU1DDJa11Uq0KlVnqqkKj0x5Z5AR1Be8mJTiuZMCgyM1_nYnnXBvbhrgoA/s1620/porch-portraits2_apr2020-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGEA_ZzES8lgmJmdSHIVcPUmF2JadD-UanxkRQq3vMnjz1NkfTT-ayzp-phhk4-c3gOIsD-EKGD1gAlU1DDJa11Uq0KlVnqqkKj0x5Z5AR1Be8mJTiuZMCgyM1_nYnnXBvbhrgoA/w640-h426/porch-portraits2_apr2020-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1UPrsMzqIwmzVvduwwCDwQNfFdiEz4J6RJSnRrMxsU_xzUSUMNIxy77LSP30MGxRWfNY3paP3cgl4PS-grMC9YSqbwhR0hshs0uKDABHWN1K_Ea8amemNkbEUVTI-luLWMmY5RA/s1620/porch-portraits1_apr2020-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1UPrsMzqIwmzVvduwwCDwQNfFdiEz4J6RJSnRrMxsU_xzUSUMNIxy77LSP30MGxRWfNY3paP3cgl4PS-grMC9YSqbwhR0hshs0uKDABHWN1K_Ea8amemNkbEUVTI-luLWMmY5RA/w640-h426/porch-portraits1_apr2020-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Between the Porch Portraits, the billboards, and the other local shoots I tried to fit in, the transition from spring into summer enjoyed a sense of productivity and goodwill that turned at least a few of 2020's lemons into lemonade. Even putting in new sod and overhauling the sprinklers in the front yard offered a sense of satisfaction. But the 2020 news cycle never rested for long, and at the end of May, late on a Saturday morning as my mom and I drove into downtown Salt Lake City to pick up some cupcakes for my sister's upcoming birthday, we came up over Capitol Hill and drove straight into a massive protest. Tensions had been building over the death of a man named George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of a local policeman, and a number of protests rallied around the country that weekend. People honked their horns and waved banners as they hung out of cars and pickups, but as my mom and I passed the capitol building and saw the spray paint all over its front columns, my heart sunk.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">I took a lot of mixed feelings from the experience, but one lesson I could pin down was that I should never leave the house without my camera. I didn't get any pictures that day, but I did come across some protestors in the weeks to come, so I was still able to mark the moment. We weren't even halfway through 2020, yet the year already felt like a century.</div>
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S U M M E R</div>
<br /><div style="text-align: left;">Once everything shut down in the spring, time started to feel like this weird nebulous mass, long and short, instant and eternal at once. Luckily my school schedule still gave me some semblance of time and space, and as spring transitioned into summer, a new routine started to form.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">With the gym off the table, I started running three times a week, mixing in home workouts and weekly drum practice sessions on the days in-between. A summer class for Weber started in May and stretched through July, so I had a few things to keep me occupied in-between getting takeout food and marathoning more TV shows than I care to admit--including a timely first run through the surreal 1990's cult drama "Twin Peaks." I also kept trying to get out and take pictures regularly, and thanks to an old friend from KJZZ, the summer months officially kicked off with, of all things, a wedding shoot. </div><div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2pYjL2uVRxaG7RkOwhp_RE0Z5ODC-oVo94gvMSlte9Ptw82hPZKShE713n3ecUyEY2uiHBgR_g8JZUjDHYLqZUk3O79oQLYxsd1-Xh1tq-tPiCHDQsqHmMrQcyLTmp6ORu7liQ/s1560/terrill-mcbride-wedding_highlights_jun2020-39.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2pYjL2uVRxaG7RkOwhp_RE0Z5ODC-oVo94gvMSlte9Ptw82hPZKShE713n3ecUyEY2uiHBgR_g8JZUjDHYLqZUk3O79oQLYxsd1-Xh1tq-tPiCHDQsqHmMrQcyLTmp6ORu7liQ/w640-h426/terrill-mcbride-wedding_highlights_jun2020-39.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dtnKBSDPjq8ltRzwm5nX40RfO73kHLgk1jTsaMFI-NPAbUTenp92Ey6pfhlQJgZB7kMwEI9w0y8SyrBK1cMk19C-oLjap9robU7Y5n7hyQ3JAqofj14E4PhZr8HcBVknIyXxSg/s1300/bountiful-temple_wBrian_july2020-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1040" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0dtnKBSDPjq8ltRzwm5nX40RfO73kHLgk1jTsaMFI-NPAbUTenp92Ey6pfhlQJgZB7kMwEI9w0y8SyrBK1cMk19C-oLjap9robU7Y5n7hyQ3JAqofj14E4PhZr8HcBVknIyXxSg/w512-h640/bountiful-temple_wBrian_july2020-3.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisPwNib6ZpRERo_dM_BZtjyJRub8oYlpxF-2eVHbMV-xMvCUq9iiw21-aCGWTVwKMb1Ojkxu079Npj57sqq2B0bLyq6wkWQZGfpYrQvH8nixSF2OzGJfQiySH_5cFrzVmTa7R7Bw/s1300/west-bountiful-fireworks_july2020-7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1040" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisPwNib6ZpRERo_dM_BZtjyJRub8oYlpxF-2eVHbMV-xMvCUq9iiw21-aCGWTVwKMb1Ojkxu079Npj57sqq2B0bLyq6wkWQZGfpYrQvH8nixSF2OzGJfQiySH_5cFrzVmTa7R7Bw/w512-h640/west-bountiful-fireworks_july2020-7.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvigq8ILD1tVmFLj77mudRE4himKLk5Rn6aZAZXXd5-4axmB01plxmaQl7Dk3-MF0jaSMpTVkBqXKsUvaZD0ITQxMwIfnvQHRk4fnCsGOmYo-XGas95dNBQC1aWhL24e8ZUyluQ/s1560/gsl-marina_jun2020-23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvigq8ILD1tVmFLj77mudRE4himKLk5Rn6aZAZXXd5-4axmB01plxmaQl7Dk3-MF0jaSMpTVkBqXKsUvaZD0ITQxMwIfnvQHRk4fnCsGOmYo-XGas95dNBQC1aWhL24e8ZUyluQ/w640-h426/gsl-marina_jun2020-23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFbmnZxGxQezkrLly960m3YruHO_-4nA3-SXkbQVlax_voZmmEjxulh-PzBmBT_D1g9obUaeoi9x6GAb2c6RdqDHhUaKU2Di-6m1BCiLtnNtyVS3rsv4Xc5ZWKRIMeKsHzvCl3dg/s1560/Terrill-McBride-reception_aug2020-instagram-234.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFbmnZxGxQezkrLly960m3YruHO_-4nA3-SXkbQVlax_voZmmEjxulh-PzBmBT_D1g9obUaeoi9x6GAb2c6RdqDHhUaKU2Di-6m1BCiLtnNtyVS3rsv4Xc5ZWKRIMeKsHzvCl3dg/w640-h426/Terrill-McBride-reception_aug2020-instagram-234.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">By mid-summer I added a weekly hike to my workout regiment, and to my surprise the habit lasted all the way into November. Seeking out new trails every week turned into a mini-adventure that helped curb the disappointment at having to cancel more ambitious summer trips to Willow Flats and Rocky Mountain National Park (more on that in a second), and after I explored new destinations like Bald Mountain, Stewart Falls, and Lake Catherine, I capped off my summer effort with my first return to Logan Canyon's Wind Caves since I had a super fun encounter with a rattlesnake back in 2009.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8psJf52ALz_Po0JUcfg-Li3O4PUTgS4JCb0tMIJQ8TV_DNZWzz9cwvcDxgSml0b7EuNGDoIVMqhjj_bkcJCJ_expHr_rvCN6nhEHpgYIKcb4tm2JzevH3iXoIMBe1yC1QY0Jv8w/s1560/bald-mountain-hike_july2020-52.jpg"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8psJf52ALz_Po0JUcfg-Li3O4PUTgS4JCb0tMIJQ8TV_DNZWzz9cwvcDxgSml0b7EuNGDoIVMqhjj_bkcJCJ_expHr_rvCN6nhEHpgYIKcb4tm2JzevH3iXoIMBe1yC1QY0Jv8w/w640-h426/bald-mountain-hike_july2020-52.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwenlJ2IX07A0n7OGqqxibDIXre7ei57sSRmls4bInlQ-BxPmaLTZQUxwy5U9_Z8iSm1CEILJqln8KCIZv7SgCER0Vu80YyQPQefP8x-qWQZLSJB2FJJKOHNyMyCwZiosRbf2WNw/s1300/stewart-falls_aug2020-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1040" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwenlJ2IX07A0n7OGqqxibDIXre7ei57sSRmls4bInlQ-BxPmaLTZQUxwy5U9_Z8iSm1CEILJqln8KCIZv7SgCER0Vu80YyQPQefP8x-qWQZLSJB2FJJKOHNyMyCwZiosRbf2WNw/w512-h640/stewart-falls_aug2020-6.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS82VQ1Ku0zFk5nfTV0g1ubCyFAgWuzYXtYMjNsSILb_YYUkYQM_cmOiag3G8G2CD7BGx8XG1KK7x45L-ViHZtqndjCUaIH1tndrwyYfDpYGHYRv6wJXqfTfxv0_FKFh_57O5suA/s1350/wind-cave_bear-lake_aug2020-10.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS82VQ1Ku0zFk5nfTV0g1ubCyFAgWuzYXtYMjNsSILb_YYUkYQM_cmOiag3G8G2CD7BGx8XG1KK7x45L-ViHZtqndjCUaIH1tndrwyYfDpYGHYRv6wJXqfTfxv0_FKFh_57O5suA/w512-h640/wind-cave_bear-lake_aug2020-10.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The combination of the protests and my dread about the upcoming presidential election prompted a social media break for a few weeks in mid-summer, but fortunately I logged back onto Facebook in time to get some critical news about my mission president Neal Cox, who passed away after a nasty fall at home. President Cox was a kind of surrogate father to me in the mission field, and though my testimony of the gospel buffered my grief the same way it did when my own dad passed away six years ago, the news cast a gloomy shadow over an already difficult year. In true 2020 fashion, I watched his funeral online, and over several days I spent a lot of time thinking about my experience as a missionary, and reflecting on what had happened--good and bad--since I returned home. The news was also hard because I had been trying to line up a time to meet President Cox for lunch, and include him in my Power Lunch project. Without him, the project will always feel incomplete.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF9W81IjgvJgbRWViQ2BLFqX_MEeJToBCdbXkR9HZYFM9-D5PhPXrRwtp3KXfy8jnA_bCuRG_j5jcFZZ-10SqvUZtl9HoBz1OqvwmpGPpt_rk2hS6zH67gVk_l1YL3XkNHrcpP2w/s1560/odds-ends_aug2020-19.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF9W81IjgvJgbRWViQ2BLFqX_MEeJToBCdbXkR9HZYFM9-D5PhPXrRwtp3KXfy8jnA_bCuRG_j5jcFZZ-10SqvUZtl9HoBz1OqvwmpGPpt_rk2hS6zH67gVk_l1YL3XkNHrcpP2w/w640-h426/odds-ends_aug2020-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On a brighter note, I was eventually able to add a couple more friends to the lunch project, thanks to some outdoor locales and tactful social distancing. Though I generally consider myself an introvert, I missed the ability to spend time with friends in 2020 the same way I did so casually in 2019. Luckily I don't think that will be one of the permanent changes that emerges from the Coronapocalypse.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdLEJ_xfiYKOp8jtMhJwxWVZ5H6sSeO80i_KNRsukjpeQqbreR-HinkEJD4RUz3CIsb3axQf7Qx_Vs2GrfFPDL9F3_JKr3a_m4VNWGmLKAQVJOFEqNbhYXs9itzl6Nba4SK9syw/s1560/lunch-series_bradkartchner_july2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdLEJ_xfiYKOp8jtMhJwxWVZ5H6sSeO80i_KNRsukjpeQqbreR-HinkEJD4RUz3CIsb3axQf7Qx_Vs2GrfFPDL9F3_JKr3a_m4VNWGmLKAQVJOFEqNbhYXs9itzl6Nba4SK9syw/w640-h426/lunch-series_bradkartchner_july2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tfzyq7Vv3xvKebLJzm8w8gWafO0VA3umD5BkmvtQhFwI5eU1cWEUT_gxtutWd-HDQPXfjr0fJwEX2xidwrR3YEeQIEsPy2bw2wTUNu4Br8Fh8QW6PjfaN8HIah15kPk7UzfZuA/s1560/lunch-series_scott-mccallister_jun2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1tfzyq7Vv3xvKebLJzm8w8gWafO0VA3umD5BkmvtQhFwI5eU1cWEUT_gxtutWd-HDQPXfjr0fJwEX2xidwrR3YEeQIEsPy2bw2wTUNu4Br8Fh8QW6PjfaN8HIah15kPk7UzfZuA/w640-h426/lunch-series_scott-mccallister_jun2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIP_SNIlRkuYqxE6RPfw9JROT0lGWZcH_rSYyrejmI57srBjTu0yVz6v0V78ZdpptQ9wX36krUhsvu7Uh4ekRb-Z5U4UsZL_oRPsFV6MX_afQ9Sr7brR7ZPGhKDl5-FrYq-NzeMQ/s1560/lunch-series_ericplatt_july2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1560" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIP_SNIlRkuYqxE6RPfw9JROT0lGWZcH_rSYyrejmI57srBjTu0yVz6v0V78ZdpptQ9wX36krUhsvu7Uh4ekRb-Z5U4UsZL_oRPsFV6MX_afQ9Sr7brR7ZPGhKDl5-FrYq-NzeMQ/w640-h426/lunch-series_ericplatt_july2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">I knew going in that summer 2020 wouldn't match the prolific travel and photography of 2019, but I still hoped I would get in at least one solid COVID-friendly journey. Late in July I booked an ambitious itinerary for early August that would take me out to Rocky Mountain National Park and up to Badlands before heading over to Devil's Tower for the first time in ten years. I was even trying to figure out a way to cap things off with a stop in Driggs, Idaho, where I would finally take in a movie at The Spud Drive-In. In preparation, I bought a brand-new set of tires for the journey, which just added insult to injury when two days later, I hit a piece of debris on I-215 that wound up derailing the entire trip.</div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thanks to my local projects, including a brand-new front door install courtesy of my neighbor Brad, I was able to keep busy and buffer some of the frustration from the experience. But the more poignant lesson came as I was trying to get my car fixed in time to salvage the trip. For several days after the collision, I desperately tried to stay on top of the repair schedule, coordinating with the Honda people and my insurance people, trying to anticipate any hiccups and neutralize potential issues. But every time it seemed like a problem would be solved, another one would take its place, and after a certain point, I realized I just had to let go. The trip just wasn't going to happen. Luckily I was only dealing with a road trip, and not something more serious. But I wondered if there weren't a more universal application for the lesson that I just wasn't willing to face.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiPYCgSRG-0MUifKwfKL3O_tMmrs5RuKk_uv9qrxEpLmIuMFAq2GVHyA9zI8pNt0zd1MX17jYLsZVq2VattIfgvDZ2YA5ZDYu0D30zHnSqivc-c1_2e_4M-oqfosIIRHE5XzS8A/s1350/brad-door_aug2020.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiPYCgSRG-0MUifKwfKL3O_tMmrs5RuKk_uv9qrxEpLmIuMFAq2GVHyA9zI8pNt0zd1MX17jYLsZVq2VattIfgvDZ2YA5ZDYu0D30zHnSqivc-c1_2e_4M-oqfosIIRHE5XzS8A/w512-h640/brad-door_aug2020.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L to R: my new door, my new doorbell, Brad. </td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">F A L L</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">By the end of the summer, Hollywood tried to leak out a few new releases, including a long-awaited Bill and Ted sequel and Christopher Nolan's most confusing movie yet. It didn't get things back to normal, but it did provide a little material to keep me in the game as Chidsey and I resurrected <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0khd-5lpmDK-gZ-h4_lUaA" target="_blank">my YouTube channel</a>. Going into September, I had a full slate of online classes for Fall Semester, I was back at the gym, albeit with proper social distancing protocols, and my hiking and signs of the times projects were keeping me active behind the camera as well as on track with my exercise goals. I was disappointed that my summer trip had fallen through, but optimistic that I could put something together for my upcoming Fall Break.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Then this happened:</div><div><br /></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/61zwfHsTpUE" width="560"></iframe>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The most telling thing about the Windstorm of 2020 (or Windstorm 2.0, if you recall the storm of 2011), was our reaction to it. It was awful to lose trees that had been behind my parents' house since before my family moved in almost 40 years ago, and as I went out with my camera in the aftermath, it was easy to see that we were not alone in the devastation. But as with 2011, the collective rally to clean up and rebuild was swift and decisive, and given the circumstances, the attitude seemed to be, "meh, this is only about the third worst thing to happen this year." For me, this was the moment in 2020 where I was officially just rolling with it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gyjKz5aoTTIQDpfSDuyXG-bGzedB-q17t4CpUbLZX82-xFOxArSVOnNZtVvUlTL8ObDA-_fnWUthjGsZPP60mElGVr6yHnH_LsZhpCyYHdz-drmiIJcgyRxw6uQhuMcsdDj6Nw/s1620/windstorm-2_sep2020-26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gyjKz5aoTTIQDpfSDuyXG-bGzedB-q17t4CpUbLZX82-xFOxArSVOnNZtVvUlTL8ObDA-_fnWUthjGsZPP60mElGVr6yHnH_LsZhpCyYHdz-drmiIJcgyRxw6uQhuMcsdDj6Nw/w640-h426/windstorm-2_sep2020-26.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnfTa-HLeOAN7ZDqNl3QU69a7VUxga4BIdw9WV4IfN-HQhBEXnsRet3Fsa6r125cq8GwhBXJ_ZIHWAFzhXpPwR0YhPhKvK-ZHT7FXq-147D97CMVbi-PS7NAmVaPXKTbNOxDwPg/s1350/windstorm-2_sep2020-74.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnfTa-HLeOAN7ZDqNl3QU69a7VUxga4BIdw9WV4IfN-HQhBEXnsRet3Fsa6r125cq8GwhBXJ_ZIHWAFzhXpPwR0YhPhKvK-ZHT7FXq-147D97CMVbi-PS7NAmVaPXKTbNOxDwPg/w512-h640/windstorm-2_sep2020-74.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">The storm hit the pause button on one of 2020's best subplots: a run of non-photography projects that started with the spring sod install, and continued with that front door installation and a couple of room remodels in my basement. I've never considered myself <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/05/working-like-man.html" target="_blank">a handyman</a>, so even my modest triumphs felt like a great leap forward. But one of my most rewarding projects was a little more up my alley.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For years I'd put an old box of my dad's photo slides on my "to do" list, intending to scan them for posterity. Though I'd always known my dad was a photographer, I'd never seen the bulk of his work, and when I finally broke down and ordered a scanner, one of my most cherished experiences of 2020 arrived in its wake. Looking over my dad's stuff bonded me to him in a way I hadn't expected. I could see my own tendencies in his style, and I could picture him taking out his camera at family functions the way I did now. I could see myself in his work, and I felt like I understood myself a little better as a result. Though the project itself is far from finished, seeing those first few scans of the past, often of people long gone, was a transcendent moment for me.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie7Ug3P5YZOV73HZQMMvhobXqoYfIQDdFZdJWBx_sF4JJQRkR_SE4YD6o6gQ6wqNRE7FspnCnvjmde3LTDE908g6TtGWkLaYUA1-ynir9j3QbWVk5J0_8Yuxg74bucI_eAvzCVPA/s1550/dad-edits_dec2020-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie7Ug3P5YZOV73HZQMMvhobXqoYfIQDdFZdJWBx_sF4JJQRkR_SE4YD6o6gQ6wqNRE7FspnCnvjmde3LTDE908g6TtGWkLaYUA1-ynir9j3QbWVk5J0_8Yuxg74bucI_eAvzCVPA/w446-h640/dad-edits_dec2020-2.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bridal Veil Falls, one of my dad's favorite destinations.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0lXHoui7NBbfx_Ykirf97Zmb7WsSP8Ym44A6s-1p3KVvHKvK62IWA2WyrYeEgOGz9gEbBNZnJJTl3vZR1VzPtgXUi1OrdjAkC_FS1M_riftzF_KZAELHKoVmOtadBfd1liDGtcw/s1514/dad-edits_dec2020.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1514" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0lXHoui7NBbfx_Ykirf97Zmb7WsSP8Ym44A6s-1p3KVvHKvK62IWA2WyrYeEgOGz9gEbBNZnJJTl3vZR1VzPtgXUi1OrdjAkC_FS1M_riftzF_KZAELHKoVmOtadBfd1liDGtcw/w640-h456/dad-edits_dec2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My maternal grandparents.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Though it wasn't the plan, my weekly hiking tradition kept rolling right through the fall, and combined with my efforts to get out and photograph the changing leaves, 2020 just might have been my most prolific autumn on record. By the time my birthday rolled around in October, I'd trekked out another half-dozen new trails--including Lake Blanche and Malan's Peak--and made multiple runs along traditional fall drives like the Alpine Loop.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm4pjryYQ3jXDorq2qg0LdM0V4uOs2yn6cswdYurTpROpQ8s8zmAK8LeKqzaOn8QzK0kUFavb-_eGVFQSUXvFUZflz_ne33qZULND1Sn-NGr1UuvI58In_ns3saSrZP5YHZBt1Q/s1350/lake-blanche-hike_oct2020-20.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm4pjryYQ3jXDorq2qg0LdM0V4uOs2yn6cswdYurTpROpQ8s8zmAK8LeKqzaOn8QzK0kUFavb-_eGVFQSUXvFUZflz_ne33qZULND1Sn-NGr1UuvI58In_ns3saSrZP5YHZBt1Q/w512-h640/lake-blanche-hike_oct2020-20.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQhpCHGdk-M0H-olXCLVNnLG6qo7G5cuunAqRK3wkz9NFKEXZ4YBI0WLnBi9KZMeJVuHseUKLxXJDmvDnxl_-d0jroElx4JlR61Q_RwKeyMUtiwvHKzZgMtvO147AVyUwMHa0lg/s1350/bells-canyon-hike_oct2020-26.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQhpCHGdk-M0H-olXCLVNnLG6qo7G5cuunAqRK3wkz9NFKEXZ4YBI0WLnBi9KZMeJVuHseUKLxXJDmvDnxl_-d0jroElx4JlR61Q_RwKeyMUtiwvHKzZgMtvO147AVyUwMHa0lg/w512-h640/bells-canyon-hike_oct2020-26.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjps9TeDYH_F2pEYBGlkZvgzwJ1dmSezcbGv7mVbUFRxNnnc0rd4RddbBxjt8ItlaNsPRSDarSR8-8Gm1EW0XFeKoNi_uzs13kluAZcOmazdBzlcV-28dhXPyBsP1fpJJpuCYgyCA/s1920/timpanogos-falls-hike_sep2020-89.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjps9TeDYH_F2pEYBGlkZvgzwJ1dmSezcbGv7mVbUFRxNnnc0rd4RddbBxjt8ItlaNsPRSDarSR8-8Gm1EW0XFeKoNi_uzs13kluAZcOmazdBzlcV-28dhXPyBsP1fpJJpuCYgyCA/w640-h360/timpanogos-falls-hike_sep2020-89.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgE8S0EOWOJP9A8lWsy01w1ZfiSYXTw_gl17ONUtCg1UUHW_iR2L4PFwo0tx-b8nYpvES1DYcCrq1KZhKwIYRm_ttw6_c79fZ1wrtqiO7oBtV1nG3dwQegs_G3dKj93kA97E1UQ/s1350/alpine-loop-drive_sep2020-66.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgE8S0EOWOJP9A8lWsy01w1ZfiSYXTw_gl17ONUtCg1UUHW_iR2L4PFwo0tx-b8nYpvES1DYcCrq1KZhKwIYRm_ttw6_c79fZ1wrtqiO7oBtV1nG3dwQegs_G3dKj93kA97E1UQ/w512-h640/alpine-loop-drive_sep2020-66.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Before my birthday delivered the usual combination of celebration and self-generated angst--highlighted by my first visit to the Spiral Jetty, where the water really is pink--the family celebrated another birthday as my sister gave birth to her fourth little girl early in October. This rare bit of genuinely good 2020 news took me back to 2008, when my sister's wedding proved to be one of the lone highlights of another challenging year.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9Ex4fYV5mmdc1LgCDFOzvXDiIWRmjdqUYhPArTgFUHn3q1ZsHQfbwEzV-VlrsnQlVGOgAKzvFbUotSUuKOBJxpu8hOIRzliJDZfBrpcKEmw-XCIJAjUOjTQxgvm_fkL43-DA_Q/s1620/meeting-juliet_oct2020-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9Ex4fYV5mmdc1LgCDFOzvXDiIWRmjdqUYhPArTgFUHn3q1ZsHQfbwEzV-VlrsnQlVGOgAKzvFbUotSUuKOBJxpu8hOIRzliJDZfBrpcKEmw-XCIJAjUOjTQxgvm_fkL43-DA_Q/w640-h426/meeting-juliet_oct2020-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BmwFtuWRXtt12nxQQTa3VVLchvvm2hoxGg8akR0DhrAc3AvKLijx-HrOYu1f8d_-NpXh1qoqCsCAqc7Yo48yyr5LUxFdosZ5afNArv7URS1Nd9q3KTBQoXZs0UHK6zsY1ebHvQ/s1350/meeting-juliet_oct2020-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BmwFtuWRXtt12nxQQTa3VVLchvvm2hoxGg8akR0DhrAc3AvKLijx-HrOYu1f8d_-NpXh1qoqCsCAqc7Yo48yyr5LUxFdosZ5afNArv7URS1Nd9q3KTBQoXZs0UHK6zsY1ebHvQ/w512-h640/meeting-juliet_oct2020-4.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO974hL9Yr6ugO9OBTZWBFdzF9p5h9VfACE83G4wvdn_IlfLKikJfEacu4-etZQ9nS88e9Iwn-5x-fjreyj5S6VuDrl4xnELaQPe_LGm42MzLbTBIawB3nHf8epcquw-XjcULU0w/s1620/spiral-jetty-hike_oct2020-41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO974hL9Yr6ugO9OBTZWBFdzF9p5h9VfACE83G4wvdn_IlfLKikJfEacu4-etZQ9nS88e9Iwn-5x-fjreyj5S6VuDrl4xnELaQPe_LGm42MzLbTBIawB3nHf8epcquw-XjcULU0w/w640-h426/spiral-jetty-hike_oct2020-41.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It was really disappointing to have to cancel my road trip in August, but one nice thing about getting older is that time moves pretty fast, so I knew it wouldn't take long until my next opportunity arrived. I still wound up pushing back my trip window thanks to lingering haze from the California wildfires, then, on the second of November, I finally set out for my first legit road trip since the Coronapocalypse turned 2020 on its ear. My first stops were familiar favorites--Valley of Fire, Las Vegas, Death Valley--though I tried to seek out some new options and compositions in each spot. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQVOLZ2D8-Xz8Fjzzk3KO5cePrxk0WCr_6MQME8OndkpTRjZFNU0Y5M5AMb9ywNudrhl1mSKqWIPqhOUMhCB_TEvzF_nCcC1Zt0Iw9eJWdZxZtRLseUr4MupFuhUlkGjc-xFVUQ/s1620/fall-break-trip_nevada_nov2020-24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhQVOLZ2D8-Xz8Fjzzk3KO5cePrxk0WCr_6MQME8OndkpTRjZFNU0Y5M5AMb9ywNudrhl1mSKqWIPqhOUMhCB_TEvzF_nCcC1Zt0Iw9eJWdZxZtRLseUr4MupFuhUlkGjc-xFVUQ/w640-h426/fall-break-trip_nevada_nov2020-24.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLIx5kqe8oX9qB4Uh4p6-sNI11qDL5L1tE1e3iCcV_MpZ7wOEZTyzIelWuBCiwok_D-0GXWsSno6iyGt-P8z2siMfOh4T1XM2GZ95TIlR3I0JpjAqahDYPw51CCLG362Gew8pVg/s1350/fall-break-trip_nevada_nov2020-64.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaLIx5kqe8oX9qB4Uh4p6-sNI11qDL5L1tE1e3iCcV_MpZ7wOEZTyzIelWuBCiwok_D-0GXWsSno6iyGt-P8z2siMfOh4T1XM2GZ95TIlR3I0JpjAqahDYPw51CCLG362Gew8pVg/w512-h640/fall-break-trip_nevada_nov2020-64.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvcjIDbDnX6SlyLVf1O8Ju08UzJ8mUx9Ie-iudZF7DUOSYtCUrR9vBaAc6EC727EhuRSV5nd2X3mQ79oQdu2KgjTmZqu2luG3yGfT3ni_7XrdAqvKHqSF7MXhuwQSxR-UE8BbOQ/s1920/fall-break_nov2020-day3-4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIvcjIDbDnX6SlyLVf1O8Ju08UzJ8mUx9Ie-iudZF7DUOSYtCUrR9vBaAc6EC727EhuRSV5nd2X3mQ79oQdu2KgjTmZqu2luG3yGfT3ni_7XrdAqvKHqSF7MXhuwQSxR-UE8BbOQ/w640-h360/fall-break_nov2020-day3-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA1Wx1BI7M5G00gzAaZdbfKxmZTWHPQb9T-_7NnGgIPJ9lKItU2nZD5_yCtm4FsIXCtTltCEJbhcZxpuHmVEi2V_uTgSEeAKYVVsMHVlCwuIijTcv-28ZPgarPJNve2j0XJz6rPQ/s1620/fall-break-trip_dvalley1_nov2020-42.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA1Wx1BI7M5G00gzAaZdbfKxmZTWHPQb9T-_7NnGgIPJ9lKItU2nZD5_yCtm4FsIXCtTltCEJbhcZxpuHmVEi2V_uTgSEeAKYVVsMHVlCwuIijTcv-28ZPgarPJNve2j0XJz6rPQ/w640-h426/fall-break-trip_dvalley1_nov2020-42.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Things really got interesting on day three, as I finally arrived in Yosemite National Park for the first time. This one was a true bucket list experience. I was apprehensive to find so much haze floating around Ansel Adams' playground as I crossed the Tioga Pass and dropped down into the famous Yosemite Valley, but over the next couple of days, that long-awaited visit more than lived up to its anticipation. Things got nuts on the way home (one of many 2020 stories worthy of its own post), and I had to bump planned stops at the Goldfield Car Forest and Cathedral Gorge State Park in Nevada, but I still managed a productive shoot at the Bonneville Salt Flats that capped off one of my most cherished experiences of 2020.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUspWFcRUIzS-3qVc1LVCYQzdc4rnWmGDUDlWDtkWDmySVEvVuOEFpz2eX_KgBzoMl7DbTLe31bBzDsmYWHy_et56Mt-63k59del0fEV77eE6W7iZk3-feVVqnEGJTv9gEJSKlZw/s1620/fall-break_nov2020-day3b-23.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUspWFcRUIzS-3qVc1LVCYQzdc4rnWmGDUDlWDtkWDmySVEvVuOEFpz2eX_KgBzoMl7DbTLe31bBzDsmYWHy_et56Mt-63k59del0fEV77eE6W7iZk3-feVVqnEGJTv9gEJSKlZw/w640-h426/fall-break_nov2020-day3b-23.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not me.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5L_U2WAp2i-8fKnzl53pC0Ngc7rD-r4DydHknaOXiybA1o1eHCi48yCkJoh8LHMVyBluMt2i7KRwXnr0a1C3ZxqjHvAPqqPebWdWoUp2a7Qsa4V3gttZt7quewTXSBKl2KxDpA/s1620/fall-break_nov2020-day3b-48.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5L_U2WAp2i-8fKnzl53pC0Ngc7rD-r4DydHknaOXiybA1o1eHCi48yCkJoh8LHMVyBluMt2i7KRwXnr0a1C3ZxqjHvAPqqPebWdWoUp2a7Qsa4V3gttZt7quewTXSBKl2KxDpA/w426-h640/fall-break_nov2020-day3b-48.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4TeSjoFC78QAEGmUM3WzvIkUKWCjmB2H6TV2TDgy4OJsYaodcqeAo2sYsBFOQyJPPigL7IpN7ow2arri47gBtSQZ-7pJkdL6am71xv4MtvTUlIMwAjxg7HvRTekW4-LHzR2gOg/s1620/fall-break_nov2020-day5-5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4TeSjoFC78QAEGmUM3WzvIkUKWCjmB2H6TV2TDgy4OJsYaodcqeAo2sYsBFOQyJPPigL7IpN7ow2arri47gBtSQZ-7pJkdL6am71xv4MtvTUlIMwAjxg7HvRTekW4-LHzR2gOg/w640-h426/fall-break_nov2020-day5-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUH2UoNy1fNnkNC_Gk_RJUP_9BiVV4pP3ZRpNhBFHMhiXuC6-1s-6MSbNRD1kbq3CPM8G4x3j5l77-HqUBYIFB0dgT8XlRmo4GJkkoPtMy5Ip1OJD_HlYcZ4STuiatxxFfgvQzA/s1620/fall-break_nov2020-day6-24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKUH2UoNy1fNnkNC_Gk_RJUP_9BiVV4pP3ZRpNhBFHMhiXuC6-1s-6MSbNRD1kbq3CPM8G4x3j5l77-HqUBYIFB0dgT8XlRmo4GJkkoPtMy5Ip1OJD_HlYcZ4STuiatxxFfgvQzA/w640-h426/fall-break_nov2020-day6-24.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">H O L I D A Y S</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">By the time I returned from Yosemite, I'd gotten used to the parade of catastrophes that turned 2020 into a four-letter-word. And for every personal setback, I noted family and friends who seemed to be encountering far worse. But somehow the funk that pervaded November felt different. Yes, there was a contested election, but as the weather turned bad, there was also a sense that everything I had done to offset the year's limitations weren't going to be options moving forward, and with COVID cases spiking and a vaccine still months away, the reality was that the holidays--and life in general--were going to be severely compromised. I was rolling with things in September, but by mid-November I was officially fed up with 2020.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As always, it was important to focus on the positive. A fun studio shoot with Chidsey and some timely family portrait shoots brought in some work, and a special #givethanks social media campaign from President Nelson helped stir up some good vibes. Thanksgiving dinner turned into yet another Zoom experience, but life kept chugging along, even if I couldn't keep my students from finding ways to write argument papers about video games.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpiT2zX5d35zQ2ucqhegTutkx4G47K0G7GDcgajky3nQX0KAF75YpT10zfLCNhNN3ZqGU4nh8dXVcobhtcTnXrGveGuhmnZk4A5z3DZ6jSyqcv-plvswZXYEZCaB75qWRcoE70Q/s1620/sqwak-studio-shoot_nov2020-49.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpiT2zX5d35zQ2ucqhegTutkx4G47K0G7GDcgajky3nQX0KAF75YpT10zfLCNhNN3ZqGU4nh8dXVcobhtcTnXrGveGuhmnZk4A5z3DZ6jSyqcv-plvswZXYEZCaB75qWRcoE70Q/w640-h426/sqwak-studio-shoot_nov2020-49.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f7svPPjRUfUEXOQoHBHQgyo9PmfsX8-UC2ADh0i25ZhF5L5XxCsIrvESREcEchLYTqdDqD7GZjcvUZtlpmJg6mXTd-LnATr15103mM5LpLdMlNRQNnMx7hfuovfYlEbBk5JUTg/s1350/pinson-family_nov2020-web-32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1350" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f7svPPjRUfUEXOQoHBHQgyo9PmfsX8-UC2ADh0i25ZhF5L5XxCsIrvESREcEchLYTqdDqD7GZjcvUZtlpmJg6mXTd-LnATr15103mM5LpLdMlNRQNnMx7hfuovfYlEbBk5JUTg/w640-h512/pinson-family_nov2020-web-32.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnFtTGv66UIQ0P2ozBabPxWAA5L_czgh0Ru2ybinvKKPXhbOGZpnmP1fR2Qy6pNB5nTXQdWMWj2qyd0fJa38U5ZXNnJQXFsGSNoAvx1n1ChOgv4u2kHhSINmvGs6vYcrgL5g9Vg/s1350/jones-family_nov2020-web-57.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnFtTGv66UIQ0P2ozBabPxWAA5L_czgh0Ru2ybinvKKPXhbOGZpnmP1fR2Qy6pNB5nTXQdWMWj2qyd0fJa38U5ZXNnJQXFsGSNoAvx1n1ChOgv4u2kHhSINmvGs6vYcrgL5g9Vg/w512-h640/jones-family_nov2020-web-57.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thanks to the pandemic, the Christmas season was a dramatically different experience from previous years. There were only a couple of new movies to cover ("Soul" would have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMCQZjuNQcg&t=2s" target="_blank">been a favorite</a> even in a normal year), and mercifully, the semester wrapped without incident. I wound up pushing back my semi-traditional pre-Christmas photo trip, but kept busy with other efforts, like putting together a brand-new home office in the basement. The season felt compromised, but once again the good things helped. A Zoom message from our local sister missionaries on Christmas Eve, another Zoom-enabled Yahtzee game with one of my nieces earlier in the week. Temple Square was closed to the public, but I still managed to get some Christmas pictures, including a trip out to Antelope Island to shoot the "Christmas Star" just after sundown one evening.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In spite of the complications, Christmas itself turned out well, and without some of the usual distractions, I think it was a little easier to think about the significance of the holiday. I wasn't a huge fan of "Frozen 2," but watching my mom and three of my nieces piled up on the couch watching last year's animated sequel was about as satisfying an image as I'll take from 2020. Over the last few years it had become clear that as much as I loved travel and photography and food any number of worldly things, it was the people around me who added the most to my life. That remained true this year, even if that companionship often had to come at a safe distance.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB0lVmPDxItFr166qymoBv7SDccg1eNToiKOAxLEDhnSyogySHZAX7b3gWnLraH8gBfEQXMb7IicavDUfe_5iqNRAZohH9EW10ziWbb-nfmJ4WNojSwEJ2TG_WblgvHOP7ovKB9w/s1350/december-mini-shoots_dec2020-6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB0lVmPDxItFr166qymoBv7SDccg1eNToiKOAxLEDhnSyogySHZAX7b3gWnLraH8gBfEQXMb7IicavDUfe_5iqNRAZohH9EW10ziWbb-nfmJ4WNojSwEJ2TG_WblgvHOP7ovKB9w/w512-h640/december-mini-shoots_dec2020-6.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYS7KQHsH7kAMuEqXslcPRfEk-rtq6rPetJKE-HuTg9DZ3p6kYsFyFTGeNY9G2BVfr6QKc9AKh01gqWGfJ8pHrFTqXg3qPWtYI018Hx237ZH35Yc8peqTaTpo-5HI9HpoZFbWSVw/s1350/christmas-star-shoot_dec2020-25.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYS7KQHsH7kAMuEqXslcPRfEk-rtq6rPetJKE-HuTg9DZ3p6kYsFyFTGeNY9G2BVfr6QKc9AKh01gqWGfJ8pHrFTqXg3qPWtYI018Hx237ZH35Yc8peqTaTpo-5HI9HpoZFbWSVw/w512-h640/christmas-star-shoot_dec2020-25.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trust me, the Christmas Star is in this shot somewhere.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUpz57SjfURSmM19eZw4Ci32DAJBcqi0KiOqOS27oos0fiiZBNFaZvpNQpZ30C1q4szvNZHJ9DqR7B5dDL4_G4iaxTbhP4E7uhiUEurpj5I9lOheWHhxqBW5JkCfIAbvKZ-S87qw/s1620/slc-temple-contruction_dec2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUpz57SjfURSmM19eZw4Ci32DAJBcqi0KiOqOS27oos0fiiZBNFaZvpNQpZ30C1q4szvNZHJ9DqR7B5dDL4_G4iaxTbhP4E7uhiUEurpj5I9lOheWHhxqBW5JkCfIAbvKZ-S87qw/w640-h426/slc-temple-contruction_dec2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3W5PszySZq9ORn3fToI1eBdqXIbp-KP8AHBJ2LEgvFJnUEJQOu0GcFmyjWxtzoBZPyXlpfF16Fi8X0eTtwKOmfSW5SAkOa-I6-Codnm9pVSrNz24sLtIUUyij24MOb0NK5VbQg/s1620/juliet-repose_dec2020.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1620" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt3W5PszySZq9ORn3fToI1eBdqXIbp-KP8AHBJ2LEgvFJnUEJQOu0GcFmyjWxtzoBZPyXlpfF16Fi8X0eTtwKOmfSW5SAkOa-I6-Codnm9pVSrNz24sLtIUUyij24MOb0NK5VbQg/w640-h426/juliet-repose_dec2020.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>* * *</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When President Nelson announced the #givethanks campaign back in November, it was easy to think of plenty of things I was grateful for. I posted a few of them to social media, but one thing stuck out to me as the campaign wound down. I didn't post it at the time, and as I've been putting together this wrap-up in recent weeks, I have second-guessed my sentiments almost daily. But I have to admit the truth: I am grateful for 2020.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">From the moment it started, 2020 has been a merciless slog, a relentless wave of bad news, hassles, and outright tragedy. And yet, when I look back on this year, I see an awful lot of lemonade that came from 2020's lemons. When things first shut down and we all had to shelter in place, I'll remember going around the neighborhood with my longtime friend, taking porch portraits and keeping people's spirits up. When the gym closed and I had to find other ways to exercise, I wound up hiking all over Northern Utah. When the windstorm took out a pair of trees that had been in my parents' backyard for pushing six decades, my neighbors banded together and did what neighbors do. Not everything bad had an instant counterpoint, and there are plenty of loose ends heading into 2021, but that misses the point. 2020 was a test of our resolve, and even though it was ugly at times--spectacularly ugly at times--resilience won.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One night in December, I drove down to the Provo City Center Temple to take some pictures around sunset. Though I've never attended this particular temple, it has always been one of my favorites. Years ago, the Provo City Center Temple used to be the Provo Tabernacle, a beloved historic building that hosted all sorts of meetings over decades of service. Ten years before my visit--almost to the day--<a href="https://www.ksl.com/article/13693318/fire-guts-provo-tabernacle" target="_blank">a fire gutted</a> the iconic building, leaving little more than a shell behind. But rather than raze the remains, I wasn't surprised at all when then-President Thomas S. Monson announced that the building would be fully restored, and upgraded to a functioning temple. I wasn't surprised because that's what the Atonement of Jesus Christ does. It takes gutted, empty souls and makes them better than they were before.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ssedEPhvJ3wheqFg_p4kMMS0RFU7tCDP1Z1GKjdDmVhuCinJNifX1I_ksrGsqIlCw3e7PG1CGXhtOqxhAJSHIz5-2ufp2qRlh1JknXvA4c4_j3nTTdVUDry77ZKCW0P93-pyJQ/s1350/provo-cc-temple_dec2020-3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ssedEPhvJ3wheqFg_p4kMMS0RFU7tCDP1Z1GKjdDmVhuCinJNifX1I_ksrGsqIlCw3e7PG1CGXhtOqxhAJSHIz5-2ufp2qRlh1JknXvA4c4_j3nTTdVUDry77ZKCW0P93-pyJQ/w512-h640/provo-cc-temple_dec2020-3.jpg" width="512" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;">2020 gutted all of us. Even before the pandemic kicked in, for months it seemed to me as if more of my friends and family and acquaintances were struggling with serious challenges and trials than usual. As my sister observed early on, COVID-19 just kind of concentrated the pain, and brought everything else into amplified relief. But with a little gratitude, a little resilience, and some valuable perspective, this year may turn us into something even better than we were before. It may still take a while; we can't count on convenient measures of time to magically solve our problems. January is January. But in the meantime, there's always good stuff; there are always silver linings. There is always hope.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For one thing, I won't have to spend New Year's Eve at a single's dance.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Happy New Year, everyone. We've earned it.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-70291669939382785762020-03-27T09:53:00.003-06:002020-03-27T09:53:36.638-06:00Resolution Accomplished: The 2019 Power Lunch SeriesIn the spring of 2018 I took my oldest niece out to lunch at the Park Cafe in Salt Lake City. Thanks to their oversized Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes, the Park Cafe had become a favorite for all my nieces, and this time around I decided to capture the experience. When our food arrived, I grabbed my camera, lined up my niece with her food, and widened the frame enough to capture some of the atmosphere of the cafe. She smiled, and I took the picture.<br />
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In a year that had me taking pictures everywhere from our nation's capital to the Southern California coast, that informal portrait of my grinning niece was my favorite image of 2018, and it set a template for what was to come. In December, as I put together my photo essay wrap-up for the year, it was clear that the time I spent with friends and family and even random strangers was what really made 2018 shine. So going into 2019, I made only one resolution: every time I went to lunch with a friend or a member of my family, I would take their picture.<br />
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The visual template was inspired by my Park Cafe lunch with my niece, but inspiration for what the project became came from many sources. I've been a huge fan of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" series ever since it popped up on Netflix, and when I saw Seinfeld joking with his fellow comedians at coffee shops, the rhythm and banter reminded me of what I experienced with my own friends. Snagging an informal portrait of all my friends felt like a modest riff on the format.<br />
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My ambivalence for social media was another inspiration. I've never felt comfortable with the idea of self-promotion, and the self-interested, competitive "look at me!" nature of Facebook and Instagram often leaves me feeling like my junior high years are reaching out to drag me back into the 1990s. Going into 2019, I didn't know exactly where I'd take my portrait project, but I figured it would show up on social media in one form or another. When I decided to post my portraits along with a brief profile of each friend, it felt like a unique opportunity to make social media look outward instead of inward.<br />
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I got the ball rolling in early January when my buddy Chidsey joined me for lunch at El Rocoto, a favorite Peruvian spot in West Bountiful. Chidsey wore his favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg T-shirt for the occasion, and after a few quick shots, I had my first entry in the can. Lunches with other friends followed at a steady pace, but as 2019 entered February, I continued to stockpile pictures without going public. By the time I posted Chidsey's mug in mid-March, I was piling up portraits quickly enough to wonder if I should set a goal to complete 52 total by the end of the year--enough to post one a week for a full twelve months.<br />
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I think it was around there that the project shifted from a casual "for fun" kind of thing to a priority. In addition to my regular rotation of lunch buddies, I started picking out different people who represented specific phases of my life--schools where I'd studied, jobs I'd worked, wards I'd attended. I continued posting a new subject every Friday, taking care to make sure the profiles focused on the friend, and not on me. I was still looking outward. But as the project grew, I realized I was compiling a strange kind of autobiography, a self-portrait made of the people who had colored my life.<br />
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The reaction on social media was almost universally positive. I think one or two people thought I had posted a picture because our mutual friend had died, and amusingly, several people assumed I was posting in honor of the subject's birthday, and commented accordingly. There was also a stark difference between platforms. The Facebook posts, which roped in my "friend" network as well as those of the subject, generated a lot of reaction. The Instagram posts, not so much. But overall, people really seemed to enjoy what I was doing.<br />
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That wasn't the only thing I noticed. On the technical side, I noticed that most restaurants aren't built for handheld portrait photography. The pictures in the series really don't look like much--more often than not, it's just a guy and some food--but the dim lighting and the tight spaces made getting those pictures a lot harder than you might suspect. In fact, on two occasions I made people go out with me a second time because I wasn't happy with our first shot, and though I tried to go to a different location for each lunch, I left out a couple of my favorite restaurants because I didn't know if I'd be able to work in their weak lighting.<br />
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Certain themes became obvious right away. Based on the people I featured, it would be easy for a newcomer to assume I was a balding white male in early middle age. It was actually very frustrating that I couldn't include more women in the project, but since I didn't bring my camera on dates, and didn't feel comfortable asking my married female friends out to lunch...well, let's just say the project is pretty dude-heavy. I did take lunch portraits of all three of my nieces in 2019, but didn't elect to profile them on social media, being an over-protective helicopter uncle and all.<br />
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I also noticed that some people just didn't want to get their picture taken. Over the course of the year there were several people I approached who either refused outright or were just evasive enough to suggest they weren't keen to be featured. While I understand their hesitation, and tried not to take the rejections personally, I feel their absence when I look through the results.<br />
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Eventually I had to come to grips with the idea that in spite of my efforts, I wouldn't be able to include everyone I wanted, even if they were all willing. Over the course of the year I made a list of candidates that stretches far beyond the people I actually managed to sit down with in 2019, and at times I worried that I was overlooking someone, or that people might start to perceive my effort as a kind of clique. One of the most common reactions to the project was a statement along the lines of, "wow, you know a lot of people," which I thought was funny. I've never thought of myself as a particularly popular person, at least not in a "run for student office" sense, but I'm old enough to realize that a lot of people have shaped my life along the way. I think most people could name several dozen memorable figures from their lives; the only difference is that I tried to drag them all into local restaurants and take pictures of them in public.<br />
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Altogether, my Power Lunch Series was one of the most rewarding projects I've ever been involved with, let alone completed. By the end of the calendar year, I had 56 lunch portraits, and a bonus image from my dad's favorite Jewish deli in Salt Lake capped off things nicely. Through the experience, I learned a lot about my family and friends, and even myself. The project has filled me with gratitude and great food--a fantastic combination--and it's amusing to think that in a year that saw me travel abroad for the first time, the thing that will define 2019 was a bunch of pictures I took of my friends and family as they sat in front of their lunch.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-29089239502423784872019-12-30T17:26:00.000-07:002019-12-30T18:18:11.832-07:00People, Places, and More People: Images of 2019In a macro sense, 2019 wasn't all that different from the last few years. I taught a few classes for Weber State University, I wrote a bunch of film reviews for the Deseret News, and I filled the gaps with as much photography as I could. I spent lots of time with my family and lots of time at the gym, which helped to justify all the time I spent in front of the TV eating Peruvian takeout. But 2019 also featured a lot of firsts: I caught my first fish, I ran my first 10K, and I traveled out of the country for the first time, thanks to a hot tip on a discounted plane ticket from a guitar-playing, motorcycle riding buddy of mine. I even got my first season pass to Lagoon, which would be embarrassing at my age if it wasn't to help my sister entertain my nieces over the summer break.<br />
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But as I think back on 2019, one theme jumps the most: people. Over the course of the year, I took numerous pictures of family and friends, and even when I was photographing landscapes or urban subjects, I tried to be a little more outgoing with the people I met along the way. I spent the entire year on a special portrait project that, in addition to all the travel photography, made for an exhausting twelve months. But it was the kind of exhausting that left you grateful for the experience, and helped offset everything that didn't go right in 2019.<br />
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As always, I've compiled a high-quality gallery of my best images for the year on <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/Best-of-2019" target="_blank">my official website</a>. But if you prefer the rambling narrative and the loosely organized chaos, read on:<br />
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<b>- WINTER -</b></div>
<b><br /></b>Going into 2019, I really only had one concrete resolution: to take a picture of every friend I had lunch with throughout the year. After <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/Power-Lunch-Series" target="_blank">stockpiling images</a> for two months, I started making weekly social media posts that included a brief profile for each friend. Things steamrolled from there, and by the end of the year I'd photographed well over 50 friends and family members. Aside from the satisfaction of following through on an interesting idea, the project felt like a rare effort to use social media to look out instead of in. 2019 was a really great year in a lot of ways, and this experience will likely define it.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcugcAyKYz5pYpdpcvmNG3PsI-x8xtHHqdf9KWPnRmQaTRB246yZ6N6sDC55JiQrH7AGfVRb_EwArmfEPzhDRLR9chxaRG-PrdNosO5RAG_ubZoRFEOxz1Fhwb3PaVjibiWG6z4A/s1600/2009_edits-27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcugcAyKYz5pYpdpcvmNG3PsI-x8xtHHqdf9KWPnRmQaTRB246yZ6N6sDC55JiQrH7AGfVRb_EwArmfEPzhDRLR9chxaRG-PrdNosO5RAG_ubZoRFEOxz1Fhwb3PaVjibiWG6z4A/s640/2009_edits-27.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chidsey wore his RBG shirt special for my first official Power Lunch Portrait in January.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihezAvyL7TgizdK-E-okKHC9DvECaswp-8TYY6aqPeFghwVLWNiDLKpYpJYWhpAZw7xTDbc2qM5w5fvZZNqlTQFPxyj9fghHCb92o_-4sjtcLyaI5tI9V2JWnHnhs3n3M9nBhlbw/s640/lunchseries_tanner-evan1_june2019.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My friend Tanner brought a special guest for this unreleased Power "Lunch" pic (it was really breakfast).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy48ChT0P-P_3gG5G7pMCs5y5GhY793Noy4mNbw-eMj8w38zlmn84MCC6-diwng0FjKtInt7uwv-VxCpQlcfe3qqTfIrwFGeQWj0Hzsxm9YrXzSSg8uzoEWwNl5_jYit7PwWpkg/s1600/may7-edits_indy-etc_may2019-42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCy48ChT0P-P_3gG5G7pMCs5y5GhY793Noy4mNbw-eMj8w38zlmn84MCC6-diwng0FjKtInt7uwv-VxCpQlcfe3qqTfIrwFGeQWj0Hzsxm9YrXzSSg8uzoEWwNl5_jYit7PwWpkg/s640/may7-edits_indy-etc_may2019-42.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the face of a man stranded in Cheyenne, wondering if he will have to stay the night.</td></tr>
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Around the same time I started my lunch project, I got some of the hardest news of the year when a friend of mine from high school passed away after a swim practice at the Bountiful Rec Center. Though I followed his career on Facebook, I hadn't spoken with Jason in several years, and his passing was an important reminder that as convenient as social media might be, it's important to engage with our friends and loved ones directly whenever we can. It was also a reminder to act fast when we have a good idea, because I missed the chance to photograph the tribute Jason's students put up on a wall at Bountiful Jr. High, where he taught English for several years before his death.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(This is where the picture of Jason's tribute wall would have gone.)</span></div>
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Missed opportunities aside, it wasn't long before one of 2019's biggest highlights pierced the winter blahs. I can only name a handful of moments in my life that qualify as life-changing, but the birth of my first niece in 2011 is an easy entry. In 2019, that memory got even sweeter as I attended her baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was honored to give a brief talk as part of the program, and prior to the big day, we spent some time up at the state capitol building getting a few pictures in her baptismal dress.<br />
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In February, almost seven years after <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2012/07/where-have-you-gone-mr-winegar.html" target="_blank">Dick's Market vacated </a>its longtime location on Pages Lane to move north into Centerville, my wistful dreams of having a Trader Joe's a block from my house were officially demolished to make way for a new sub-division of single family homes. Over the years, my junior high and high school have been reshaped by substantial remodels, and very few of the buildings that hosted my courses at the University of Utah remain intact. Watching the old Dick's location get wiped off the map has been a surreal reminder that time moves on, and that change is a constant in life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV0GR3V2mdcOFM_w0lk_0giYPnJo4oyV-gj-1FdzGkq4C0I4W6XoXIfosJDAnb0breArJZg0Hg9eOZEo0AEaCRdNKgsfUx987bb6HD9vUr5TiuNbF_mPViKTGDduNNzePQNoVmgg/s1600/dicks-demolition_oscar-party_feb19-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV0GR3V2mdcOFM_w0lk_0giYPnJo4oyV-gj-1FdzGkq4C0I4W6XoXIfosJDAnb0breArJZg0Hg9eOZEo0AEaCRdNKgsfUx987bb6HD9vUr5TiuNbF_mPViKTGDduNNzePQNoVmgg/s640/dicks-demolition_oscar-party_feb19-10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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For a professional film critic, I have a decidedly low interest in the Oscars. But I have a high interest in my friend T.C.'s annual Oscar party, which featured the usual hijinks and quality appetizers. I think I scored an all-time low on my award ballot this year. Thank goodness for the commercial break trivia contest.<br />
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I've been attending the VASA Fitness in Bountiful regularly for many years now (and for many years before that gym was a VASA, to tell the truth). Over those years, I've enjoyed getting to know several of my fellow masochists, but none stands out quite like John Kinnear, my 89-year-old friend from South Africa. Conversations with John are one big reason my gym visits have changed from a pained obligation to something I actually look forward to. In March, I talked John into meeting me at a studio in Cottonwood Heights for a portrait session, where I immortalized one of my all-time favorite winning smiles.<br />
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<b>- SPRING -</b></div>
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Every March for the last few years, a spring break road trip has given winter a lively kick in the pants. I had to fight through some rough weather on the way down and back, but this year's loop through Southern Utah added first-time visits to Natural Bridges National Monument and Lower Antelope Canyon (technically in Arizona) alongside triumphant returns to Capitol Reef National Park and Monument Valley.<br />
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Weber's spring break always comes a little early in the season, but it wasn't long before Northern Utah caught up to the nicer weather I enjoyed down south. Five years ago I had a nice time at the state capitol taking pictures with all the spring blossoms in bloom, and as I returned this year for a repeat experience, I had to fight for space with a lot of like-minded fellow locals. But with a little trial and error, I was still able to get one of my favorite images of the year.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFydXcM78cN-tdnEllyYtp4bLeO0L0CXewJTFJKxQBZbOTnaDRSNSd2rwNEngtoKcSYwVfalbERibMdWTtJWsQi6OGPUZtQHC-72E-iDe7W4fiN-hWUr3VEUuTD-cJIf2AAurxpw/s1600/capitol-hill-shoot_apr19b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFydXcM78cN-tdnEllyYtp4bLeO0L0CXewJTFJKxQBZbOTnaDRSNSd2rwNEngtoKcSYwVfalbERibMdWTtJWsQi6OGPUZtQHC-72E-iDe7W4fiN-hWUr3VEUuTD-cJIf2AAurxpw/s640/capitol-hill-shoot_apr19b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I haven't seen near as many concerts over the last few years as I did a decade ago, but I took in a trio of shows in 2019, including an evening with Muse at Vivint Smart Home Arena and a double-bill at Usana Amphitheater with Jimmy Eat World and Third Eye Blind that felt like a college reunion. The most poignant concert, though, was attending the Hives show in Salt Lake in May with three of my four Thunderlips bandmates. We've covered their anthem, "Hate to Say I Told You So" for most all of our performances, and seeing the Hives show us how it was done in person was a special moment for all of us.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-SsdtYjvzc303wjCCwRYuf1jwVwMYceqisD4qyn-DPxmXKSQSG17DbKMi9mnZZ0AvbDBiYi0wVLXPmhmzh1Q8hcPUBRJXgFWNWmW14Q6_HkaqJcFdNYPeWyO8TWY-b3O6iSdQDA/s1600/IMG_3810.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-SsdtYjvzc303wjCCwRYuf1jwVwMYceqisD4qyn-DPxmXKSQSG17DbKMi9mnZZ0AvbDBiYi0wVLXPmhmzh1Q8hcPUBRJXgFWNWmW14Q6_HkaqJcFdNYPeWyO8TWY-b3O6iSdQDA/s640/IMG_3810.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I don't know if it was a special moment for this security guy, but oh well.</td></tr>
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For the second year in a row, I taught a first block summer course for Weber State, which gives me about a week after spring semester to rewire my brain before I jump back into the academic void. This year, though, I was able to squeeze in a trip out to Indiana, where my buddy Randy was selling his Rockagator waterproof backpacks at the annual NRA convention in Indianapolis. Through a little logistic magic, I was able to work in a couple of nights in Chicago in addition to photographing Trump 2020 campaigners and anti-circumcision protestors in Indianapolis, then Randy and I took the long I-70 drive home, stopping along the way to visit several church history sites.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While shooting the Chicago sunrise, I met a fellow photographer named Loic, in town for a marketing internship. </td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMbnwLWni6xHWtnhMpuDPSI2Pd5K0j-bkr2HiiCSqMk9wW727iC7D9002Cfw1v_yE883zU6I7-xcE69ZJEsYrFye3N-__5b7Cxw8xsAxRodSmF2P_b6u4IuvbrxMvRfa9amZ38Hg/s1600/NRA-trip_edits1_apr2019-40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="1080" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMbnwLWni6xHWtnhMpuDPSI2Pd5K0j-bkr2HiiCSqMk9wW727iC7D9002Cfw1v_yE883zU6I7-xcE69ZJEsYrFye3N-__5b7Cxw8xsAxRodSmF2P_b6u4IuvbrxMvRfa9amZ38Hg/s640/NRA-trip_edits1_apr2019-40.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>- SUMMER -</b></div>
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Most of the time I travel on my own, but in the summer I was able to jump in on a handful of quick day trips and overnighters with friends, which offered the chance to have fun and take pictures out of town without having to spend a lot of money. On the first of June I spent a Saturday with my friend Tyler golfing in Cedar City, a couple of weeks later I spent a couple of days off-roading in Capitol Reef National Park with my neighbors Georgia and Milo Paskett, and in July I spent a day with my old friend Shaun (who also teaches at Weber) driving his Corvette up to Bear Lake. I also continued a summer tradition by joining the Smith and Pinson families on their annual Willow Flats campout on the Cub River in Idaho (where I caught the fish).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViLtkiEkA3nRCmy6tYe2gQThgoEKblFWBAJWKmK80UAzpG-hqEWJfFk-FiNlp2FhsXu_8vzeMfLbcDZ_63ms1tDrzAMSSNU1Qr1rQ6yxuerdSD_Q-RmVtAtN0jS_ZfOky51LRcg/s1600/capitol-reef_cedar-city_june2019-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViLtkiEkA3nRCmy6tYe2gQThgoEKblFWBAJWKmK80UAzpG-hqEWJfFk-FiNlp2FhsXu_8vzeMfLbcDZ_63ms1tDrzAMSSNU1Qr1rQ6yxuerdSD_Q-RmVtAtN0jS_ZfOky51LRcg/s640/capitol-reef_cedar-city_june2019-8.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tyler's a pretty good golfer; he's just giving me lots of sand for the sake of the shot.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJ-XaMMX5Q_T3IuF8giDNNcmkxjB4IvChf8LsgnXYfE-Es3TUlWcA_z3GgHRH4p0WO51SJRIkn4aoMF6za6Zi5nLLSzRrMBi99JfPja-5r-ttG8zCIEdThWBoOngdZrJDrMpqmQ/s1600/capitol-reef_cedar-city_june2019-83.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnJ-XaMMX5Q_T3IuF8giDNNcmkxjB4IvChf8LsgnXYfE-Es3TUlWcA_z3GgHRH4p0WO51SJRIkn4aoMF6za6Zi5nLLSzRrMBi99JfPja-5r-ttG8zCIEdThWBoOngdZrJDrMpqmQ/s640/capitol-reef_cedar-city_june2019-83.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to my neighbors' four-wheel drive, I was finally able to photograph the best spot in Capitol Reef.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shaun sold the Vette later this year, so I'm especially honored to have enjoyed a test drive.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpk4vSE3vwpUZUfTXqJgL4iDUQa-kBvwkqGMewZ8vrxOjvxXKkhfrO7MW1D4-PZDrFwKbDSRP_StJJTBe0DU3mbjcI6mj1Ba_1wA-slL55A_vFTyaRwrfgXZq3IbSD4cn1yldnxA/s1600/willow_flats_july2019-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpk4vSE3vwpUZUfTXqJgL4iDUQa-kBvwkqGMewZ8vrxOjvxXKkhfrO7MW1D4-PZDrFwKbDSRP_StJJTBe0DU3mbjcI6mj1Ba_1wA-slL55A_vFTyaRwrfgXZq3IbSD4cn1yldnxA/s640/willow_flats_july2019-16.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My buddy Brian gave me some headlamp assistance with my Willow Flats Milky Way composition.</td></tr>
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At the end of last year I capped off a 12-month obsession with ceviche by finally learning to make the item myself. This year, thanks to a thoughtful Christmas gift, I drove down to Utah County for a complimentary sushi class, where I learned to make yet another favorite fish dish. A couple of months later, as part of my Power Lunch project, I met up with my friend Ben Baker at a Centerville spot named Fuji Sushi, and one of the pictures I took won their Instagram contest. I kept up my obsession with ceviche, and I did order a lot of Peruvian takeout over the year, but between my class and my repeated visits to Fuji Sushi (as well as various other spots like Tsunami, Happy Sumo, and--no kidding--Tony's Grill and Sushi Bar), sushi has to take the award for Josh's Food Obsession of 2019.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkaHmODGFTPCGh8SgTgn3gcS5h_7_1_icmT0GXPmVK81ALSqqq522b57jzPu-3Rs6YsA8KRgTJVhWNc4nihOD14WcE5hX-kPTgL5yQkVQwG5cPcbDZEY66PBieUei_DJpdl_Jcw/s1600/lunchseries_july-8-2019-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPkaHmODGFTPCGh8SgTgn3gcS5h_7_1_icmT0GXPmVK81ALSqqq522b57jzPu-3Rs6YsA8KRgTJVhWNc4nihOD14WcE5hX-kPTgL5yQkVQwG5cPcbDZEY66PBieUei_DJpdl_Jcw/s640/lunchseries_july-8-2019-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Though this technically isn't sushi (it's Beef Tataki), it is the shot that won Fuji Sushi's Instagram contest.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><br />For the last year and a half, I've been teaching the primary kids on Sundays, and for most of that stretch I've been working with my friend Chris. Halfway through 2019 I enjoyed an unexpected first, when Chris invited me to attend his sealing to his wife and kids at the Bountiful Temple. I'd never attended a sealing that included kids before, and the experience was awesome.</span><br />
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I can't remember if it was for my sister's birthday or Christmas--seriously, everything that happened in 2019 before fall feels like it happened about five years ago--but at some point I gifted her the entry fee for the 5K of her choice, along with a promise to run the race with her. Somewhere along the way she talked me into doing a 10K instead. While I've generally kept in shape over the years, I was a little apprehensive about finishing the entire race (I'd never run more than a 5K previously). My worries proved unfounded, however, and Katie and I had a great time at a midnight run out at the Davis County Fairgrounds. She even took first place in her division (I was fourth...of four).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWmSeFF-WCVT4doI1PEupM7Rl-CtGbpAyl7_ecQteJGbXLpATdCk_BZ7BqlfbzdolSYPnCPLxJuEABSiK-vBhCgBt-YosYbgsDLHCmDNLwU_W3Du_oN9WPjg6GLSAz-A4EJSeAw/s1600/IMG_4041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWmSeFF-WCVT4doI1PEupM7Rl-CtGbpAyl7_ecQteJGbXLpATdCk_BZ7BqlfbzdolSYPnCPLxJuEABSiK-vBhCgBt-YosYbgsDLHCmDNLwU_W3Du_oN9WPjg6GLSAz-A4EJSeAw/s640/IMG_4041.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I look a lot more presentable in this pre-race picture.</td></tr>
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Once I wrapped up my summer class for Weber, I had a nearly two-month window of time to fill before fall classes started. Part of that time was taken up writing reviews for a pretty mediocre slate of summer movies, but I also tried to get out of town where possible. In July, I checked a new national park off my list when I drove up to Glacier for a couple of nights. I fell in love with the place right away, spending lots of time driving up and down Going to the Sun Road (where they filmed the opening shots for 1980's "The Shining"), and enjoying a beautiful afternoon at a spot called Many Glacier.<br />
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At the end of 2018, I dropped by the Bountiful Post Office and applied for my first international passport. In August of 2019, I used that passport to take my first trip to Europe. After scoring an excellent deal on a round-trip ticket to Paris, I flew to France to split a week's time between the City of Lights and London. I could write pages about the experience--and in a previous era I probably would have--but this was my simple takeaway: Visiting Paris felt like making a new friend; visiting London felt like putting on a glove.<br />
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<b>- FALL -</b></div>
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The Friday of Labor Day Weekend, only a day before I was scheduled to drive up to Jackson, Wyoming, I woke up at 3am, walked out into my front yard, and looked east to see an entire mountain on fire. The so-called Bountiful Gun Range Fire was one of the biggest local stories of 2019; luckily no one was harmed, though the fire did claim two homes in a nearby ward. By the time I woke up and saw what was going on, evacuations had already taken place and emergency crews were on the scene, so I set up my tripod in my front yard and let my journalist instinct take over.<br />
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I did make it to Jackson the next day, and spent a fun weekend getting to know a bunch of new people while whitewater rafting, hiking, and exploring Grand Teton National Park. The night I got there I set up on the shore of Jackson Lake to capture a half-hour's worth of star trails, and the morning before I left I rose early to capture the Teton Range at daybreak. Coming so soon after a pair of substantial trips, and only knowing a single person going into the event, I debated whether to set out one more time, but I'm very glad I did.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZ9Kr_BRu2RnR2iIYKGG3cEaFhv8-qRoAp104E3sdrSi75GtRz14-DG9hOisfAa0ZCFnX24aPHyBeLbPxuAaad_J85Quz2ncqbIfRQvP9sgJGRLh18Gv_vw2xigdXGxEmoEjYtw/s1600/jackson-lake_star-trails_sep2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZ9Kr_BRu2RnR2iIYKGG3cEaFhv8-qRoAp104E3sdrSi75GtRz14-DG9hOisfAa0ZCFnX24aPHyBeLbPxuAaad_J85Quz2ncqbIfRQvP9sgJGRLh18Gv_vw2xigdXGxEmoEjYtw/s640/jackson-lake_star-trails_sep2019.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Once I got back from Jackson, the madness of 2019 finally cooled off as I spent September getting fall semester up to speed. I continued to meet up with friends for my Power Lunch project, but overall getting back to the teaching and writing routine brought me back to earth. It wasn't long, though, before some new photographic opportunities presented themselves. Throughout fall and into November, I picked up a generous number of family portrait shoots, and even got to drive down to Provo to do a special project with my old college roommate Aaron. It was very flattering to have so many people seek me out to do their pictures; in Davis County, and Utah in general, you have plenty of options to choose from. Big thanks to everyone who looked my way in 2019.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This image of my buddy Brian's kids was a nod to...</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_aPqZWlGiBnAs83MhhTaSGYhtg3bZV3WeBwsI-w1d-vlOeA8PAUDYSVMaVAqewpDyzLeDXYnhnniNCEz5sReRDsbPRP0va4h00mzUobVSXxjb3snvuFkRmEtSHfaOyv4jA9og/s1600/pbjosh_dec18-49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1080" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbc_aPqZWlGiBnAs83MhhTaSGYhtg3bZV3WeBwsI-w1d-vlOeA8PAUDYSVMaVAqewpDyzLeDXYnhnniNCEz5sReRDsbPRP0va4h00mzUobVSXxjb3snvuFkRmEtSHfaOyv4jA9og/s640/pbjosh_dec18-49.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...this shot, taken at Wheeler Farm seven years ago.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeARbFMSQYuBzyWPIg7nlnRqo0VUO_XnVwUVtUG4CAzTtnjGbjBAqGZT3gjYN51EYSqffhxHf3kFC0G40J892QRXzqHvN8xKHpNxKTjJ7IzHhekS60Um9qtWQEgSIRkjDs2y5JcQ/s1600/hansen_kids_july2019-for_web-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeARbFMSQYuBzyWPIg7nlnRqo0VUO_XnVwUVtUG4CAzTtnjGbjBAqGZT3gjYN51EYSqffhxHf3kFC0G40J892QRXzqHvN8xKHpNxKTjJ7IzHhekS60Um9qtWQEgSIRkjDs2y5JcQ/s640/hansen_kids_july2019-for_web-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sure...it's not mantle-worthy, but this is one of my favorite pictures of the whole year.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-WIxq9qqWEiu343ykmpMUUc76eRMWQgMQx9G5n86rheL2TRaHJNQ58T4i90rjjyPVGv5yh-u6UfIiJzTvNS273SeozOeQXexH110vjZ3Bu4R1DCXrcxa3kwXbYvMbNNODBntHw/s640/terry-cowan_oct2019-WEB-7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="512" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I campaigned hard to convince my family to use this for our 2019 Christmas card.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-WIxq9qqWEiu343ykmpMUUc76eRMWQgMQx9G5n86rheL2TRaHJNQ58T4i90rjjyPVGv5yh-u6UfIiJzTvNS273SeozOeQXexH110vjZ3Bu4R1DCXrcxa3kwXbYvMbNNODBntHw/s1600/terry-cowan_oct2019-WEB-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW-WIxq9qqWEiu343ykmpMUUc76eRMWQgMQx9G5n86rheL2TRaHJNQ58T4i90rjjyPVGv5yh-u6UfIiJzTvNS273SeozOeQXexH110vjZ3Bu4R1DCXrcxa3kwXbYvMbNNODBntHw/s1600/terry-cowan_oct2019-WEB-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br />
By the time Fall Break rolled around in mid-October, I was ready to get out on the road again. This year, I decided to do a reverse version of the route I took last fall, which culminated with my cousin's wedding in Cedar City. There was no wedding to attend this year, so instead I drove south to Las Vegas via Valley of Fire State Park, then cut west for a return visit to Death Valley National Park before driving north to pick up America's Loneliest Highway on the way to Ely. The trip was excellent from front to back, but I think my favorite part was avoiding the holiday traffic by heading home on I-80 instead of having to come north on I-15.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrYLqeJXwyR5BVQLxn7nD9Ptzy3kkViOLVvkLI4ZoDKtBE2-GpQKzL15lPMeQmo4WiGrCBErWcgnagxtnFeQW2cfRhzayfnHHKzoW_OiX-aEGdB61B-vx80bcpFanCTw3HgQ5WQ/s1600/valley-of-fire_oct2019-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHrYLqeJXwyR5BVQLxn7nD9Ptzy3kkViOLVvkLI4ZoDKtBE2-GpQKzL15lPMeQmo4WiGrCBErWcgnagxtnFeQW2cfRhzayfnHHKzoW_OiX-aEGdB61B-vx80bcpFanCTw3HgQ5WQ/s640/valley-of-fire_oct2019-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Gene. I asked him to go pose for me on top of the Fire Wave.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWTnbFtz20r5uXwlmk99ojuYPUY1Q_FDe3W8XT9gFyu7n939w13BH8DUxdzU7X8i2uwzTuCkyznfPfm9D9CIlcvIq_IJU-KTeMn16uRcEQPjd6nhYA5-pstkFLotr_RPY4hKFaw/s1600/valley-of-fire_oct2019-29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKWTnbFtz20r5uXwlmk99ojuYPUY1Q_FDe3W8XT9gFyu7n939w13BH8DUxdzU7X8i2uwzTuCkyznfPfm9D9CIlcvIq_IJU-KTeMn16uRcEQPjd6nhYA5-pstkFLotr_RPY4hKFaw/s640/valley-of-fire_oct2019-29.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cool factoid: I visited "both" Eiffel Towers in 2019.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0lGWUDabElPUaydko-gKMQHd3Z4sghTTIUCyYTSll1asn_EvsWJMlSJZMRyeXz5MJQJf1ySUn3SDZ8T70-Ggva0qMLfP7OojIeK8UDDIPKb3QNc4N0BO2ZrSVwpKl_AKthpQHw/s1600/death-valley_oct2019-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV0lGWUDabElPUaydko-gKMQHd3Z4sghTTIUCyYTSll1asn_EvsWJMlSJZMRyeXz5MJQJf1ySUn3SDZ8T70-Ggva0qMLfP7OojIeK8UDDIPKb3QNc4N0BO2ZrSVwpKl_AKthpQHw/s640/death-valley_oct2019-16.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't know these guys, but they were nice enough to pose for me at Badwater Basin.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeHxoUNc76_HVqsoqYLskwHHiZVths7bpwRTiUfmGqmw3ZiffeJW52E5L0KkEs_WXW6Xmtzefs_deaFVZlIDAwYS1TA10tJuVi4TH68omH_7eUEBKbyeUv8_mBM4Ror13m2B52hg/s1600/death-valley_oct2019-43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeHxoUNc76_HVqsoqYLskwHHiZVths7bpwRTiUfmGqmw3ZiffeJW52E5L0KkEs_WXW6Xmtzefs_deaFVZlIDAwYS1TA10tJuVi4TH68omH_7eUEBKbyeUv8_mBM4Ror13m2B52hg/s640/death-valley_oct2019-43.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the way back to my car after this shoot I got to know a photographer named Daniel. I'm so social!</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>- THE HOLIDAYS -</b></div>
<br />
Believe it or not, there was one trip that didn't happen in 2019. Since my sister would be celebrating Thanksgiving with her in-laws this year, my original plan was to take my mom down to Southern Utah so she could visit Arches and Monument Valley for the first time. Thanks to a timely winter storm, that plan was scrapped, and I think the ensuing cold stretch inspired me to head to San Diego once I finished the grading for fall semester. I felt a little indulgent by returning to San Diego barely a year after my 2018 visit, but the quality time I spent with some mission friends on the back half of the visit could have justified the trip on its own.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjYmnDy-BfFcbHG1p4_WsyJQnrXCL8Eb8xEcJMElqz8m8ESKoY9VD5HttXo-SX0I0p1_A6srZzD7A8-sjea8IF5LHGZTD0UaJ65H6ec5nOuhyjjTJG_xQxEdxIT_J_nV4x2S4HQ/s1600/san-diego_dec2019-23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjYmnDy-BfFcbHG1p4_WsyJQnrXCL8Eb8xEcJMElqz8m8ESKoY9VD5HttXo-SX0I0p1_A6srZzD7A8-sjea8IF5LHGZTD0UaJ65H6ec5nOuhyjjTJG_xQxEdxIT_J_nV4x2S4HQ/s640/san-diego_dec2019-23.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seagull + crashing waves outside the Hotel Coronado.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAvpHazZ-olettOORSEuKfFDj-ibDWcx5bhAkjn2wM9IceXz8IKNWeC2hPd9mBWRvCfYd1aRfKBHoX9LuTU1gyzATGgnyNoiUMkpB0eEOhVgOg2gmfm03_L59CE4ITXxf_Qk_ceA/s1600/san-diego_dec2019-25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAvpHazZ-olettOORSEuKfFDj-ibDWcx5bhAkjn2wM9IceXz8IKNWeC2hPd9mBWRvCfYd1aRfKBHoX9LuTU1gyzATGgnyNoiUMkpB0eEOhVgOg2gmfm03_L59CE4ITXxf_Qk_ceA/s640/san-diego_dec2019-25.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF8a5R4YBJp_3j0BIjgzx66lUy1wwwOJe60ui-8TQa42kAmpGRcaCWRMy42G30Mw9l4yrxoNSmxLdILFcg7z2fuaW6GhIc0xbefxk2WwCc2IAMGjl2R4wQOiScnHNgJ6Jzunormg/s1600/san-diego_dec2019-42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF8a5R4YBJp_3j0BIjgzx66lUy1wwwOJe60ui-8TQa42kAmpGRcaCWRMy42G30Mw9l4yrxoNSmxLdILFcg7z2fuaW6GhIc0xbefxk2WwCc2IAMGjl2R4wQOiScnHNgJ6Jzunormg/s640/san-diego_dec2019-42.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This time I photographed a different spot in La Jolla for sunset.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXkZo2EsBzHs1TNHCOv_iOuA7P317sDvJV4h5QXsgV3hSuyext0x_R6bpCaPSIK-mZoz4t-1pebLksemkPm4797V0-1iFWqXsKZF2TPU6LTXgzC1MDVb8JUoqIA6pakfqTHgAoQ/s1600/san-diego_dec2019-49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXkZo2EsBzHs1TNHCOv_iOuA7P317sDvJV4h5QXsgV3hSuyext0x_R6bpCaPSIK-mZoz4t-1pebLksemkPm4797V0-1iFWqXsKZF2TPU6LTXgzC1MDVb8JUoqIA6pakfqTHgAoQ/s640/san-diego_dec2019-49.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't know the San Diego Temple did Christmas lights, but I was happy to jump on the opportunity.</td></tr>
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<br />
My San Diego excursion was just one element of what has become a traditional whirlwind of December activity, marked by the end of fall semester and the surge of year-end holiday movie releases. This year, the routine stuff was relatively painless, thanks to a pair of good classes at Weber and the chance to see the last (?) of the "Skywalker Saga" Star Wars films. So rather than get swamped by to-do lists, I spent time with family and friends, and mixed in photo shoots at Temple Square and Antelope Island as the year drew to a close.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPl7FBtAz51Zdvq0Etd0UT9oCfCqW3sFaIbAq2wYR-3xjgBgrtghFaARtQtLHMmSZcnxOBM3HbpkfXOf0rwqUNJBmRumz_gLSKN8blv6eIL_tlQnkEJIyvnFe7wlHUautivE0TKw/s1600/temple-square_dec2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPl7FBtAz51Zdvq0Etd0UT9oCfCqW3sFaIbAq2wYR-3xjgBgrtghFaARtQtLHMmSZcnxOBM3HbpkfXOf0rwqUNJBmRumz_gLSKN8blv6eIL_tlQnkEJIyvnFe7wlHUautivE0TKw/s640/temple-square_dec2019.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Salt Lake Temple is going to be closed until 2024, so a last Christmas shoot seemed appropriate.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTVnU0X08MCdiRd2EtNu6bIn07YcZM0iWD4k4Xlhm2BgRetoB_WCPjxqbj6j8-Si6nf_Cg9CAfHWmgc46_hdI86eqDgt51dXZtDgVHpYdXpEV-Lk28VeT8dVoJQE7D5cw8gtDf3w/s1600/gbread-band_dec2019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTVnU0X08MCdiRd2EtNu6bIn07YcZM0iWD4k4Xlhm2BgRetoB_WCPjxqbj6j8-Si6nf_Cg9CAfHWmgc46_hdI86eqDgt51dXZtDgVHpYdXpEV-Lk28VeT8dVoJQE7D5cw8gtDf3w/s640/gbread-band_dec2019.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My sister and I had to get creative to get that gingerbread house to stand up.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJUuInCVPpW0qfpJj8UZREU7b2U-F2uRhyQaG99IEQuxWRnosqGt_r1rdMT2WxZh6WSJWhCO1Zqbyhcfd4kl2joG3eDjImaaN976TFNH_LzFjdNfqkauymZhDv1iM2kosSlgH5w/s1600/antelope-island_dec2019-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJUuInCVPpW0qfpJj8UZREU7b2U-F2uRhyQaG99IEQuxWRnosqGt_r1rdMT2WxZh6WSJWhCO1Zqbyhcfd4kl2joG3eDjImaaN976TFNH_LzFjdNfqkauymZhDv1iM2kosSlgH5w/s640/antelope-island_dec2019-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I guess it looks like Santa got frozen under the Great Salt Lake. That wasn't the idea.</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
Back in November, as I started thinking about how to frame this year's photo essay, it dawned on me that we weren't just coming up on the end of a year, but the end of a decade*. I started thinking about where I was at when 2010 started, and how it compared to the way I'm wrapping things up ten years later. The results? Pretty mixed, to be honest. I've seen all kinds of progress and setbacks, blessings and trials, and the whole decade seemed to hinge on <a href="https://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/09/six-degrees-of-gratitude.html" target="_blank">my dad's passing</a> in the fall of 2014. I'm happy to report that a lot of the important things are still holding strong, and there's still hope for the future on the things that haven't come through (like a cure for male-pattern baldness). At one point I drafted a "best of the decade" post with a different image for every year, but it just couldn't scratch the surface of a truly amazing and unexpected stretch. So instead, I think I'll bury it in my vast "draft" bin and cap off the year, and the decade, with a picture that has always been a personal favorite. One that captures a little bit of that hope we have for the future. Happy New Year, everyone...and have a great new decade!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rPYa27sBJcOIlvJtSoaZrZBwbYV9oShjjYekHLa1qY92GRJSwRxilKMebVmwoFJfMzWQH5xIbIECij2CGS3HrLrX_tiupaIBSAjfVGh-xQF5xgaXFQ4vQ589uYGMPdwJ2CfB7w/s1600/cowan_fireworks_jul16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rPYa27sBJcOIlvJtSoaZrZBwbYV9oShjjYekHLa1qY92GRJSwRxilKMebVmwoFJfMzWQH5xIbIECij2CGS3HrLrX_tiupaIBSAjfVGh-xQF5xgaXFQ4vQ589uYGMPdwJ2CfB7w/s640/cowan_fireworks_jul16.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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---<br />
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*Yes, I know there is an argument to be made that December 31st, 2020 will actually be the last day of the decade. Josh hears you; Josh doesn't care.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-90926997580812725982018-12-29T19:44:00.000-07:002018-12-30T09:03:28.344-07:00Better Late Than Never: Images of 2018I think once upon a time this thing started out as my creative/lazy alternative to sending out an annual Christmas letter. So for those of you who just want the basics, here's my summary take on 2018:<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Dear friends, family, and "other,"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>In 2018, I graded a lot of papers, reviewed a lot of movies, and took a lot of pictures. I also got some dental work done. Best wishes in 2019!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Josh</i><br />
<br />
OK, with that out of the way, you now have a couple of options. If you just want to see some pictures, I've compiled a comprehensive, high-resolution "Best of 2018" gallery on my website <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/Best-of-2018/" target="_blank">here</a>. If you want to see low-res versions of many of the same pictures, along with a vague running commentary that somehow finds its way to a moderately uplifting message by the end, then get comfortable, fire up a little Hall and Oates, and read on...<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * </div>
<br />
2017 was a hard year to top, what with all the travel and the weight loss and the general sense of self-improvement. For 2018, I was mostly hoping to build on what I'd already started. I rolled into January with most of my routine intact, albeit with a few modifications. In addition to reviewing movies every week, I started writing periodic columns for the Deseret News, and while I continued to teach for Weber State University, for Spring Semester I relocated to the Davis Campus. I still covered a few films for Sundance, per January tradition, but I didn't actually pull out my camera until March.<br />
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As it turned out, my two-month rest was just the calm before a 10-month storm. I kicked things off with a spring break road trip that took me to Moab, where I visited Corona Arch for the first time and caught my first sunrise at Mesa Arch since 2010, and then down to Monument Valley, where by staying in the tribal park hotel, I was able to photograph the iconic landscape at sunset, then again in the morning at sunrise.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJqsKNWoeuYT4Y_B3wdh7yfdqS5MUwFYIITX6o0VBKv74MVk5wnhUrIURmYZLYE8FqNJml5xSonfV6WQAHKTsNF0vPdd1918kttgqSGHce5Uy4OjzJhc7O-Jl_CkFhzjYSmet_Q/s1600/sbreak-mar18-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJqsKNWoeuYT4Y_B3wdh7yfdqS5MUwFYIITX6o0VBKv74MVk5wnhUrIURmYZLYE8FqNJml5xSonfV6WQAHKTsNF0vPdd1918kttgqSGHce5Uy4OjzJhc7O-Jl_CkFhzjYSmet_Q/s640/sbreak-mar18-9.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Corona Arch, Moab</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhbZBCJFMAP3Bc3lTh75vxVsuWyBH-BrZ8EGVmFiA6-K4V-ycz4FuJmyigUaoz39PBg6fK5Ib-wsNVyrcHHedv-BPFx2gf-_f51zR_TSlTfViG_5oYsXqBN6xsMNyiHNtzfqseA/s1600/sbreak-mar18-17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyhbZBCJFMAP3Bc3lTh75vxVsuWyBH-BrZ8EGVmFiA6-K4V-ycz4FuJmyigUaoz39PBg6fK5Ib-wsNVyrcHHedv-BPFx2gf-_f51zR_TSlTfViG_5oYsXqBN6xsMNyiHNtzfqseA/s640/sbreak-mar18-17.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzfAjQO4AMjfYy-0xjQ6u0mAxk-E9UU7WCiEL-ta4-b85_zUuAkeCdtJTnrwJCKFud2qS-aqY2bsMY0Nmo5pViwZTKXYO0dGe5YMkgUctCCNO8sG4BmatRLewhMIeBETnTvRO3ew/s1600/sbreak-mar18-35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzfAjQO4AMjfYy-0xjQ6u0mAxk-E9UU7WCiEL-ta4-b85_zUuAkeCdtJTnrwJCKFud2qS-aqY2bsMY0Nmo5pViwZTKXYO0dGe5YMkgUctCCNO8sG4BmatRLewhMIeBETnTvRO3ew/s640/sbreak-mar18-35.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument Valley, Sunset</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofuNkDa67r3SGoFuB-sbDb5hBs_NuIsYeCQge4q7QUT705HQ9YIlZFmx1oM278xsTdqIheTz6WJaGaqQPkWM0dMU25Czk9NpsPw3F5fSsp80U5ihL0nA4XMMdfMtAzbQxHkbpZg/s1600/3-27-18_edits-25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="1080" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofuNkDa67r3SGoFuB-sbDb5hBs_NuIsYeCQge4q7QUT705HQ9YIlZFmx1oM278xsTdqIheTz6WJaGaqQPkWM0dMU25Czk9NpsPw3F5fSsp80U5ihL0nA4XMMdfMtAzbQxHkbpZg/s640/3-27-18_edits-25.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument Valley, Sunrise</td></tr>
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As a bonus, I swung over to Cortez, Colorado, for my first visit to Mesa Verde National Park. Thanks to the off-season timing (the Weber State spring break is scheduled quite early in March), I had plenty of privacy as I visited Mesa Verde's Pueblo ruins, walked among fields of dead trees, and caught a nice sunset at the top of Park Point. But to be honest, my favorite memory from that particular phase of the trip might have been the ceviche I enjoyed at La Casita de Cortez.<br />
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If I had to nominate a personal Food Obsession of 2018, ceviche would take an easy title. In addition to hounding options around Salt Lake (personal favorite: the ceviche at Park City's Tarahumara), I made a point of seeking out the item wherever I could over the course of my travels. By the end of the year, I'd eaten ceviche in Cortez, Chicago, San Diego, and even Vernal, Utah. And by December, I even learned how to make the stuff myself:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLNlLNCQoksxi_X5mOteOAsuwGxOFEZqT4k-2AoeOTk9q3ycvzKLQX_FE4wDuNQzmHC7TfLTxfe0rSKv1h2IOBKkhGM7u9sJsNanjtLP-6DOw3DX__8l6AhIiz2fFb40sZk33A8A/s1600/dec22_edits_arches-christmas-35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLNlLNCQoksxi_X5mOteOAsuwGxOFEZqT4k-2AoeOTk9q3ycvzKLQX_FE4wDuNQzmHC7TfLTxfe0rSKv1h2IOBKkhGM7u9sJsNanjtLP-6DOw3DX__8l6AhIiz2fFb40sZk33A8A/s640/dec22_edits_arches-christmas-35.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ceviche is basically pico de gallo with fish and lime juice.</td></tr>
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When I wasn't eating, like many fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was buzzing about the events of the April General Conference, where newly ordained President Russell M. Nelson laid out some major administrative changes. I was actually attending the Saturday night Priesthood Session in the Conference Center with my longtime friend BretO and his son when President Nelson announced the quorum merger for the Elders and High Priests, effectively releasing me from my calling in the Elder's Quorum Presidency. Being in the Conference Center for that Priesthood Session was a choice experience I will never forget. Not so much because of the administrative changes, but the sense that the future was going to be dynamic, exciting, and...big.<br />
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Excitement was also in the air for Utah Jazz fans, thanks to the arrival of rookie Donovan Mitchell. In addition to some fun spring shoots out at Bountiful Pond and on I-15 (where I parked in the back of the Cheetahman's Toyota Tundra and photographed the North Salt Lake refineries at sunset), I took my camera downtown one evening before Game Four of the opening round Jazz-Thunder series to try and capture the pre-game energy.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6VqaDrtdWeVBY7CUrDgaRISWLH5wHgil52t9tZDGL3UwaAaugtOwKdhYrq2AUe3CbwivFRzKxtkuZU7jfrF-sLDqPvwagERHVgHr_KahnLz3O_hmOasIsJ6ZpTfhCIJRWYwDPzw/s1600/6-4-edits-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6VqaDrtdWeVBY7CUrDgaRISWLH5wHgil52t9tZDGL3UwaAaugtOwKdhYrq2AUe3CbwivFRzKxtkuZU7jfrF-sLDqPvwagERHVgHr_KahnLz3O_hmOasIsJ6ZpTfhCIJRWYwDPzw/s640/6-4-edits-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bountiful Pond</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgf29FLXIBELvIIk8BVpB1C6MTxeThc-DjVsyJzsZ-QWDwV-1RaMddMKN83w5naneufPkSfVwJD0lx3gucTiqkqIPmDStpjkb_3CiqhxzBCvrml05ADbD7Vrwrz6qjJJbV83oxTg/s1600/june18_edits-26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="1080" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgf29FLXIBELvIIk8BVpB1C6MTxeThc-DjVsyJzsZ-QWDwV-1RaMddMKN83w5naneufPkSfVwJD0lx3gucTiqkqIPmDStpjkb_3CiqhxzBCvrml05ADbD7Vrwrz6qjJJbV83oxTg/s640/june18_edits-26.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">North Salt Lake Refineries (from I-15)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXoysGN87mNREgnOJmOLRMKK_v7oRU2RQviE6-IYV0mpB50lmbIHn8omaaHixopAZh6BcCPQ9Tu91l7-LdfP8QjvcrlYuqPNzcnJ0alJCpamwWIia8DQEfEwNBbiwiHJvcNywSQ/s1600/last_april_edit_2018-39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibXoysGN87mNREgnOJmOLRMKK_v7oRU2RQviE6-IYV0mpB50lmbIHn8omaaHixopAZh6BcCPQ9Tu91l7-LdfP8QjvcrlYuqPNzcnJ0alJCpamwWIia8DQEfEwNBbiwiHJvcNywSQ/s640/last_april_edit_2018-39.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I blended about a half-dozen different shots to create this image.</td></tr>
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As a shy person, it's always a challenge for me to step out of my comfort zone and engage complete strangers, but I've noticed that when I do, the experience usually leads to my most rewarding shoots. This was the case as I finally took the initiative on a project I'd been filing away for years. I wanted to do a tribute to the drive-in theaters I loved so much as a kid, and try to re-create one of my all-time favorite <a href="http://time.com/3878731/life-at-the-movies-in-praise-of-sitting-in-the-dark-with-strangers/" target="_blank">LIFE magazine photographs</a>, taken in a since-defunct Utah drive-in back in the late 1950s. In May I finally got up the nerve to contact the management of the Redwood Drive-In in West Valley, and the resulting effort led to two memorable shoots, a <a href="https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900018740/josh-terry-happiness-is-a-drive-in-movie-and-a-bag-of-twizzlers.html" target="_blank">feature article</a> for the Deseret News, and the chance to get to know some really great people.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC58Vq-g7K1NQTNno8bfjFWDkvF1wJVn_02z1GiFlur6GjfaUgblW6M17zvf6foAYJrIyB8bmHXXMRggQvwecT0uc1r5e00HVoYgCQUlSj6JEwXTJ_eYOY48H6kKf1PJgb0PGisA/s1600/redwood_edits_may18-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="1080" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC58Vq-g7K1NQTNno8bfjFWDkvF1wJVn_02z1GiFlur6GjfaUgblW6M17zvf6foAYJrIyB8bmHXXMRggQvwecT0uc1r5e00HVoYgCQUlSj6JEwXTJ_eYOY48H6kKf1PJgb0PGisA/s640/redwood_edits_may18-15.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Southwest screen at the Redwood Drive-In, showing "Avengers: Infinity War" back in May.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2xuCp327QsukaTilu47haVAZaXAo7bH8TbKjA0tz3P3aOdjjMdaNqGJKqHrN8k0xdfdYfI5I2TpEvIThrEcMQ-q0L_SioX50kITGEc6cVB8iQN9m6oSK5NvuqBgDlTRkPEAfxw/s1600/redwood2_jul18-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH2xuCp327QsukaTilu47haVAZaXAo7bH8TbKjA0tz3P3aOdjjMdaNqGJKqHrN8k0xdfdYfI5I2TpEvIThrEcMQ-q0L_SioX50kITGEc6cVB8iQN9m6oSK5NvuqBgDlTRkPEAfxw/s640/redwood2_jul18-9.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shot this one at the northwest screen, which was showing the latest "Hotel Transylvania" movie.</td></tr>
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Speaking of getting out of your comfort zone, my break from church callings lasted all of about six weeks, as the end of May brought my first ever appointment as a Primary teacher. For the rest of the year I team taught a small crew of 4-5 year olds, and quickly learned that sometimes it's nice to get away from deep fried doctrine and just focus on the basics of the Gospel. I'm also starting to wonder if I should start bringing Goldfish crackers for my students at Weber.<br />
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May might have marked my first calling to the Primary, but the arrival of summer ushered in a run of notable anniversaries. The beginning of July marked a full year of tracking calories (apparently I'm in "maintain" mode now), and just a couple of weeks before that, I celebrated ten years of SLR photography with a special <a href="https://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/100-images/" target="_blank">"100 Images" album</a> that brought back all kinds of memories. Best of all, at the end of June I hit 20 years of consecutive daily journal entries, which is just crazy to think about.<br />
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But rather than get too lost in nostalgia, in July I photographed the traditional fireworks display up at the Eaglewood Golf Course from a now-favorite viewpoint, as well as a more intimate production at my sister's place in Kaysville. My longtime neighbors Milo and Georgia Paskett were also kind enough to take me along for a day trip to the San Rafael Swell, where I photographed a number of off-road spots I never would have reached in my Volkswagen GTI.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFk-g4VaGSlkOx6R8Pkeu8ScA7Om-d4SHd-hCtErrmosPvKSZa-CulpzKr04RiUmHBwM7DhEHgfLggff-f1jYtYJq8eKqXkMYGbIM8pAMe_lmsaE_KXL75cvgo6wT9WyktuEaw2w/s1600/july18-edits-etc-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFk-g4VaGSlkOx6R8Pkeu8ScA7Om-d4SHd-hCtErrmosPvKSZa-CulpzKr04RiUmHBwM7DhEHgfLggff-f1jYtYJq8eKqXkMYGbIM8pAMe_lmsaE_KXL75cvgo6wT9WyktuEaw2w/s640/july18-edits-etc-15.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the beginning of the display, I was still able to get a little blue in the sky.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUo87nwy2sLc1d8242IlMxMsZiTSBbcCWcWami__pTFs9Wd1d4SrjGjiVuLIFt9jotAWxsXiEt0DcGozR-roGjabP7NnrtphhIZ1V45UIs4scnKxv04lftje8iNBVD2ExqQMA67Q/s1600/july18-edits-etc-37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUo87nwy2sLc1d8242IlMxMsZiTSBbcCWcWami__pTFs9Wd1d4SrjGjiVuLIFt9jotAWxsXiEt0DcGozR-roGjabP7NnrtphhIZ1V45UIs4scnKxv04lftje8iNBVD2ExqQMA67Q/s640/july18-edits-etc-37.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've never been all that interested in neighborhood fireworks shows, but they are fun to photograph.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCRQOPaJIPSL-zcHO_xazsuVkmMcMZyc8Q10zDR-3RZL0DKCw4XTgtDuRMhvGQ7UU1TO1Scveb1kAH6EOjFWW-wbcnO816H6QExpF9gjUwIndc6BS1gAAj1rNnxaOZFqVGC9N7oQ/s1600/june18_san-rafael_and_fsunset-28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCRQOPaJIPSL-zcHO_xazsuVkmMcMZyc8Q10zDR-3RZL0DKCw4XTgtDuRMhvGQ7UU1TO1Scveb1kAH6EOjFWW-wbcnO816H6QExpF9gjUwIndc6BS1gAAj1rNnxaOZFqVGC9N7oQ/s640/june18_san-rafael_and_fsunset-28.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abandoned truck cab near The Hondu in Southern Utah</td></tr>
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Thanks to an early block class that started a week after the close of spring semester, it felt like summer started late this year. Once again, the theme seemed to be, "better late than never." Rather than take a road trip in the May-June window, as is the usual plan, I had to wait until late July to get out of town in any extended sense. I decided to make the most of the opportunity, though, devising an elaborate eastern states road trip whereby I flew to Chicago, rented a car, drove to Washington DC via Cleveland, then returned to Chicago via Louisville. (Handy travel tip: one of the reasons I designed the trip this way is because you save a lot of money on car rentals when you drop off the car at the same location where you picked it up.)<br />
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The 10-day swing saw me shooting sunsets in Chicago and over Lake Erie, getting up early to shoot the sunrise over the National Mall in DC, and on the capstone of the trip, shooting the Louisville skyline at sunset from my cousin Jim's boat on the Ohio River. I could probably fill this entire post with images from that trip (and yes, back when I was more diligent with this blog, it would have likely yielded a multi-post series on its own), but as time moves forward, I'll remember the experience just as fondly for all the quality time I spent with friends and family along the way.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc0586CdQh2cOrjipRakqN5nJEZynHpusJFWuIEv83hCcCG1i_uOxrfV0SCl_TRE62GOB4y7y-hB-WLwB2jlmEZsOfXuBJCslrDHLb7ChAopxYiubN98ypvAKLC_u3v1kRtoJiQ/s1600/july18-edits-etc-59.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc0586CdQh2cOrjipRakqN5nJEZynHpusJFWuIEv83hCcCG1i_uOxrfV0SCl_TRE62GOB4y7y-hB-WLwB2jlmEZsOfXuBJCslrDHLb7ChAopxYiubN98ypvAKLC_u3v1kRtoJiQ/s640/july18-edits-etc-59.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago skyline at sunset, photographed from outside the Alder Planetarium.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5BwOb5KuoKWHt3Bh3gDkVbakh22ciljym6g0D8n9JZut5Hu5FRKT9JTlVXaAIw-co_OJQb5Pis7CyI-NcOiXnIT0pBbdLNVkWlQy3ToLl0_QbwtjTycoh61TgeAtT4s2GOxgzQ/s1600/july18-edits-etc-112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg5BwOb5KuoKWHt3Bh3gDkVbakh22ciljym6g0D8n9JZut5Hu5FRKT9JTlVXaAIw-co_OJQb5Pis7CyI-NcOiXnIT0pBbdLNVkWlQy3ToLl0_QbwtjTycoh61TgeAtT4s2GOxgzQ/s640/july18-edits-etc-112.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset over Lake Erie, photographed from Lakewood Park outside Cleveland, Ohio.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5hUrPoTeyYXgNwMC7N0I0VVHWVVmucTMMjNT9itZm18PCVc_kwvOknopAg8_x3Xgdo4IdA4Ahif7LJcRYFJnhpxd-SAbBwXMyfNKgv5Mk9v7_XJwzjsnRSIzXnYXctB-jRDDAg/s1600/aug2edits-61.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="1080" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5hUrPoTeyYXgNwMC7N0I0VVHWVVmucTMMjNT9itZm18PCVc_kwvOknopAg8_x3Xgdo4IdA4Ahif7LJcRYFJnhpxd-SAbBwXMyfNKgv5Mk9v7_XJwzjsnRSIzXnYXctB-jRDDAg/s640/aug2edits-61.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are lots of joggers on the National Mall around sunrise.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4tozAsmDZF9fWzESXSNq5GPFC94gh_17IYwEKlgFHzRHsoeMTR94MSTTZwMMswe-8xJjK4Q_U0rbU6cebtr5K0H4baCuaEIjjrzCGTXfC-XlOrCZkE5sngVnR9J4FCDQJrjKZDQ/s1600/8-10-18_adds-37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4tozAsmDZF9fWzESXSNq5GPFC94gh_17IYwEKlgFHzRHsoeMTR94MSTTZwMMswe-8xJjK4Q_U0rbU6cebtr5K0H4baCuaEIjjrzCGTXfC-XlOrCZkE5sngVnR9J4FCDQJrjKZDQ/s640/8-10-18_adds-37.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of downtown Louisville (and its bridges) from on the Ohio River.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Soon after getting back from the east coast, I swung up into Idaho to join my longtime friend Brian and his family at their traditional Willow Flats campsite. I only stayed one night, but in addition to photographing the night sky--and getting my first solid star trails shot of 2018--I also got to indulge in a new passion: off-roading.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUUeXlnH8nwR-ieFiIB8E_B4ZkyA3Q1XkwxLJkn8pyCpFiIDTEjo2R8tYw-zX03ot4YwIfo4sUpLRMHwSbMXZAPdg6-haKZqN8JCcg4TAONQyxD_qw4gzolxWHIw6ajLa1qWp9w/s1600/aug2edits-97.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNUUeXlnH8nwR-ieFiIB8E_B4ZkyA3Q1XkwxLJkn8pyCpFiIDTEjo2R8tYw-zX03ot4YwIfo4sUpLRMHwSbMXZAPdg6-haKZqN8JCcg4TAONQyxD_qw4gzolxWHIw6ajLa1qWp9w/s640/aug2edits-97.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A little hazy thanks to late summer forest fires, but I'll still take it.</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI6LN7XKH5DfMMc8_GFmh-PIql1ckAwnKMgzwp2c7HyKVrLFc7f4kTR5VLUHTaldvQTrJobZtaE_uZQVpa8Uc2GvVZgqavXRsSXzyo8MZ27BNZ3-ZJsBSazi2OIE_TyefmwSm4ug/s1600/vernal_aug18edits-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI6LN7XKH5DfMMc8_GFmh-PIql1ckAwnKMgzwp2c7HyKVrLFc7f4kTR5VLUHTaldvQTrJobZtaE_uZQVpa8Uc2GvVZgqavXRsSXzyo8MZ27BNZ3-ZJsBSazi2OIE_TyefmwSm4ug/s640/vernal_aug18edits-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The trees were lit from our campfire, which was nice.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzausQbCWiohB8r8V9TWR3pm-Bdu5DMOkPQQhhDN0B-YCzv5LvmvDSLXwu5WKPJvQwKDLwKOCgoDejbpEAuje22m7sOmYEL50gSeB9B7MMueQcGSHB4bAb7wMnBA2482VOd3RgVw/s1600/aug2edits-82.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzausQbCWiohB8r8V9TWR3pm-Bdu5DMOkPQQhhDN0B-YCzv5LvmvDSLXwu5WKPJvQwKDLwKOCgoDejbpEAuje22m7sOmYEL50gSeB9B7MMueQcGSHB4bAb7wMnBA2482VOd3RgVw/s640/aug2edits-82.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shot this at sunset while Brian drove in loops with his kids.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The off-roading passion was inspired earlier in the year when my former singles ward friend/current family ward friend Aaron Pack took me for a night cruise along Davis County's firebreak road in his four-seat RZR. The follow-up ride in Willow Flats had me thinking hard about off-road options in August when, after four and a half years, I decided to trade in my Volkswagen GTI and get a new car. Since there wasn't anything technically wrong with the GTI, I was a little apprehensive about the preemptive break-up, but without a warranty, I was increasingly nervous about fixing whatever was coming down the road. I started my search at a Mercedes dealer in Farmington (here's to misguided ambition!), and came pretty close to picking up a Toyota Tacoma in Salt Lake. But the journey eventually led to a Honda dealer in Riverdale, where the lure of a black Accord with a manual transmission and a turbocharged engine got me behind the wheel of a Sport 2.0T. Top Gear Josh may have won this round against the up-and-comer, but I fully expect to do battle with Off Road Josh in the years to come.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHr9nIdrXP8F1KQs_aKKBd9AZ9wSO1iQeNwN2o7Da9Ha9Ze3jKNIoxHnY3o6PTCU1WxCsCeJ1SNA1u0LiTr4L66J4pMAI4_x6BSFqE-j0zUAZfbM955VdYnMWH5RrLca5tFit7bw/s1600/fall-break_oct18-57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHr9nIdrXP8F1KQs_aKKBd9AZ9wSO1iQeNwN2o7Da9Ha9Ze3jKNIoxHnY3o6PTCU1WxCsCeJ1SNA1u0LiTr4L66J4pMAI4_x6BSFqE-j0zUAZfbM955VdYnMWH5RrLca5tFit7bw/s640/fall-break_oct18-57.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, my license plate doesn't actually read 888-888.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As a final send-off to what was a great run with the GTI, I took the Volkswagen on one last mini-road trip to photograph the Perseid Meteor Shower out at Dinosaur National Monument. As a strange footnote to the tale, my GTI wound up getting bought by one of the employees at my favorite local butcher shop. So I still see my ex all the time.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_m0csBswSyheIYnSFLJy6o9KQI39b1gwRVfKW4rlfwKU5mMVpxTOjT0_iwx4Z6Ic5URY4H0kXdw2OY4ppWCbSG7FF1ah4fKaVPTpAofa055tivl8mEKTKdthHO6mSWaKWGhWO0A/s1600/vernal_aug18edits-33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_m0csBswSyheIYnSFLJy6o9KQI39b1gwRVfKW4rlfwKU5mMVpxTOjT0_iwx4Z6Ic5URY4H0kXdw2OY4ppWCbSG7FF1ah4fKaVPTpAofa055tivl8mEKTKdthHO6mSWaKWGhWO0A/s640/vernal_aug18edits-33.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The haze at the bottom is the lingering effect of summer forest fires.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Before summer had a chance to slip away, my buddy Tyler and I decided to take a quick trip to San Diego, where we photographed surfers at sunset in La Jolla, saw all kinds of animals in the San Diego Zoo, and took in a car show in Escondido with my mission friends the Thompsons, who relocated to California from Illinois several years ago. Thanks to my strange work schedule and even stranger travel habits--let's get up at 4:30am and photograph the Milky Way!--it's kind of rare that I actually travel with someone anymore, so it was nice in this case to have a friend along for what was a very fun SoCal ride.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XXcHCjnWRzdqxzdMdUefPyTOz0Lwx2-j3WOlxHKZng-A3RJlicvppb-ackWhDMFVxepxLXCow1Ca2xX5Cq9RoOSJkkAl0dBEsVKsukKUrNzKXNJffuxcoxy-SB8HMpgi90Px-g/s1600/summer18_last-edits-58.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1XXcHCjnWRzdqxzdMdUefPyTOz0Lwx2-j3WOlxHKZng-A3RJlicvppb-ackWhDMFVxepxLXCow1Ca2xX5Cq9RoOSJkkAl0dBEsVKsukKUrNzKXNJffuxcoxy-SB8HMpgi90Px-g/s640/summer18_last-edits-58.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even with my telephoto, it was hard to get close shots of the surfers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhk7W33UGhhhmijhvWIWeK5qMQGtwaeBAADKTzq-dPQ51GcjUaUJDdA4Zi6NhAbjmnqGAPAERwJdz5eTVAQ8rPhoA7OBilvRcX72GYlRRUhMn7_iDYn4rINA-w-c4AcLmMDabYjw/s1600/summer18_last-edits-90.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhk7W33UGhhhmijhvWIWeK5qMQGtwaeBAADKTzq-dPQ51GcjUaUJDdA4Zi6NhAbjmnqGAPAERwJdz5eTVAQ8rPhoA7OBilvRcX72GYlRRUhMn7_iDYn4rINA-w-c4AcLmMDabYjw/s640/summer18_last-edits-90.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was probably the most laid-back lizard in the San Diego Zoo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWjvl7PQClBntLXaXW6aaEgjONPWoW8rU4FC2OTqU9RF1cmj_ngQ46gCSUZp0XRwoI5abOlvO56tIuBIRRotbrB6jtNMR6TkkDfytoJcWFTsZwa66SDpAVDaUNwmw2vHnhxDZONw/s1600/summer18_last-edits-124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWjvl7PQClBntLXaXW6aaEgjONPWoW8rU4FC2OTqU9RF1cmj_ngQ46gCSUZp0XRwoI5abOlvO56tIuBIRRotbrB6jtNMR6TkkDfytoJcWFTsZwa66SDpAVDaUNwmw2vHnhxDZONw/s640/summer18_last-edits-124.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not sure I've ever come across a better example of someone who was so totally at one with his vehicle.</td></tr>
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<br />
As summer faded into fall, I started a promising new semester at Weber State and promptly hit a metaphoric wall. My classes were great, but almost out of nowhere I started fighting a series of illnesses, and from September through October it felt like I spent more time sick than well. This amplified other frustrations, and the cumulative effect felt like trying to fight my way through a wood chipper. There were still highlights, but like the little island in the picture below, the moments of sunshine in Fall 2018 just felt like brief respites in the midst of the storm.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNQ9JivjP8__RkvjztN49MVsy3T4eN2VGbOjMXyyCFssFkKQ5cnsJMPktoWrbfnuEvHYrwUKVLuuey8iyAtrTJEsHUwDwVYnivydYKkYsTRGNd3xLwPz69pwu8OJjszWlBigKtw/s1600/pineview_oct18-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVNQ9JivjP8__RkvjztN49MVsy3T4eN2VGbOjMXyyCFssFkKQ5cnsJMPktoWrbfnuEvHYrwUKVLuuey8iyAtrTJEsHUwDwVYnivydYKkYsTRGNd3xLwPz69pwu8OJjszWlBigKtw/s640/pineview_oct18-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pineview Reservoir</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Fortunately illness didn't hold me back from taking a nice road trip in mid-October during Weber State's fall break. For this run--my first real trip in the new car--I headed past the flooded Bonneville Salt Flats into Nevada, then down into California for my first visit to Death Valley National Park before looping east to Vegas and up into Valley of Fire State Park. From there I drove north to Cedar City in time to attend my cousin's wedding, which put me in just good enough of a mood to avoid a total meltdown during the crowded nightmare commute back up I-15 at the close of the holiday weekend. Seriously, any future fall break trip must avoid a Sunday afternoon return north on I-15.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEC9DXFpnCsDWnxdAsavgV1K51W0gAh3fLjBYZfUC7kbeTygoEMyjk5fmBNmZfc8bIurYaVUh4aTKzg-7-IEv6I0196u4qna8Ff0I1yM4uOV_ybcrsDV9SsLE5XAnJrYAl-LBzg/s1600/fall-break_oct18-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZEC9DXFpnCsDWnxdAsavgV1K51W0gAh3fLjBYZfUC7kbeTygoEMyjk5fmBNmZfc8bIurYaVUh4aTKzg-7-IEv6I0196u4qna8Ff0I1yM4uOV_ybcrsDV9SsLE5XAnJrYAl-LBzg/s640/fall-break_oct18-19.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4hyABmNifHG32hqCxsbMCY2Rr4AUbZvAd5DAqZ1s1voD07jUxbwr2rdtMrI2Z40cGqN69l7fwAjfi-Hi_1BdYgWcRCd-s866lP2tohrLgAGujqNF59DH26_5fIHLGcy784adaA/s1600/fall-break_oct18-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY4hyABmNifHG32hqCxsbMCY2Rr4AUbZvAd5DAqZ1s1voD07jUxbwr2rdtMrI2Z40cGqN69l7fwAjfi-Hi_1BdYgWcRCd-s866lP2tohrLgAGujqNF59DH26_5fIHLGcy784adaA/s640/fall-break_oct18-21.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWbKYKTJlhkboQtW9MQ46qY51jk0WaquAbc0HAsT_Xx6Tz7jUx1NhP-EjmE3hPbm7wdFPXmb53ljZ7hQIRPlOoxYAIIxyE69VFQ_h8e4Ps2tO6j6HHGyDMxli_rwm8cEDs9hT9Yw/s1600/fall-break_oct18-44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWbKYKTJlhkboQtW9MQ46qY51jk0WaquAbc0HAsT_Xx6Tz7jUx1NhP-EjmE3hPbm7wdFPXmb53ljZ7hQIRPlOoxYAIIxyE69VFQ_h8e4Ps2tO6j6HHGyDMxli_rwm8cEDs9hT9Yw/s640/fall-break_oct18-44.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Fire Wave in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3J_tYBU1YPRMBehJIwYaauGlL0gDtqdxcPOBhAWldQO4nIi-MICIwbginOhlrLk0xYE7gafYR51t70mQdqD582eU-unMFSPE7wGC9H3IZfiFjooQ2xKC834AGoUlDcOShavuDA/s1600/fall-break_oct18-67.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk3J_tYBU1YPRMBehJIwYaauGlL0gDtqdxcPOBhAWldQO4nIi-MICIwbginOhlrLk0xYE7gafYR51t70mQdqD582eU-unMFSPE7wGC9H3IZfiFjooQ2xKC834AGoUlDcOShavuDA/s640/fall-break_oct18-67.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a bad backdrop for wedding photos, I'd say.</td></tr>
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At the end of my fall break trip I had hoped to spend some time photographing the Cedar City Temple, since it wasn't completed the last time I had passed through town. But the morning I drove by, I arrived just before a nasty rain storm that prevented anything but a handful of hasty so-so shots. While I was agitated with the results, I soon realized that while it's nice to take pretty pictures of temples, it's all for naught if I don't take the time to actually go inside them from time to time. From that perspective, the storm outside actually made a lot of sense.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3uQgIZ0m3y_KS69ygyqGrlpncyoNOlL3K4Mr40PpNSaLjwz2UYTzhjqyld19wBBJfR-IdpxUxjR5N5j6jAsrWnnJpHj3rxcilIeDr9rDJDedpz7AYXav-ZTDilJPXYhPeucxdEw/s1600/fall-break_oct18-72.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3uQgIZ0m3y_KS69ygyqGrlpncyoNOlL3K4Mr40PpNSaLjwz2UYTzhjqyld19wBBJfR-IdpxUxjR5N5j6jAsrWnnJpHj3rxcilIeDr9rDJDedpz7AYXav-ZTDilJPXYhPeucxdEw/s640/fall-break_oct18-72.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Got this shot from my car while the rain came in my open window.</td></tr>
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<br />
Of course, I did manage a number of successful temple shoots throughout the year. I took pictures at the Bountiful Temple several times, and returned to Salt Lake in November once the Christmas lights were on to try out a new angle or two. I was also able to visit some new temples along the way as well, like Indianapolis, Louisville, and Vernal, and I had a fun night in the spring shooting the re-dedicated Jordan River Temple. Before the year was out, I crossed the Provo City Center and Mount Timpanogos temples off my list, which means technically I've now photographed every operating temple in Utah.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2HonySv4YFoGlTtxIJQCoI3v1K-7gBO0y3b1r0jCRk6yhyiWQsg6SBYpG7n4_P7KTnOzSmW63Gz0aZE2c3yVLADI7kqXAsmtVXyQhOlt5_WrW8ZdV1kBZYb5ertc9XtdST3X4WQ/s1600/btemple_stack_sep18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2HonySv4YFoGlTtxIJQCoI3v1K-7gBO0y3b1r0jCRk6yhyiWQsg6SBYpG7n4_P7KTnOzSmW63Gz0aZE2c3yVLADI7kqXAsmtVXyQhOlt5_WrW8ZdV1kBZYb5ertc9XtdST3X4WQ/s640/btemple_stack_sep18.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bountiful, Utah Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIlEIRTisnJeCHhFXMNGlBUFJFj3VqoztlvvSA1ltalKDo1Z7pqf6rR8njPIhauDsL0fm1ETb3ADZmozJkOCyHlGIHfw4KxddJJe-OuCJzDOVwqoskwZc91yFCxxOACEanaYt3-w/s1600/8-10-18_adds-50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIlEIRTisnJeCHhFXMNGlBUFJFj3VqoztlvvSA1ltalKDo1Z7pqf6rR8njPIhauDsL0fm1ETb3ADZmozJkOCyHlGIHfw4KxddJJe-OuCJzDOVwqoskwZc91yFCxxOACEanaYt3-w/s640/8-10-18_adds-50.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indianapolis, Indiana Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fDkZxz7YhyphenhyphengWRhZOL9Gp8N75XFLrfE2jYbNWbQvlFsp3uKHieYc6dGeRrl-Z6C0A4fi6klh40yXTHi6pdGFwPwrXgRCYsspBqaT_3CultwILx6E31Bolr_2clbzdM8KgbysoSA/s1600/8-10-18_adds-44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-fDkZxz7YhyphenhyphengWRhZOL9Gp8N75XFLrfE2jYbNWbQvlFsp3uKHieYc6dGeRrl-Z6C0A4fi6klh40yXTHi6pdGFwPwrXgRCYsspBqaT_3CultwILx6E31Bolr_2clbzdM8KgbysoSA/s640/8-10-18_adds-44.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Louisville is one of those long, flat temples like Monticello. Kind of challenging to shoot.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilUv4U8yGfHkQJXUNVPLT-tDiKW9X6nGg-JI6o-FCtZ89NfyBWXPnsbTW196zvNRxVzbToxRV3gr6FX324O6xnRKNF1ziPscgRT1SlrAEyjtd3XFZ56sufM-5Y06A-Nu-ShdUQkw/s1600/vernal_aug18edits-31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilUv4U8yGfHkQJXUNVPLT-tDiKW9X6nGg-JI6o-FCtZ89NfyBWXPnsbTW196zvNRxVzbToxRV3gr6FX324O6xnRKNF1ziPscgRT1SlrAEyjtd3XFZ56sufM-5Y06A-Nu-ShdUQkw/s640/vernal_aug18edits-31.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also hard to shoot: temples behind walls (Vernal).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH41o6g45DUGz2gShMbCJtNR4pC-kY4O95A6a6PuaI-Gbs9dY2qMeCd_WPS7KyRsl-l83NC1p4-cyGt_w9NepTWTnRNGgcMHNuYWXXLQSWZZp9NDSisOmmDyfiY2YEra5isMXyRw/s1600/may30_2018edits-56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH41o6g45DUGz2gShMbCJtNR4pC-kY4O95A6a6PuaI-Gbs9dY2qMeCd_WPS7KyRsl-l83NC1p4-cyGt_w9NepTWTnRNGgcMHNuYWXXLQSWZZp9NDSisOmmDyfiY2YEra5isMXyRw/s640/may30_2018edits-56.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jordan River Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5rdzEUe4nI_CaniU-PTcL-5tHg6o8VcHC7HRDUhufJZCLvd5xfaVJWY-PHcD280yy4KwobmLX-lr8cFlQmuFFiwHXSMlcJ8simbHm1vWb_ljhNdJRfnjdDwgLMrGWWkzJu4XAA/s1600/moab-trip_dec18-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz5rdzEUe4nI_CaniU-PTcL-5tHg6o8VcHC7HRDUhufJZCLvd5xfaVJWY-PHcD280yy4KwobmLX-lr8cFlQmuFFiwHXSMlcJ8simbHm1vWb_ljhNdJRfnjdDwgLMrGWWkzJu4XAA/s640/moab-trip_dec18-14.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Provo City Center Temple was closed when I dropped by, so I had to get a little creative.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeo4T-tm1lbLMnzTPAEEFrzQ3FODsGuVx8VYliGiCj23bb1HceVcWz6P5XVGQqeSlFkO4Yw0BQQtGaoQ0ze4lvytWYXIaOadPqyzbqIvSv1_78xyj7O6kebx53GaLFZp1FkE4aeQ/s1600/moab-trip_dec18-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeo4T-tm1lbLMnzTPAEEFrzQ3FODsGuVx8VYliGiCj23bb1HceVcWz6P5XVGQqeSlFkO4Yw0BQQtGaoQ0ze4lvytWYXIaOadPqyzbqIvSv1_78xyj7O6kebx53GaLFZp1FkE4aeQ/s640/moab-trip_dec18-21.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I put off shooting the Mount Timpanogos Temple for a long time, since it shares the same design as the Bountiful Temple.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbit940iZoRU7Z5VMOwRk64_bbKp9jNC4Nmeo41pi9u7zzhLqflFwELnti1PYpQT5DrRqu2fgXPIr9UNB48H1dSapTS-eKhnoqUSEEFhvQcLEFgqh1MJ5hBF9Qzd5eqjUuoLsRlg/s1600/slc_temple_nov18-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="864" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbit940iZoRU7Z5VMOwRk64_bbKp9jNC4Nmeo41pi9u7zzhLqflFwELnti1PYpQT5DrRqu2fgXPIr9UNB48H1dSapTS-eKhnoqUSEEFhvQcLEFgqh1MJ5hBF9Qzd5eqjUuoLsRlg/s640/slc_temple_nov18-9.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A slightly different angle on the Salt Lake Temple at Christmastime.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEM2pTKhyXVcXWq2n7IyJIRD4-6s5RYjf76G3Zur9zl6AuP6XGpZfoddq6K6RGqWfOrAOKUXFk6hN20zpDVamxhi0A8cU87hxaVTIMqYTsCGTCvONbWEZ6knMSqiZMaKNl3KNNWg/s1600/slc_temple_nov18-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEM2pTKhyXVcXWq2n7IyJIRD4-6s5RYjf76G3Zur9zl6AuP6XGpZfoddq6K6RGqWfOrAOKUXFk6hN20zpDVamxhi0A8cU87hxaVTIMqYTsCGTCvONbWEZ6knMSqiZMaKNl3KNNWg/s640/slc_temple_nov18-15.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The most famous "red" tree on Temple Square wasn't lit up this year, but a different red tree still did the trick.</td></tr>
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November fell victim to some of the same cold symptom malaise that marred September and October, though it didn't stop me from enjoying a great Turkey Bowl with my ward friends the morning of Thanksgiving. I even emerged from my social cave a little bit and started to put more energy into dating again (thought technically, just typing the words, "put more energy into dating" constitutes putting more energy into dating than my efforts over the last couple of years).<br />
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Anyway, as the semester wound down and the Christmas season wound up, I determined to approach the annual madness with a firm sense of balance. Rather than compartmentalize the final grading, the movie reviews, and the obligatory Christmas to-do list to the point that I missed out on actually enjoying the season, I focused on enjoying the ride along the way, while trying to be proactive enough to get those to-do items off my plate as quickly as possible.<br />
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As part of that effort, I found myself back in Moab about ten days before Christmas. I'd been wanting to get back to Delicate Arch for a while, and since I opted to hike to Corona Arch back in March, I decided to head back down in December. To help justify the excursion (though to be honest, $59 hotel rooms in Moab are a pretty easy justification on their own), I also stopped at Goblin Valley on the way down. In addition to my return hike to Delicate Arch, I also got some of my best star trails of the year during an early morning shoot at Balanced Rock. (See...there's that balance thing again.)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFnqbKWURa99RQyyAobOUmFk4yglsEo5r0SV4djM6l2lsWXM-LYIzgzNWR2cpvunuuhb41AbnZ6h2abeYmHYtMo3KQg9gmd78jhVNtQ64FnOOBGpUDfPMzSv-9HlGGQkg4yU6QFg/s1600/goblin-valley_dec18-27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFnqbKWURa99RQyyAobOUmFk4yglsEo5r0SV4djM6l2lsWXM-LYIzgzNWR2cpvunuuhb41AbnZ6h2abeYmHYtMo3KQg9gmd78jhVNtQ64FnOOBGpUDfPMzSv-9HlGGQkg4yU6QFg/s640/goblin-valley_dec18-27.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goblin Valley hoodoo at sunset.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWBR0EeaPgbQJvF55dmObhX9JpgyQocaXwI7J0myepoYvO2p53n8moABPcHvWdjFaaMzVEWebQJbXS0BIS1FQyEZ3GmmM3b6W5Hpw7-HPAGvcPISI_rCnz6Ww66bOAOEVDVtHZA/s1600/moab-trip_dec18-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisWBR0EeaPgbQJvF55dmObhX9JpgyQocaXwI7J0myepoYvO2p53n8moABPcHvWdjFaaMzVEWebQJbXS0BIS1FQyEZ3GmmM3b6W5Hpw7-HPAGvcPISI_rCnz6Ww66bOAOEVDVtHZA/s640/moab-trip_dec18-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Delicate Arch, Arches National Park</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XrxkDZJehPwBYKezVkWtdwRWhwNqGZZRH-xPxhrr4DyfGd75sv_hIeK6lzfmMEo89Ls8iSNZxv0YoogAFrUjwMAUvrh-0M3K-AFC2llS1WycajwejludaCgnk9lldNRxMHbB4Q/s1600/goblin-valley_dec18-36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1XrxkDZJehPwBYKezVkWtdwRWhwNqGZZRH-xPxhrr4DyfGd75sv_hIeK6lzfmMEo89Ls8iSNZxv0YoogAFrUjwMAUvrh-0M3K-AFC2llS1WycajwejludaCgnk9lldNRxMHbB4Q/s640/goblin-valley_dec18-36.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About 30 minutes worth of star trails at Balanced Rock in Arches National Park. Also some meteors.</td></tr>
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Altogether, my quest for balance worked out pretty well. I got all the final grading and the Christmas reviews out of the way, and actually managed to take care of the shopping and the obligatory to-do items done quite early. But in the midst of that stuff, I was attending Christmas parties, spending time with friends and family, going to the temple, and a couple of days after Christmas, I got together with the Thunderlips crew for dinner and a surprisingly good jam session. December still felt like it came and went in the blink of an eye, but at least I could feel better about the way I spent it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0SezPa0AbXjk200Mwajve9Ts8lEzXS69UhpUjS0YuDHz1hOLAR1Z6EGjf8Tyn0SiezKXQ5B18bSTtgkcRDtQyPFggGaXfCKnnbG_WPWB9FQEUOaAk0BakvRl9Zn6HtPNYH5pdA/s1600/tepanyaki_dec2018-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0SezPa0AbXjk200Mwajve9Ts8lEzXS69UhpUjS0YuDHz1hOLAR1Z6EGjf8Tyn0SiezKXQ5B18bSTtgkcRDtQyPFggGaXfCKnnbG_WPWB9FQEUOaAk0BakvRl9Zn6HtPNYH5pdA/s640/tepanyaki_dec2018-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christmas Eve dinner with the family at Tepanyaki...always a good photo op.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiKk7FS6enC8kft62Xp5cV66hRZvWUCxQkldTtIJP1hPPG1Zrjq9yCKxlqmEzG0gMzdqD_-g5ICVma0W7y2lEMJWwfKFCp0DBywLVmSXz8xWamrz-GmxNKqAMg7L2KsbGDGjdRg/s1600/christmas_dec2018-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBiKk7FS6enC8kft62Xp5cV66hRZvWUCxQkldTtIJP1hPPG1Zrjq9yCKxlqmEzG0gMzdqD_-g5ICVma0W7y2lEMJWwfKFCp0DBywLVmSXz8xWamrz-GmxNKqAMg7L2KsbGDGjdRg/s640/christmas_dec2018-5.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A slightly more disorganized family photo compared to the studio shot on the wall behind us.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4YDa9TfY0U67fhgIeEceA-P1w4MPHUanNYRYlbkDYZVk91fCY_kd3quIOMpHlGRB9YCaUovRa0tcaEtuEonWnLvwWJgLtgareG-1I_W892BpzIPd6b-ky_83OjOSfTxh_2VlQg/s1600/christmas_dec2018-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK4YDa9TfY0U67fhgIeEceA-P1w4MPHUanNYRYlbkDYZVk91fCY_kd3quIOMpHlGRB9YCaUovRa0tcaEtuEonWnLvwWJgLtgareG-1I_W892BpzIPd6b-ky_83OjOSfTxh_2VlQg/s640/christmas_dec2018-15.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thunderlips reunion photo...and rumors of a comeback show in April?</td></tr>
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As the year started to draw to a close, I wanted to finish strong, with something worth writing about in a post like this. Part of that stemmed from watching inspirational movies like "Free Solo" and "First Man" earlier in the year, movies that focused on what we can achieve when we dedicate ourselves to lofty goals. Thanks in part to my photo siesta during January and February, 2018's theme seemed to be "better late than never," and as I mulled over moves that would close the year with an appropriate nod toward the future, I decided to do something I'd been putting off for a very long time. That's how on a cold morning a few days before Christmas, I finally marched into the local post office with a birth certificate and an ugly $15 portrait from Walgreens to apply for my first passport.<br />
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Looking back, I don't know that I can name another year that was as prolific in terms of travel and pictures than 2018. Even with two months of the year missing, I scroll through this thing and shake my head at such a sprawling, incoherent mess. I left a lot of stuff out, too...good and bad. Still, for all the pretty places and all the great food and all the mileage, 2018's best moments were almost always connected to family and friends and people I met along the way. I've always been a bit of a loner, and I'm only half kidding when I tell people my most sincere desire in life is to be left alone. But even I have to admit that life is better with good people around, and whether it was hanging out with my nieces, having lunch with an old friend, or meeting kindred spirits in an open field in Arches National Park, 2018 was always better with company. It may have taken me a while to figure that out, but hey...better late than never.<br />
<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-15041714113849204422017-12-31T17:25:00.000-07:002017-12-31T17:25:46.018-07:00Life in '17This past November I was editing a few images from my annual family photo shoot when I came across a shot that seemed to capture the entire year. I caught it while I was getting the rest of my family situated on a picnic table off the Lagoon Trail in Farmington. Everyone is kind of fidgeting around, getting settled in, and up on the right, my sister is just kind of gazing off in the half-distance, with this curious grimace-smile on her face. As I stared at my monitor, I realized I was staring into the face of 2017.<br />
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Looking back at the last twelve months, I remember moments that felt exhilarating, and plenty of others that felt exhausting. There was ample good to go with the bad, like every year, yet 2017 was different somehow. It's too soon to get enough perspective to really understand everything that's happened in the last year, let alone how it will impact us moving forward, but combing through 2017's aftermath makes it clear that we've just finished a year to remember.<br />
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Of course, as I collected the images I felt would best tell my story of the last year, I realized that I was only taking pictures during the good bits. I also realize that a lot of the bad bits didn't happen <i>to</i> me so much as <i>around</i> me, even thousands of miles away from me, which somehow still felt very draining. So what follows feels like only part of the story of 2017. Such is life, I suppose. Like last year, you can also click <a href="http://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/Best-of-2017/" target="_blank">this link</a> (preferably on something other than your phone) to see a slideshow of these and other related images as I really want you to see them.<br />
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W I N T E R</div>
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Things were different right away. For one, I wasn't marking another anniversary on the KJZZ Movie Show, because it had been canceled the previous summer. For another, I had a new suit for the first time in 13 years. So I took some pictures of myself in it.<br />
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Other traditions held up. I followed up 2016's run to glory at Sundance with a parade of misery and mediocrity in 2017. I can only see so many movies at the festival every year, and somehow I missed out on all the really good ones this time around. I did take my camera along to get a few shots on historic Main Street one afternoon, so that was nice, and on another night I almost drove headlong into an anti-Trump protest, recovering in just enough time to get a few shots of everyone marching away from me.<br />
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But even if Sundance was a drag, my second semester teaching for Weber State University was fantastic. Somehow my Spring '17 English 0955 course managed to achieve a level of chemistry by about two weeks in that most of my courses never achieve after an entire semester.<br />
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S P R I N G</div>
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Things stayed pretty quiet on the photography front until March, when I set out for my first big trip of the year. My Spring Break road trip took me to Moab, where I photographed the Milky Way in Arches National Park, down to Monument Valley, where I spent half a day on a solo tour with a Navajo Indian guide named Henry, and back up through Kanab and Zion and Cedar City to complete my four day loop. I had fantastic fish and chips at a remote spot in Bluff, Utah, took pictures of Angel's Landing from the safety of the ground, and probably got my most interesting shot of the trip while hiking the trail to the Horseshoe Bend overlook.<br />
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Later that spring I made a long-awaited creative purchase--a Canon macro lens--and a less long-awaited and highly agitating purchase--buying my Volkswagen GTI at the conclusion of my three-year lease. The macro lens allowed me to see tiny things from a new perspective. The GTI reinforced my long-held perspective that all car dealerships are cheats.<br />
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After parting ways with my 0955 class and signing off on my first full school year at Weber, it was time to plan my traditional tax-deductible between-semesters photo trip. After a lot of deliberation and an exhaustive amount of time pitching ideas to Expedia.com, I decided to spend a few days in San Francisco, where I did some extensive photography of the Golden Gate Bridge, and spent the better part of a day in the Mission District with my old friend Jordy from grad school. But the most vivid experience of the trip was my first trolley ride, hanging off the side of the car taking pictures while chatting with a giddy group of middle-aged Australian tourists.<br />
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It was around this time that I decided to take a break from social media. For the previous several months I'd been posting to Instagram on a daily basis, and sharing regular content to Facebook as well. But halfway through May I got a little burned out on the process, and was embarrassed to note how often I would come back and check on how many likes or comments a specific post had picked up. I started questioning why I was posting photographs, and even wondered why I was taking pictures at all. It wasn't intended to be a final decision, but even though I continued to view and "like" other posts on social media, and continued to head out and take pictures as often as I could, I didn't post anything of my own for the rest of 2017...until now, I guess.<br />
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S U M M E R</div>
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As spring worked its way into summer, I frequently found myself out under the stars, staring up into the night sky. My spring break trip had yielded some of my best Milky Way photography to date, and that enthusiasm continued on camping trips to Farmington Canyon and Willow Flats, up in southeastern Idaho. The last night in Willow Flats, I followed my longtime friend Brian and his oldest daughter out to the Cub River around sunset, and got some images that seemed built for Father's Day.<br />
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The original plan was to start teaching again partway through June, but my class was canceled due to low enrollment. I was still staying busy--after getting a new editor in the spring, I started covering about twice as many films for the Deseret News as usual, and I was still taping YouTube reviews with my buddy Chidsey as often as possible. I tried to get out and shoot whenever I could, and I especially enjoyed hiking up above Eaglewood Golf Course with my old friend/roommate Paul to watch the annual 4th of July fireworks show, where I grabbed some gorgeous sunset views while waiting for the celebration to begin.<br />
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Around the midpoint of 2017, the Cheetahman asked me if I would join him for a 90-day calorie counting challenge. At first I bristled at the notion--counting calories didn't seem like a very manly thing to do--but I knew that I needed to lose weight. I was still going to the gym regularly, and lifting more than ever, but bad eating habits had put me over a weight threshold I'd never crossed, even beyond the startling weigh-in that inspired me to lose 20 pounds back in 2011. I told Cheetahman I was in, and 183 days later, I've lost about 25 pounds and counting.<br />
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Not long after starting my calorie challenge, I set out on a road trip up into the Pacific Northwest. My sister and her family were heading up in that direction to visit some friends and extended family, and I decided to put together a kind of concurrent route that would cross paths with them periodically along the way. While they went straight up I-84 through Boise, I went west to Crater Lake National Park, then continued north to meet up with them in the Portland area, where we all stayed with my Aunt Barbara before further into Washington for a couple of days in the Seattle area. Besides my aunt, I was able to spend time with some of my cousins in Vancouver, and see my old friend Shane and his family in nearby Camas. Then up in Seattle I was able to reconnect with my longtime friend Scott, who if memory serves, was the guy who got me started on this blog over ten years ago. Along the way, I made my first visits to places like Multnomah Falls, Cannon Beach, and Mount Rainier National Park.<br />
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It was only a couple of weeks later I was headed back north, this time with my mom up to Island Park for my first visit to the family cabin in two years. Wild land fires had covered the area in a deep haze, but I was still able to get some cool images in (and around) Yellowstone.<br />
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About a week after getting home, the news was all about something that wasn't hugely divisive for a change: the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017. We were only at 90% coverage down in Davis County, so rather than get photos <i>of</i> the eclipse, I got pictures of the people looking at the eclipse, which turned out to be pretty fun, too.<br />
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F A L L</div>
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Things got very busy once the school year started, thanks to a section of English 2010 I picked up in addition to my 0955 course a couple of weeks before the start of the new semester. Altogether I wound up commuting to Ogden Monday through Friday, then doubling back into Salt Lake for press screenings several days a week, since I was still covering so many movies (about 200 total by Christmas). Any mileage I'd conserved during my lease was eaten up pretty quickly, but I enjoyed teaching English 2010 again.<br />
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The busy schedule left me determined to make good on Fall Break, so a few days before my birthday, I drove south to Joshua Tree National Park (It seemed like an appropriate destination). On the way back, I stopped at the #vegasstrong memorial that had sprung up on the south end of The Strip following the tragic shooting earlier in the month, and enjoyed one of my most peaceful and spiritual moments of 2017 at the doorstep of Sin City.<br />
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Things stayed busy as the holiday season approached, and after my Joshua Tree trip, I found less and less opportunity to get out and shoot. I handled my aforementioned family shoot, which yielded a great shot of my sister and niece #3, and as the fall semester mercifully came to a close, I forced myself out in the cold to shoot another Bountiful area icon.<br />
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December is a pretty crazy month for me, with the end of fall semester running headlong into the Christmas release calendar, all while juggling the pomp and circumstance of the holidays. Every year I try to remind myself to enjoy the little things along the way, rather than tell myself that I'll do the fun Christmas stuff once the last papers are graded, the last reviews are written, and my Christmas shopping is finally taken care of. You can guess how well that works out.<br />
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Once I'd turned in my "Last Jedi" review, finished grading papers, and at least started my Christmas shopping, I flew back down to Las Vegas to help the Cheetahman with the Cowboy Christmas trade show, where he was promoting his Rockagator waterproof backpacks. One of my prime motivations was to eat at the new Giordano's franchise, and it was great to have some of my favorite Chicago deep dish pizza again. Sadly, I also got word that the #vegasstrong memorial had already been removed, and the headliner show at our hotel--which used to be the Hilton where Elvis played--suggested that things were largely back to business as usual in Sin City.<br />
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For all the craziness, though, Christmas 2017 actually turned out alright. Once I ground out the to-do stuff, I finally was able to get down to the stuff I really wanted to do. I spent time with friends, with family, and even set up my drum kit for the first time in over 18 months (unexpected discovery: playing the drums along to old school rap tracks from the late '80s/early '90s is very fun). Rather than go on another routine Temple Square photo shoot, I brought my camera along to my family's return trip to Tepanyaki two days before Christmas.<br />
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The downside of losing weight is that your clothes don't fit anymore. It's not much of a downside, but twelve months after getting my first new suit in 13 years, I had to get another one, justifying it as a congratulations gift to myself for losing the weight. One night a few days after Christmas, before heading over to take a few pictures at Station Park, my buddy Tyler and I teamed up for a "Suit Shoot," since he'd recently picked up a new suit, too. It was the last shoot of what turned out to be a fairly prolific year, in spite of my lack of social media activity.<br />
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Throughout the year, the Bountiful Temple has been under construction, and for a long time one of my hometown's most iconic buildings was headless. Apparently the temple has had a leak issue for years, and this year church leadership finally decided to just rebuild the building's spire and fix the problem for good. One night last summer my inner photojournalist got the best of me again, and I drove up to document the transition.<br />
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Staring up there night after night at a building that has looked out over Bountiful for the better part of 25 years, topped with scaffolding and missing its head, I felt like I was looking at an architectural metaphor for everything going on in my own life for the last few years. I don't know that I've ever felt like I had everything figured out in life, at least in terms of a career, and certainly in terms of dating, but a lot of the things I did have in place have been moved around, if not scrapped altogether. Yet, looking at that temple, it's comforting to note that the foundation is still in place, and inside everything is business as usual. And if that's the case, it's probably OK to endure a facelift now and then.<br />
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Looking back at 2017, I couldn't even begin to guess what we've got coming next year. But every December when I sit down to put this post together, I start out thinking about all the craziness, then have to admit that I've seen some pretty generous blessings, mostly in the form of friends and family, and of course in the peaceful reassurance of the gospel. I imagine 2018 will bring more of the same, as long as we keep the foundation in place. The temple spire is back in place now, and maybe that means something, too.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-17187698900931462642017-04-16T16:24:00.001-06:002017-04-16T16:26:19.553-06:00Easter Musings: John Cusack, Sheer Cliffs, and 15-Year-Old Christ Figures<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7q86rwajwtZhhySgp0FpzQWOUBa_d-VZMYbQryQR2Pm98dT1dUmOYzehU7rbhzzzmQ_hOL3jK1QzK3Iab5ZmygLDoqhcLlw9dNy0cxebHCM_4jETRLspKtWRChAxslvxELMUtSg/s1600/spring-break_2017-84.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7q86rwajwtZhhySgp0FpzQWOUBa_d-VZMYbQryQR2Pm98dT1dUmOYzehU7rbhzzzmQ_hOL3jK1QzK3Iab5ZmygLDoqhcLlw9dNy0cxebHCM_4jETRLspKtWRChAxslvxELMUtSg/s640/spring-break_2017-84.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Angel's Landing, March 2017. Those little dots in the upper-right corner are a couple of brave souls posing on its precipice.</td></tr>
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In the summer of 1990*, Troop 649 out of Bountiful, Utah spent its annual Scout Camp in Zion National Park. I was thirteen years old, midway between 8th and 9th grade, and still hoping to play football for the Raiders someday.<br />
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The centerpiece of the camp was a 17-mile trek through the Zion Narrows, a gorgeous red rock slot canyon and one of my first lessons in the principle that you can have too much of a good thing. The hike was split over two days, with a sleepless overnight camp in a miserable rock alcove jammed in-between.<br />
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My most substantial memory of the camp came a couple of days after we finished the Narrows, when the whole troop decided to scale Angel's Landing, a breathtaking precipice that many consider the highlight of any trip to Zion. I'd never heard of the place before--that camp was, as I recall, my first official trip to Southern Utah--so I spent three-quarters of the hike in blissful if winded ignorance before turning a corner and stopping in my tracks before a narrow, winding ridge with 1,000+ foot drops on either side sitting in front of me.<br />
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Now, I'm not a fan of heights. I can't really remember any specific pre-Angel's Landing experiences that drove this point home, but I'm fairly certain that by age 13, I ranked extreme heights somewhere around contemporary country music and tuna fish sandwiches on my list of things I'd just assume never have to deal with for the rest of my natural life. And staring at that crazy zig-zagging ridge ahead of me, with its helpful chains driven into the rocks for optimal clinging, I realized that I was about to face the one thing on that list that could actually threaten my natural life.<br />
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Luckily, I had Brad.<br />
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Brad was my scoutmaster's teenage son, a year or two older than the rest of us, safely on the opposite side of the tumultuous sea of puberty. Brad tagged along on our camp, and quickly became something of a mentor for me, mainly because he'd brought along a cassette copy of Van Halen's "5150" album for the drive down. We'd spent much of the hike up until that point shooting the bull and getting to know one another, and without realizing it, I began to take on some of his determined enthusiasm.<br />
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That's why I only had about a split second of sober hesitation before I followed Brad headlong up that horrifying little ridge. His confidence was infectious, and the difference maker between me completing the hike and staying back at the landing with several of the other scouts. I was terrified as I scrambled over that last red rock incline, clutching those chains, but I never let up, and Brad and I finished the ascent well ahead of the rest of the group.<br />
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Naturally, the view was beautiful, and I'm pretty sure we took some discount 1990's-era photographs that have become buried in storage somewhere in my parents' basement. I even got a commemorative award at our next Court of Honor for "First Place up Angel's Landing," so someone must have been aware of how petrified I was on that stupid hike.<br />
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But while my ascent of Angel's Landing initially felt like a personal accomplishment, in the time since I have begun to see it in a different light. Over time, it has become one of my most vivid, if imperfect, metaphors for the Atonement of Jesus Christ.<br />
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I didn't realize it at the time, but I was drawn to Brad because he represented the big brother I never had. As a kid, I remember watching "Stand By Me," a Rob Reiner adaptation of a Stephen King novella about four boys who go on a journey to find a dead body. The protagonist, Gordie, is haunted by memories of his big brother, played by John Cusack in flashback, who had died in a car accident. For decades afterward seeing that movie I have had this odd perspective on the Chicago actor as a consequence. Without any older siblings of my own, Cusack projected the big brother I wish I had, and Brad projected the big brother I didn't realize I had.<br />
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I'm not sure we can ever comprehend the Atonement of Jesus Christ, but I think that in little ways, at least in part, we can understand it. I think it's safe to say that without Brad inspiring my effort, I likely would have second-guessed myself into staying at that last landing, one frightening ridge away from one of the most memorable accomplishments of my adolescence. I don't necessarily think Brad would have saved me from falling if I'd slipped, but his leadership, encouragement, and support felt like everything I've heard described about the Savior and the role He's supposed to play in our lives. With Him leading the way, we can do things we could never do left to our own devices. At the same time, He won't do the task for us. We have to exercise enough faith to follow His lead.<br />
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I've been to Zion several times in the years since that summer camp, but I've never been back up Angel's Landing. I've thought about it, wondered if another ascent would confirm my adolescent conquest, but never followed through. As of right now, my favorite view of Angel's Landing is the one I posted at the top of this article, the one I photographed with my feet firmly planted on the ground.<br />
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It's more likely that, rather than worry about facing the exact same fear I already faced almost thirty years ago, I should apply the lesson I was given that day to my more immediate fears, and see what new heights I can achieve with a little help from my big brother.<br />
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*Or maybe it was 1989?The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-195072688362971552016-12-31T13:43:00.003-07:002016-12-31T14:07:11.351-07:00Photographic Therapy in the Funk of 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The general consensus is that 2016 was awful. A quick spin through the big news items of the year offers a lot of evidence for the argument, and not all of it is connected to presidential elections or celebrity deaths.</div>
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On a personal level, I have to admit that 2016 threw its share of body blows. After a three and a half year run, the KJZZ Movie Show was canceled because of a network buyout. One of my favorite restaurants shut its doors forever, and I faced down a long-dreaded birthday in October. A lot of 2016 played out in a heavy funk, and not the good James Brown kind.</div>
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But it wasn't hard to find silver linings hiding in that overcast horizon. By the time fall rolled around, I had a brand-new niece and a brand-new teaching job up at Weber State University. And just before Christmas, thanks to the support and hard work of my buddy Chidsey, I launched a new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQdTlovozb0">YouTube channel</a> for my movie reviews, because if there is one thing I know, it is that people need to have a place to watch artificial light reflect off my bald head on a regular basis.</div>
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Through all the ups and downs, photography became my therapy as well as my creative passion. Somewhere around the time winter transitioned into spring, I resolved to get out and shoot more often, and shoot I did. I'll post a few favorites below, but if you really want to see this stuff the way you were meant to, click <a href="http://www.joshterryphoto.com/Featured-Projects/n-MxTqJB/Best-of-2016/">this link</a> when you're on a desktop computer (or at least a laptop), and then click the "play" button in the upper-right hand corner.</div>
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W I N T E R</div>
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The year started off the same way as the last few, with a visit to the Sundance Film Festival and an anniversary for the KJZZ Movie Show. Eventually I got out and started some shooting, in spite of the bleak winter weather. My first real shoot came about two hours before playing church basketball for the Bountiful 19th Ward for the first time since 1998. Later I braved the elements with my buddy Dennis to do some night photography out by Morgan, Utah.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This long exposure was taken off I-84 between the Mountain Green exit and Morgan.</td></tr>
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S P R I N G</div>
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March brought a much needed Spring Break away from a challenging semester at Salt Lake Community College. I decided to take a quick road trip south, stopping first for an afternoon stroll through Goblin Valley before continuing to Capitol Reef National Park, where I rose early the next morning to photograph the Milky Way. Later that day I made quick work of the Calf Creek Falls hike, then continued to Bryce Canyon, where I once again dragged myself out of bed early to photograph the sunrise. Helpful travel tip: If you're traveling through the Capitol Reef/Bryce Canyon area in March, pack a lunch. Because nothing is open in the off-season.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCrIQ37ZODN34cIyV0FARaqAWrYO7bhjZhurQhaJiA2PLxf51hW28_fDqeb5UPONB3aYGX27bsvJMHbv32qnKqHBC82uE2LapRq4gnIDI7hNgWlERvvMyA0ikxaGRyZd4rtvegg/s1600/astro_test3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfCrIQ37ZODN34cIyV0FARaqAWrYO7bhjZhurQhaJiA2PLxf51hW28_fDqeb5UPONB3aYGX27bsvJMHbv32qnKqHBC82uE2LapRq4gnIDI7hNgWlERvvMyA0ikxaGRyZd4rtvegg/s640/astro_test3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panorama Point, Capitol Reef National Park</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjbj5YcesUTlFpnZrfrtnYnY-geTMu3uKDwd9RRx-TFL4UAFgCDfI0D4mIULkSYSrlnodmiH6emctW-fsy8eDGUk4w-n1xcPzAClchJ_4iJeBmXI_g-LNLRqa-a_Ap_hzzdxgqWw/s1600/bryce_sunrise_m16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjbj5YcesUTlFpnZrfrtnYnY-geTMu3uKDwd9RRx-TFL4UAFgCDfI0D4mIULkSYSrlnodmiH6emctW-fsy8eDGUk4w-n1xcPzAClchJ_4iJeBmXI_g-LNLRqa-a_Ap_hzzdxgqWw/s640/bryce_sunrise_m16.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunrise at Bryce Canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail.</td></tr>
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I wound up spending a lot of time at the temple this year, both attending sessions and taking pictures. On a March visit to the Bountiful Temple I started another 2016 habit, and started compiling images for time-lapse videos:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nVZuczTlmho" width="560"></iframe>
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In April my "get out and shoot" mantra really started to pick up steam, as I marched out into the high winds of a passing storm to photograph the sunset over The Great Salt Lake near Saltair. Then in May I took advantage of my friend Tyler's company Lagoon Day to do some long exposures of the rides just after sunset.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvLWR04tEfo2A_dOP93mS2JKxCOEEMaurdEMHTpz5QRgIHFpcmI7DBLwb0GOs-VF6g0-xbzz3vt5k-oS0IrDVcITv2QBWzRr0AxWeBTUOrjlAuIPafX3nVWsPbTP1OOlre0WbWA/s1600/gsl-storm_ap16-2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSvLWR04tEfo2A_dOP93mS2JKxCOEEMaurdEMHTpz5QRgIHFpcmI7DBLwb0GOs-VF6g0-xbzz3vt5k-oS0IrDVcITv2QBWzRr0AxWeBTUOrjlAuIPafX3nVWsPbTP1OOlre0WbWA/s640/gsl-storm_ap16-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO0hO_mIEsV02RiGTa7jtsZEjzj22rcLXANop_rewtITy-yGGVNPaPD67aWNPNiv-VRVD5gHfBag1hNsWvh78jDo7mhT_RbVe67vroiqgb8PvwEAHkE2p1Kj7ikI3nTZTCTU49pA/s1600/lagoon_may16-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO0hO_mIEsV02RiGTa7jtsZEjzj22rcLXANop_rewtITy-yGGVNPaPD67aWNPNiv-VRVD5gHfBag1hNsWvh78jDo7mhT_RbVe67vroiqgb8PvwEAHkE2p1Kj7ikI3nTZTCTU49pA/s640/lagoon_may16-7.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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S U M M E R</div>
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June confirmed the rumors: The KJZZ Movie Show was canceled. After a blast of a three and a half year run, our little (award-winning!) movie program was shut down as a result of a network buyout. We were given the heads-up earlier in the year, but soldiered forward as the sale was finalized in the hopes that someone might decide to keep the lights on. I still hope that some incarnation of the show might come together in the future, but if not, I have a lot of great memories to be grateful for.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_DXoVlG-p0IgDOAyWuvyLkQ29XTB1O9pcmioh2SpD14stzyP_-_VVgP6XXZbXwHrLzzVBd1rcsWOVMWES6u_0_BqumKqctYAoyRp60Z0it4gi6B3DeJFj_ODUuGVsZyWiBuVoQ/s1600/kjzzms_promo_2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim_DXoVlG-p0IgDOAyWuvyLkQ29XTB1O9pcmioh2SpD14stzyP_-_VVgP6XXZbXwHrLzzVBd1rcsWOVMWES6u_0_BqumKqctYAoyRp60Z0it4gi6B3DeJFj_ODUuGVsZyWiBuVoQ/s640/kjzzms_promo_2015.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My KJZZ co-stars Steve Salles and Melanie Nelson take a break during a 2015 promo shoot for our show.</td></tr>
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As I marched through Summer Semester at SLCC, and plodded through a summer movie line-up that just seemed to fall flat, the 4th of July brought some much appreciated photo opportunities. I bought a few modest fireworks from one of those tent stores that pop up every summer, and recruited my nieces to help me add a human touch to the celebration.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zWFrEO2xqmYusD5zgf5GndB3dPLnQkKq4WH1CoyPbu_DRlPiJcvBvlhQGGkYYUFGx-oeWwFYD3JjDVWsfUH3-7UquG_v6uQaTDqqjOcB1dD6NI50cPq58nvzIn6NCNEjumxvFg/s1600/cowan-fireworks_jul16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zWFrEO2xqmYusD5zgf5GndB3dPLnQkKq4WH1CoyPbu_DRlPiJcvBvlhQGGkYYUFGx-oeWwFYD3JjDVWsfUH3-7UquG_v6uQaTDqqjOcB1dD6NI50cPq58nvzIn6NCNEjumxvFg/s640/cowan-fireworks_jul16.jpg" width="512" /></a></div>
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In July I also made my first return to Oregon since the summer of 2002, to attend my cousin Jessica's wedding. I left my camera at my hotel for the ceremony and celebration, but took advantage of multiple opportunities to photograph the beautiful Oregon coast.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhItCerUOiKq4un52ahqUad72sYBTI_5LaX1LVdEOaE87JZaH8ahK6LOCowWPQkx7iUXNGAQ4zPDqvAHVCBEoGtUqyX3LRwraj82l5R3_EipFU9WBZ-1Js2nTS_w_NicKVVr2NQkw/s1600/sunset_bay_jul16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhItCerUOiKq4un52ahqUad72sYBTI_5LaX1LVdEOaE87JZaH8ahK6LOCowWPQkx7iUXNGAQ4zPDqvAHVCBEoGtUqyX3LRwraj82l5R3_EipFU9WBZ-1Js2nTS_w_NicKVVr2NQkw/s640/sunset_bay_jul16.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">From time to time through the year I experimented with a post-production process called stacking, where multiple images were combined to enhance the impact of a particular subject. This technique especially came in handy when photographing LDS temples at sunset, since the temple lights usually didn't come on until after the sun had already gone down. I used the stacking technique to create this image of the Bountiful Temple during the Pioneer Day fireworks display at Mueller Park Jr. High, which also coincided with a dramatic wildfire out on Antelope Island, which you can see on the right.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kkWp2xs5lfJ85J7_NGnWcL33wD5X4dwptyoPJQkz6dBSko_19lrQEs88vtTCafm50En0z2AVRIkc4He0yp9prIuNxt6gnE8PdVPrdtJZFw8Qi3Z1uykize3U1Irsgh_ECkcOAA/s1600/mp_fireworks_stack_2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5kkWp2xs5lfJ85J7_NGnWcL33wD5X4dwptyoPJQkz6dBSko_19lrQEs88vtTCafm50En0z2AVRIkc4He0yp9prIuNxt6gnE8PdVPrdtJZFw8Qi3Z1uykize3U1Irsgh_ECkcOAA/s640/mp_fireworks_stack_2016.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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July was packed with great photographic moments, and one of my favorites took place in a remote area of southeastern Idaho called Willow Flats, where two of my best friends and their families invited me to join them for their yearly campout. After rising early to get some images of the sunrise, I returned to camp to recruit two of my friends' kids to help me create the peaceful scene below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iNUR8EDvEmuzi213KRa3hRQzCnyQEU41Utfg4PPqEJiw90EyS8kS9eIStV4yXUzaSdMZmvlwcMPZiCqY0WEDN4y4ru_oj3zs3Kn8GTfIRGBBg-E9r3KjGurfjmAIKMa2Ief7Pw/s1600/willow_flats_jul16-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2iNUR8EDvEmuzi213KRa3hRQzCnyQEU41Utfg4PPqEJiw90EyS8kS9eIStV4yXUzaSdMZmvlwcMPZiCqY0WEDN4y4ru_oj3zs3Kn8GTfIRGBBg-E9r3KjGurfjmAIKMa2Ief7Pw/s640/willow_flats_jul16-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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At the beginning of August I wrapped up my last summer course for SLCC, then took a quick trip to San Diego before starting a new semester at Weber State University up in Ogden.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluvn0PW_aVv3OJSgvF4u2c1HRoADRJPBKqvWwer-L68QMOdTUJ4uHmt1esMjwBSyArSGUMVVCidbU0N0jxGPX7QjG_7KXDTzaL8UcSILhptKzRulhWON54LidNl6tYy-vqjANhA/s1600/san-diego_2016-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluvn0PW_aVv3OJSgvF4u2c1HRoADRJPBKqvWwer-L68QMOdTUJ4uHmt1esMjwBSyArSGUMVVCidbU0N0jxGPX7QjG_7KXDTzaL8UcSILhptKzRulhWON54LidNl6tYy-vqjANhA/s640/san-diego_2016-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scripps Pier, San Diego California</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjL1QrGfA9VhjgpZPOdCf1XbBAA0UB1Ae7Lq_X0D9U_3aIjRCqgnRgMeVh17lWIWmzQnIKol7zXpn7refLFGvFSW0aV56hXBcWdg18PMSEhYVA4CurhXnsCg1SZxS6ZIndj_cSMw/s1600/9-23-16_instagram_exports-23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjL1QrGfA9VhjgpZPOdCf1XbBAA0UB1Ae7Lq_X0D9U_3aIjRCqgnRgMeVh17lWIWmzQnIKol7zXpn7refLFGvFSW0aV56hXBcWdg18PMSEhYVA4CurhXnsCg1SZxS6ZIndj_cSMw/s640/9-23-16_instagram_exports-23.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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F A L L</div>
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Fall brought more than a new teaching job. In September, my third niece arrived, and I made my annual visit to the Utah State Fair.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNc0EYQErVF3PqohgVMmpenN3_0X4_Dx7AzpnjpuU1U3HYWQds6HxNUleump8oFWmj5n2eQ9V67AgA8uKePYeZcxJdOMBipL25daNCLIf8yYsgVwn7wFf7yqhSeCqnwR9aNd6Xng/s1600/9-23-16_instagram_exports-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNc0EYQErVF3PqohgVMmpenN3_0X4_Dx7AzpnjpuU1U3HYWQds6HxNUleump8oFWmj5n2eQ9V67AgA8uKePYeZcxJdOMBipL25daNCLIf8yYsgVwn7wFf7yqhSeCqnwR9aNd6Xng/s640/9-23-16_instagram_exports-3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimm47aHJ87vFyTqEXc1QdO1T4DnB1FcrLNUr8WslP78HV1ONu4ZShKdCuaiUnUMDfjS_O4_CRLvWu2J6BNRj57Dtg8Vzf63vqqCugA3A6BS12dUE39yk5CW29KxCruht92XKDWeA/s1600/9-23-16_instagram_exports-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimm47aHJ87vFyTqEXc1QdO1T4DnB1FcrLNUr8WslP78HV1ONu4ZShKdCuaiUnUMDfjS_O4_CRLvWu2J6BNRj57Dtg8Vzf63vqqCugA3A6BS12dUE39yk5CW29KxCruht92XKDWeA/s640/9-23-16_instagram_exports-12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In October I finished a side project I'd been working on for several months. Earlier in the year I set a goal to photograph seven new LDS temples before my birthday, and after successful visits to the Brigham City, Draper, Provo, Payson, Oquirrh Mountain, and San Diego temples, I took a fall drive up to Cache Valley and finished my project at the foot of the Logan Temple, about a mile from where I attended grad school at Utah State University.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKT8zthoJ2c5q2xCt3OqcZgMbgGUZ8DhUFcp-kzFnR4GtylEhg0KlV2tDukWeov5GOnoGlU6MkEXkKYAAfaDltypnTIAE2X_pkfUSow3oHQwaciSB-QAveo5YJMNkUV69-0OrIw/s1600/bc-shoot_apr16-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKT8zthoJ2c5q2xCt3OqcZgMbgGUZ8DhUFcp-kzFnR4GtylEhg0KlV2tDukWeov5GOnoGlU6MkEXkKYAAfaDltypnTIAE2X_pkfUSow3oHQwaciSB-QAveo5YJMNkUV69-0OrIw/s640/bc-shoot_apr16-10.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brigham City Utah Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMbs4_u6FcD2Lmj3qZFbGG5or5PYr0hiNOQuCl4Ge5KoSvoN8PKNdQwPNtXJoD4ErXM19kPpfZ6vbfRiiSMPB2B0cPwsr5vDddDiDm8k4UT4pavCBRVh4AR7J9bOvdUDhfBWDtzw/s640/draper_temple_stack_jun16.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Draper Utah Temple</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ8F3Ve4lCT6oNkEYnCfoYw70tOx91QV0moRFaDXWNv0MRkVv9CsTYrCP-TTB12BiDpw9HWelsZH_DglCfhjKM20i7boLXzt_5X6UVWc0rNrD77vuDX02vZ5oppqu6sbJlmx213Q/s1600/provo_temple_jun16-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ8F3Ve4lCT6oNkEYnCfoYw70tOx91QV0moRFaDXWNv0MRkVv9CsTYrCP-TTB12BiDpw9HWelsZH_DglCfhjKM20i7boLXzt_5X6UVWc0rNrD77vuDX02vZ5oppqu6sbJlmx213Q/s640/provo_temple_jun16-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Provo Utah Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifc2T041JPYk3laFG_u3NkoLD0A9bOJKR5N3aeHHt2aqYsSpV4RTQi7YNInIP6pf3mEKhNf1K-A8T4sdccb7aYg5ZT5Af_AbnWqLT1zD9Hz67xU05rc2JSW8t6TbGSdCnUYuSaHQ/s1600/various_jul16-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifc2T041JPYk3laFG_u3NkoLD0A9bOJKR5N3aeHHt2aqYsSpV4RTQi7YNInIP6pf3mEKhNf1K-A8T4sdccb7aYg5ZT5Af_AbnWqLT1zD9Hz67xU05rc2JSW8t6TbGSdCnUYuSaHQ/s640/various_jul16-14.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Payson Utah Temple</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEno3lH6xA7467X1SPHFXVRzg2DfgpFSZn-8fre9-S0Lz0iw8Gz-_BkxuSLKyY0Xt7pyTHXGvDUoiBhnAHnHi9xZG0gzP8lhhrvQ5iQbDJfnz6CFd6B5wHLzxC72zRMOmFtA9Vpg/s1600/new-for-instagram_aug16-120.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEno3lH6xA7467X1SPHFXVRzg2DfgpFSZn-8fre9-S0Lz0iw8Gz-_BkxuSLKyY0Xt7pyTHXGvDUoiBhnAHnHi9xZG0gzP8lhhrvQ5iQbDJfnz6CFd6B5wHLzxC72zRMOmFtA9Vpg/s640/new-for-instagram_aug16-120.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUXmG3eocgjwJh088yWdw72MW4YA-J-jaHz3Qt4U0KjJZnt8DJCm66aswHDuG9bkSQTcqlis486-fK43182GyReXmgNGkZdH265R0FJVaogDpeCHwIzbjJU07lvs4gRGlWLnrm2Q/s1600/san-diego_2016-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUXmG3eocgjwJh088yWdw72MW4YA-J-jaHz3Qt4U0KjJZnt8DJCm66aswHDuG9bkSQTcqlis486-fK43182GyReXmgNGkZdH265R0FJVaogDpeCHwIzbjJU07lvs4gRGlWLnrm2Q/s640/san-diego_2016-8.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Diego California Temple</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZRq9TMUC5RHnJNVo-TZaEHfWsOH2NIe_vpbXxgfnH-gPGzOcn3MXa3ocZdOpz6hvZnoRPGcdnYGnoZL_9g1LjslwXRSvIxQrIqNLJLmSa1jwW8w_AmUyqBV4NmCGUll3mZ9zu3Q/s1600/fall-break-edits_oct16-20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZRq9TMUC5RHnJNVo-TZaEHfWsOH2NIe_vpbXxgfnH-gPGzOcn3MXa3ocZdOpz6hvZnoRPGcdnYGnoZL_9g1LjslwXRSvIxQrIqNLJLmSa1jwW8w_AmUyqBV4NmCGUll3mZ9zu3Q/s640/fall-break-edits_oct16-20.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Logan Utah Temple.</td></tr>
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Late in October, the unthinkable happened: I turned 40. But thanks to a great party hosted by my sister, which included a compilation of personal letters from friends and family offering their condolences, the brick wall of middle age actually became one of my best moments of 2016. A couple of weeks later, I took a quick trip south to Cedar City with the Cheetahman, who was also celebrating his big 4-0.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgMplko5fgTVaTdp2QUWL3WbeiEcL3qaE8JVotiQiyeJlU2tMNvy2BMKU7NRb6I6HUga46fsvCYx_6o2KGlnOoLrjU2DhFFpGgwQn8Xbb1z8zEfMy_U1PoPKb8a5L9kyUXncs6A/s1600/nov16_for_instagram-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgMplko5fgTVaTdp2QUWL3WbeiEcL3qaE8JVotiQiyeJlU2tMNvy2BMKU7NRb6I6HUga46fsvCYx_6o2KGlnOoLrjU2DhFFpGgwQn8Xbb1z8zEfMy_U1PoPKb8a5L9kyUXncs6A/s640/nov16_for_instagram-6.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cheetahman ponders mortality while wearing a stylish Rockagator waterproof backpack at the Little Sahara Sand Dunes near Delta, Utah.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiri1lo2wrL53nmBwLMDrKxr8ziiCMSzq3up9ZlJuZNutlTgOMm9z4c-5bAhWG0cC4oQHpziNhea4zYG2zyjv4qc_HxmhH2cRb091W14FNED6DzHevotk68M5pVv6N2FEfJE6ZPeQ/s1600/kfalls_nov16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiri1lo2wrL53nmBwLMDrKxr8ziiCMSzq3up9ZlJuZNutlTgOMm9z4c-5bAhWG0cC4oQHpziNhea4zYG2zyjv4qc_HxmhH2cRb091W14FNED6DzHevotk68M5pVv6N2FEfJE6ZPeQ/s640/kfalls_nov16.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waterfall in Kanarra Creek slot canyon, south of Cedar City, Utah.</td></tr>
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By the time December ushered in the Christmas season, I was getting ready to wrap up a successful semester at Weber, launching my new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0khd-5lpmDK-gZ-h4_lUaA">YouTube channel</a>, and looking for every opportunity to shoot that I could find. Often times my efforts led me to an old favorite, and one cold evening I returned to the same spot where I shot the Mueller Park fireworks to catch another sunset by the Bountiful Temple.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK65LInMHucSwkG1msJS_OlkYWrJddhF5zfaGK4_Zk2LntADHklJYWZWc1Tf4KsAH5JTkIn27PFP_jTb75FRzlPU9jtPf2kBi4P066YdlSLX3Me8PYl_sM8BDM8rHkZxM0xOXwow/s1600/btemple_sunset_dec16_for-instagram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK65LInMHucSwkG1msJS_OlkYWrJddhF5zfaGK4_Zk2LntADHklJYWZWc1Tf4KsAH5JTkIn27PFP_jTb75FRzlPU9jtPf2kBi4P066YdlSLX3Me8PYl_sM8BDM8rHkZxM0xOXwow/s640/btemple_sunset_dec16_for-instagram.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Christmas brought the lights on Temple Square, and after a pair of visits downtown, I combed through my archives to flesh out enough content to create a video I could match to my friend Dawn Black's arrangement of "What Child is This?"<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZsJNj5fAuTQ" width="560"></iframe>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq22EoyFgk1Z0Vm_HaT-xFcKyH_2PJcuuG9j0CaGrkzHzFcbNE0_e5Of2FBBczxR5zib9x6AJMSYpGpXDT_UkqeU0pFiNp1RguxOWBKqW8jLWe0gKXLQHJZm2b9EJhbjOI7QrATg/s1600/tsquare_dec19-2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq22EoyFgk1Z0Vm_HaT-xFcKyH_2PJcuuG9j0CaGrkzHzFcbNE0_e5Of2FBBczxR5zib9x6AJMSYpGpXDT_UkqeU0pFiNp1RguxOWBKqW8jLWe0gKXLQHJZm2b9EJhbjOI7QrATg/s640/tsquare_dec19-2016.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The morning after Christmas I lit out for one last trip to Southern Utah, tagging along with a trio of high school track coaches to hike through a snow-draped Bryce Canyon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGBq_vvvFnqFpgcxFr99cc1Fbf5qixfl7ean6NMlY0sKUChZ5wUk4SzvW5UYulyjQ1a43VgIPNMgbD_YGWPg5uYN6c8ulO3RZY8lqVfbd99wMAhUhLaS20QfUFVhj3OMNC0bgOA/s1600/clara-bryce_dec16-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglGBq_vvvFnqFpgcxFr99cc1Fbf5qixfl7ean6NMlY0sKUChZ5wUk4SzvW5UYulyjQ1a43VgIPNMgbD_YGWPg5uYN6c8ulO3RZY8lqVfbd99wMAhUhLaS20QfUFVhj3OMNC0bgOA/s640/clara-bryce_dec16-10.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Once I got back and recovered enough of my strength, I finished off another short film, this one assembled from footage I shot during several of my photo shoots throughout the year.</span></div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" scrolling="no" src="https://api.smugmug.com/services/embed/5611633725_3WscBJP?width=640&height=360&albumId=60419448&albumKey=PfVcCq" width="640"></iframe><br />
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Last year I said that life was a delicate tug-of-war between life's trials and life's blessings, and for a lot of people, 2016 swapped out the term "delicate" with "vicious." But I think the principle is still the same. In a way, I'm relieved that 2016 is coming to an end, but I wouldn't for a second suggest that this year didn't see a number of great things. Even if you just look at the titles for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Chicago Cubs, I think one of the messages we have to take from 2016 is that anything is possible. And that gives me hope looking forward to 2017.
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Good or bad, I'm planning on taking more pictures either way.<br />
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Happy New Year!The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-86896624734605629062016-06-20T10:13:00.002-06:002016-06-20T10:13:40.897-06:00God Loves ClevelandOne of my earliest childhood memories is of my dad returning from a Cleveland Browns playoff game while we were visiting my family in Ohio one Christmas. I didn't know anything about Brian Sipe <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0LVUl1wYo4">throwing an interception</a> to Lester Hayes in the end zone, bringing a stunning and crushing close to a season so full of last-second finishes that year's team had been dubbed, "The Cardiac Kids." But I do remember that it was so cold at the stadium that my dad's jacket had literally cracked open.<br />
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A few years later, I watched on TV as John Elway led the Denver Broncos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWGx_P9KPZg">98 yards</a> through Cleveland Stadium on the way to crushing the Browns' Super Bowl hopes, and a year after that I watched Ernest Byner <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM7zRs91BgI">fumble</a> on his way into the end zone at Mile High Stadium. It was a little less painful to watch Michael Jordan <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5WUOnTxwPw">elevate over Craig Ehlo</a> and hit a last-second shot to take Game 5 and a first-round NBA playoff series over the Cleveland Cavaliers, since my hometown Utah Jazz held exclusive rights to my basketball loyalties, but I still recognized the patten: as far as sports were concerned, my mother's hometown was a city of heartbreak.<br />
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In those kinds of situations, you learn to appreciate the little things. My favorite memory of watching the Browns came a year after The Fumble, as a 40-year-old career backup QB named Don Strock led Cleveland to the playoffs after the team lost three other quarterbacks to injury. On the last game of the regular season, Strock threw a strike to wideout Webster Slaughter in the middle of a Lake Erie snowstorm, clinching the win a play so photogenic I wish I could take my camera back in time to capture it. They lost the wild card game down in Houston the next weekend, but the triumph in the snow is all I can picture in my mind's eye.<br />
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As the years went on, I saw Cleveland hearts ripped out again and again, whether it was watching Art Modell pull up stakes and move the Browns to Baltimore, or LeBron James put a stake in the heart of Cavs fans when he told them on national TV that he was taking his talents to South Beach. It seemed like the only place Cleveland could catch a break was in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O6QHXQE6Cc">Hollywood movie</a>. And in the meantime, the only hometown team I had was enduring heartbreaks of its own, most often at the hands of the same guy who hit that jumper over Ehlo.<br />
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Last year, my mom and I headed back to Ohio for a family reunion, and in the middle of a gorgeous green city park, about a dozen diehard fans and I gathered around a tiny portable TV and watched the Browns lose another heartbreaker. It was a likely narrative: we celebrated when the San Diego Chargers missed a tie-breaking field goal at the end of regulation, only to see a Browns penalty give them another shot. The second chance sailed right between the uprights, and the Browns tacked one more onto the loss column.<br />
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Things were looking a little better on the NBA side, though. After winning a pair of titles in Miami, LeBron was back in a Cavs uniform, and only the lights-out shooting of Stephen Curry and the suddenly stable Golden State Warriors had kept him from bringing Cleveland a title in his return season. A lifetime of cheering for underdogs and also-rans kept me from committing to the Lebron Bandwagon, but if my Jazz couldn't be in contention, the next best thing would be a title for my family out in Ohio.<br />
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That's why I smiled last night as LeBron crumpled onto the court in tears seconds after the Cavs <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR__1k78NTk">took the rematch series</a> from Golden State, erasing a historic 3-1 deficit in the process. I had just watched him spend two and a half hours desperately chasing his elusive destiny, squeezing out <a href="http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=16350433">extra efforts</a> that should have come up just short, and finally grabbing hold of the Larry O'Brien trophy with a sincerity he never had in Miami. It was a reminder of why it's so easy to translate sports into movies: the Herculean winner-takes-all effort fits so nicely into a clear, three-act format, unlike the lives of the Regular Joe underdogs in "real life" who adore it.<br />
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It was also a reminder of that age-old question of just how much God cares about sports, which comes up whenever a bombastic athlete points to the sky after a touchdown or a player like Tim Tebow shines in the limelight. The answer is yes, of course God cares about sports. But not because he loves LeBron James more than Steph Curry (who is about as likable an NBA MVP as we're going to get), or because my tithing funds the college football team for a university I never attended. God cares about sports because He is a master storyteller, and a master teacher. Sometimes the lesson is that hard work pays off, and sometimes the lesson is that you have to persevere through a lifetime of setbacks, and hope the trophy comes in the next life, even while everyone else takes home the spoils.<br />
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Last night, the lesson was that it ain't over till it's over, even if it takes 52 years for that triumphant buzzer to finally sound.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVw9Y8SVag0a_fr7QE71Tns_Utyaen0W-FlfRRM58NfOk9h0JYeVag_iJSWTzbNFoVZXvV7pjV8GXQoEDJyRQgK2G8FRU7lVn_dqh6XYMC3ab1vNYQkK0aftJX58fP_rWacMSiw/s1600/bron_banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAVw9Y8SVag0a_fr7QE71Tns_Utyaen0W-FlfRRM58NfOk9h0JYeVag_iJSWTzbNFoVZXvV7pjV8GXQoEDJyRQgK2G8FRU7lVn_dqh6XYMC3ab1vNYQkK0aftJX58fP_rWacMSiw/s640/bron_banner.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-239207301090613962015-12-31T10:30:00.000-07:002015-12-31T10:32:53.499-07:00The 2015 Post-Christmas Photo Essay: First Time in a Long TimeAs I look through the photos I shot throughout 2015, a theme emerged. There were traditions I continued, and subjects I encountered for the first time. But often I found myself experiencing something--a place, an activity--for the first time in a long time.<br />
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<b>The Beard</b><br />
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Shortly after the end of the fall 2014 semester, I stopped shaving for a bit. Then a bit became about four months. Mostly I was curious to see how much gray was in my beard, and there was plenty. But there was still lots of red, too. I took a few self-portraits early in the year to document the first full beard I'd grown in six years, and my favorite was the black-and-white image below.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0gLteoJPxADkrZBRk-7efnmuTP3nVuaSNvJlh7NinWMP7o0I6mSrkdxw7mo4LwQ167xpcjbEnO5kY7p15BlR-d76k8arlK1R15UyXUPsFZlz0EHA5ogJ9XvbuEBEdbxWpWl1hLA/s1600/beard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0gLteoJPxADkrZBRk-7efnmuTP3nVuaSNvJlh7NinWMP7o0I6mSrkdxw7mo4LwQ167xpcjbEnO5kY7p15BlR-d76k8arlK1R15UyXUPsFZlz0EHA5ogJ9XvbuEBEdbxWpWl1hLA/s640/beard.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Sundance #3</b><br />
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January marked two years at the KJZZ Movie show, and at the end of the month I attended my third Sundance Film Festival up in Park City, Utah. By the end of the year I'd reviewed 116 movies, and even wound up on the Rotten Tomatoes <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/critic/josh-terry/">critic list</a>. I snapped the photo below in the press tent outside the Village 4 Cinemas multiplex, where we all get into long, winding lines as we wait for different press and industry screenings. On a Saturday morning, I arrived to see a documentary called, "In Football We Trust," about LDS Polynesian football players. Apparently I didn't need to arrive so early.<br />
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<b>The Move</b><br />
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In early March I moved out of my loft apartment in Bountiful after 21 months and approximately 21,000 hikes up two flights of stairs. When I moved in I only signed a three-month lease, anticipating a quick stop before buying a house. It was a bittersweet moment, but it helped to have the generous assistance of numerous friends and family, not to mention a cheerful cleanup crew.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggXucwY0MCTZ_73NkSLaDhPvJmo1aAq6OAZWQGNXWM92RVXYaPrz-EWMmjqq18qstevAIFmrqO0cULrVRlzqYdazlIdTJuoqe8if8YO4rpsdsS8UBA1BpUNuEwKrWtPD-IJMIu_Q/s1600/cleanup_crew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggXucwY0MCTZ_73NkSLaDhPvJmo1aAq6OAZWQGNXWM92RVXYaPrz-EWMmjqq18qstevAIFmrqO0cULrVRlzqYdazlIdTJuoqe8if8YO4rpsdsS8UBA1BpUNuEwKrWtPD-IJMIu_Q/s640/cleanup_crew.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Memorial Day</b><br />
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On Memorial Day the whole family visited my dad's brand-new headstone at the Bountiful City Cemetery. My family was a constant throughout 2015. A month earlier, a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unselfish-Love-Thy-Neighbor-Selfie/dp/057815708X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1451274430&sr=1-1">"Unselfish"</a> was published in response to Kim Kardashian's collection of selfies. I was asked to contribute to the project, and wrote a brief essay about my paternal grandparents.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElRD1lO1oWc10gq94L1fk1JzhKiABkGUJcylzSlPov6S6l035lUkG_rqHA1U7Hsr5sIf1a-g5uGH8JlwFd0b1KCkHqZ71xOm4FovFuINCbH7JfS4Ifw-xC6JQEf5jIhOc0KOWZA/s1600/mem_day15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjElRD1lO1oWc10gq94L1fk1JzhKiABkGUJcylzSlPov6S6l035lUkG_rqHA1U7Hsr5sIf1a-g5uGH8JlwFd0b1KCkHqZ71xOm4FovFuINCbH7JfS4Ifw-xC6JQEf5jIhOc0KOWZA/s640/mem_day15.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>The Rockwell Relay</b><br />
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Summer brought a variety of photo opportunities, starting with a bike race called the Rockwell Relay that I covered with a couple of friends during my semester break in June. The route wound hundreds of miles through Southern Utah from Moab to St. George, giving us plenty of opportunity to see the best of the state along the way.<br />
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<b>Chaos at Eaglewood</b><br />
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Towards the end of shooting the 4th of July fireworks up at Eaglewood Golf Course, I started messing around with exposure times, and wound up getting this shot of the finale. It isn't the kind of thing you'd find on a patriotic poster, but I was excited to see how the timing managed to catch the chaotic explosiveness of the spectacle.<br />
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<b>The Kawababy</b><br />
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My buddy Travis has always provided some of my most unique photo opportunities. Thanks to him, I've shot everything from State Fairs to giant slip-'n-slides, and the photographs I took of his marriage proposal even wound up with TV coverage. During the summer I documented the brave moment he and his wife learned--in front of family and friends--the gender of their first-born child. The shot below captures the exact moment Mom and Dad found out they were having a baby boy (which arrived safe and sound in December).<br />
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<b>The Retirement</b><br />
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One of the most significant events of the summer was my mom's retirement from the University of Utah after over 20 years of service. I took this portrait of her outside her building after a farewell reception. I think the smile has a lot to do with not having to drive up to campus on cold winter mornings anymore.<br />
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<b>The New Drum Kit</b><br />
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Thanks to logistics and adult obligations, it has been a couple of slow years for The Atomic Thunderlips. But the band saw a little action in early August when we were recruited to perform at Viewmont High School's Class of 1995 20-year reunion. It was our first show in a year, and the event gave me just enough justification to buy my first new drum kit in 15 years.<br />
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<b>The Milky Way</b><br />
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Right before leaving on my annual trip to Yellowstone, I launched a brand-new <a href="http://www.joshterryphoto.com/">photography website</a> that provided a massive upgrade over my previous online presence, mainly in that it allows customers to purchase prints online. Maybe it was this excitement that helped me get my first shots of the Milky Way in Island Park after three years of failed attempts. Towards the end of the trip, I chose to spend my traditional sunrise shoot on the shores of Henry's Lake.<br />
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<b>The Classroom</b><br />
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Fall semester 2015 marked six years since my return to teaching at Salt Lake Community College. These days I teach most of my classes at the South City Campus, and more often than not I wind up in classroom 2-169. But not everything was routine at SLCC. Back in the spring I taught my first section of English 2100 (Technical Writing) since I was teaching the firemen for the USU Salt Lake Center in 2007.<br />
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<b>The Ohio Trip</b><br />
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The most significant "first time in a long time" might have been my first return to Ohio since the summer trip I took back in 2000. Mom and I went back to attend the Turk family reunion, and I also took advantage of the opportunity to go see Ringo's drum kit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and take a rented Ford Mustang convertible down to Canton to visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame.<br />
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<b>The Neighbors</b><br />
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Around the time I was passing the 20th anniversary of my <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2015/11/november-8th-1995.html">arrival at the Provo MTC</a>, I was cranking through a series of family portraits, including three separate sessions up at the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in North Salt Lake. My favorite results came from a shoot for my longtime friends Steve and Sarah, who also became my neighbors in 2015. About a month after the shoot that yielded the image below, Steve took things up a notch and accompanied me to my first church basketball game for the Bountiful 19th Ward since the late 1990s.<br />
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<b>The Force Awakens</b><br />
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Nothing quite felt like coming full-circle more than screening the new "Star Wars" film on a cold Tuesday morning after a massive storm buried the Wasatch Front under two feet of snow. "The Force Awakens" felt like the sequel I had been waiting for ever since "Return of the Jedi." It was the first new "Star Wars" movie in ten years, and the first one starring Han Solo in 32. There was plenty of marketing and promotion running up to the release, and in this group photo below (taken by our MVP editor Scott Terrill), the Movie Show crew posed with some cosplayers and a familiar R2 unit.<br />
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<b>The Ogden Temple 2.0</b><br />
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As Christmas drew near, it was hard to find the time to enjoy the holiday as I scrambled to finish my grading for fall semester, buy the requisite gifts, and handle the ramped-up holiday movie release schedule. But I was able to make it up to the Ogden Temple to get a slightly more colorful version of a shot I first tried last year.<br />
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<b>Christmas Morning</b><br />
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Since all of my family Christmas Day activities were scheduled for the afternoon, I decided to spend the morning out at the Farmington Bay Bird Refuge, in search of a Davis County sunrise. As the photos below show, the sun failed to make an appearance. But I did get a few nice shots of 2015's White Christmas, including a shot of a flock of birds that was swarming around a huge tree on my way out.<br />
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<b>Christmas Afternoon</b><br />
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Later that day, the family gathered for some traditional gift giving and food eating. We made my grandmother's famous BBQ beef recipe and my favorite cookies, and in the middle of it all we took some luminaries out to my dad's headstone.<br />
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<b>The Shot Not Taken</b><br />
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Thanks to my sister and brother-in-law, I was able to join in on some Christmas activities in the middle of the season's manic craziness. On one night, we all took the FrontRunner train into downtown SLC to see the lights, and on another, we took my nieces to see Santa Claus at Station Park.<br />
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But my favorite activity was probably the night we grabbed some sleds and headed over to Mueller Park Jr. High to take advantage of December's snowstorm. We brought my nieces along, and thanks to the dark and the cold we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.<br />
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After laughing our way through a few runs through blinding white powder, I dropped onto my back, settled into the soft snow, and stared up at the stars I'd finally captured up in Yellowstone. I thought about what I was doing, how great it was, and how simple it was. It wasn't a big production, it didn't cost money, and yet because of the people I was with, it held more value than any expensive gift I could have been given.<br />
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More and more, adulthood just seems to be a delicate tug of war between life's trials and life's blessings, and often the difference between happiness and sadness is deciding which side of the fence most deserves your attention. If I'm being honest, 2015 had plenty of evidence for the trial side, but moments of clarity like the one I had on that huge, white expanse of snow are great for grabbing just enough perspective to carry you into the next day.<br />
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The last couple of years of my life have seen some dramatic changes, and I can't say that any of them resemble the life I once imagined years ago at the MTC. But the important stuff is still in place, and even the trials have had the unexpected effect of strengthening my testimony of the things I know to be true. So in that sense, warts and all, 2015 was a success, and 2016 has every reason to follow suit.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-81490714031566684982015-11-08T14:21:00.000-07:002015-11-08T14:21:38.947-07:00November 8th, 1995In September of 2000 I had a little time to kill in Provo on a Monday afternoon. I was just a few months removed from a University of Utah bachelor's degree, and for the sake of context, my trip south did involve a girl. But that's another story.<br />
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With some time on my hands, I decided to take a walk past a place in Provo that held some fond memories for me. A few blocks and a few minutes later, I arrived in front of the Missionary Training Center, the springboard for my two-year adventure as an LDS missionary in Chicago back in the '90s.<br />
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I didn't go inside; I just stood out on the sidewalk near that big concrete sign where everyone takes their picture. I don't think they would have let me roam the campus anyway, but I didn't need to. The memories were happy to come out and meet me.<br />
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I had never been to the MTC prior to the day my family dropped me off with a couple of brand-new black suitcases and a gray suit from Mr. Mac. November 8th, 1995 was sunny and unseasonably warm, deep into a fall that had strewn dead leaves across the still-green grass. I was my parents' oldest child, the first missionary in the family since my grandfather, and I was so high on fortune and glory I didn't even cry when I said my goodbyes after orientation. It was only after we had parted ways and I'd stepped into the next room to get my crisp, untouched set of missionary discussion books that I realized what I'd done.<br />
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By the time I walked out the back door of the administration building onto the MTC campus, a bright orange dot on my shiny black name tag betraying my fresh meat status, the enormity of my two year commitment was slowly tightening around my 19-year-old skull (which still had hair back in those days). As I stepped onto the sidewalk to start hunting down my dorm, one of my suitcases tipped over, and in approximately .7 seconds another companionship was at my side to pick it up, shake my hand, and offer directions. The moment was such a cliche I half expected to find a camera crew hiding in the bushes filming the sequel to the "Called to Serve" video.<br />
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My dorm was located inside one of a dozen hexagonal buildings that dotted the campus, and it was there I met Kenneth Ure, a toe-headed country boy from Kamas, Utah. Elder Ure would be my companion for the next four weeks while we learned the missionary ropes, and he was the only other member of my district who was being sent to Chicago. My now longtime friend Randy was only a few rooms down the hall, three weeks into his two-month training for a mission in France, and a few months shy of the infamous night that would earn him the nickname "Cheetahman." But we didn't figure that out for another three days.<br />
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That first night, only a few hours after I'd arrived and a few hours before Elder Vigil's rooster alarm clock would crow the first of 28 unforgettable morning wake-up calls, I lay on my bunk under a cheap orange blanket and wondered what I'd gotten myself into. For three years I'd attended mission farewell after mission farewell, lusting after the moment when I could finally ride off into that glorious wool-suited sunset myself. A late birthday left me with over a year and a half to wait after high school graduation before I turned 19 and qualified to send in my application papers. But now that I'd arrived, I'd found two years of hard work waiting for me in that setting sun, and I didn't know if I was really up to it. All I could think about were the friends I had who were doing the same thing all over the world, in Spain, in Canada, in Australia, in Brazil. If they could do it, surely I could, too.<br />
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From there, the memories start to wash together. Plenty of classes with my district, plenty of meals in the infamous MTC cafeteria. (For the record, I never got the runs, and I neither gained nor lost weight during my one-month stay.) There were lots of prayers and lots of studying and lots of role playing, and even a few letters, though never near enough--especially from girls. There was a sprained ankle and a trip to the campus hospital, some time at the Provo Temple, lots of trips to get pictures developed from our archaic point-and-shoot film cameras, and a couple weeks' duty in the telecenter calling real investigators who had ordered the Book of Mormon off the TV. Finally, after a classic Christmas devotional and a MTC choir performance of "O, Holy Night" the night before most of district 45A headed out for the Salt Lake Airport, there was one last district prayer and a late-night conversation with Elder Hunter Moore that lasted long past curfew. A day later I was in Chicago.<br />
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The thing I miss the most about the MTC, the thing I wish I'd enjoyed more back when I was there, was the focus of it all. The years to come would be full of competing priorities: school, work, girls, money... but the mission was one time to focus on one thing, one really, really good thing, and the MTC was my one chance to be surrounded by people who were all dialed in on that same goal. It was the first time the Gospel became something to get excited about, rather than the routine I'd run since childhood. That's probably why I left Provo with every intention to return and teach when my mission was over.<br />
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As I stood there outside the MTC, a few years later, a few years older, fighting to turn cynicism into wisdom, I wondered if I should go inside and see if a teaching job was still an option. Maybe I could get a small taste of that focus again. By the time I returned from two years in Illinois, my dreams of MTC employment and early marriage had been replaced with a full-ride scholarship to the University of Utah and a crazy idea about being the next Stephen Covey that lasted two weeks into Winter Quarter. But even with my degree in hand, I had no real direction, and no concrete skills to brandish on my resume. Maybe the MTC could be my key to finding a path again.<br />
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I said I never went in, but now that I think of it, I might have gone up to the front desk of the administration building to ask about getting a teaching application. Even if I did, I know that I never followed up on it. Eventually I just kept walking around Provo until this kid tried to recruit me into a multi-level marketing company, and that's when I figured that my trip to Utah County was at an end.<br />
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I don't know if working at the MTC would have changed my life, or just ruined the perfectness of the four weeks I spent there the first time around. I haven't been back since, and from what I've read and heard, even my old dorms have been wiped away in the face of a bold architectural facelift. Time just moves on, and nowadays my epic wait to leave for missionary glory would have been cut down to just a few months. Missionaries don't use my old discussion booklets anymore, and I hear a lot of them get iPads and use email and Skype. I think a lot of them are even skipping Provo entirely, and going directly to MTCs in countries around the world.<br />
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But whatever the changes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ stays the same, and I hope that to one degree or another, today's missionaries are getting the same experience I had. Even better, I hope they can realize how great they have it. My time in Chicago was incredible, but it wouldn't have been the same without my time in Provo that set those Midwest wheels in motion.<br />
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<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-39375491252681997482014-12-28T12:24:00.002-07:002014-12-28T12:24:54.896-07:002014: My Year in Pictures…and Words…and GIFs.The blog hasn't seen a lot of action this year. After setting a goal in 2013 to post something every week, 2014 saw a focus on other priorities.<br />
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That's not to say I wasn't writing. In addition to penning weekly movie reviews for the Deseret News (over 80 by year's end), I started a lot of posts I never finished. Partly because I wanted to raise the standard for what I put out. Partly because life kept getting in the way.<br />
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But even without any posts since September, it's still been a busy year, so here's a quick recap:<br />
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January saw my second trip to cover the Sundance Film Festival and the first anniversary of my time on the KJZZ Movie Show. Gradually I adjusted my teaching schedule (I'm still teaching English composition at SLCC) to make room for more evening screenings, and as 2014 got up to speed, I found myself averaging about two film reviews a week and four TV broadcasts a month.<br />
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Then in February I got to trade the merciless Salt Lake winter inversion for the decadence of Sin City, thanks to a <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-bacchanalian-binge.html">weekend trip to Vegas</a> with two of my oldest and closest friends. The trip resulted in lots of pictures and an evening at Caesar's Palace that inspired one of this year's few blog entries.<br />
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In March I was able to shoot a Utah Jazz basketball game for the first time since 2009. Photographing professional basketball is no easy task, but five years of general shooting experience <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.780766781934671.1073741867.156702617674427&type=3">made a big, big difference</a>. After spending most of my life watching games on TV or from the perspective of the upper bowl of the arena, seeing NBA action at ground level is always fascinating.<br />
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About halfway through the month, during SLCC's Spring Break, I dropped by a Nissan dealer to look at a few used cars. One month and two dozen test drives later, I cleaned out my old 2002 Honda Accord and <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-long-and-winding-road.html">drove off in a brand-new 2014 Volkswagen GTI</a>. The capstone of negotiations was my offer to stop by Graywhale and buy a CD of my salesman's local band. I finally followed through in December.<br />
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Right around the time I was finishing up my car search, I took a quick weekend trip to Hollywood to appear on "America's Got Talent." It was an odd move for someone who emphatically despises reality television, but back in February I'd appeared in a friend's viral video, and after one absurd thing led to an even more absurd thing, by June I was watching myself <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/06/fifteen-minutes-of-infamy-or-how-i.html">get my head slapped around</a> on national TV in front of Howard Stern. The night before our performance, the guys and I took a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard, and I caught this little display:<br />
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Once I wrapped up spring semester, I jumped on the chance to break in my new car, and took the GTI on a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.833070586704290.1073741875.156702617674427&type=3">four-day road trip</a> that covered five national parks, two national monuments, and landed me a $275 speeding ticket in Arizona. By the time I got home, I had well over a thousand landscape images in my camera, including this sunset shot at Delicate Arch:<br />
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In spite of all the scenic material, my favorite shot has to be an image I caught on the southern rim of The Grand Canyon, as a group of Europeans crashed the amateur photographer's party with a couple of pizzas while we all took in a dramatic sunset.<br />
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The ironic thing about my 2014 car-buying process was the emphasis I put on features I knew I probably wouldn't use. The inspiration for checking out the GTI came from the numerous times I heard rave reviews for it on BBC America's "Top Gear," a TV show filled with action footage of high-end cars sliding around the dramatic turns of a practice track. Given the cost of the low-profile performance tires on my new car, the last thing I have sought to do is annihilate them, but luckily the boys at June's annual <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.835388963139119.1073741877.156702617674427&type=3">Bountiful Burnout</a> were more willing to lay rubber.<br />
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I've gotten sour on shooting parades over the last couple of years. Covering the same parades quickly reveal their repetitive subject matter, and these days it seems like the events have become little more than local business throwing candy at greedy kids. But I still managed to get a few interesting images at this year's Bountiful Days of '47 Parade, such as this shot of Ronald McDonald doing an impression of Richard Nixon for a few local teens.<br />
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Right after the Bountiful parade, I hustled up the mountain and hiked up behind the Bountiful Temple, acting on a hunch that I might be able to line up the city's most recognizable landmark with the fireworks at Mueller Park Jr. High nearby.<br />
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Once my summer classes were wrapped up, I only had a ten-day window before the start of the fall semester, so I had to act fast. The first priority was to make my yearly trek up to Island Park, and this year turned out to be the first time since before my mission that my entire immediate family was up there at the same time. It was also the first trip there for my nieces. We had a great time visiting some old haunts and hanging out at the family cabin, and the day we left, I got up early and made a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.868408916503790.1073741882.156702617674427&type=3">solo run into the park</a> to catch some early morning mist.<br />
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<br />
We didn't headline any bowling alley gigs this year, but The Atomic Thunderlips stayed plenty busy, playing a bar in January, a wedding in June, and kicking off the summer concert series for the Springville Public Library. A few days after getting back from Yellowstone, we played a birthday party for Cheetahman's sister, and this happened…<br />
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<br />
Playing the birthday party also gave me a convenient excuse to <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/09/an-open-letter-to-viewmont-high-schools.html">skip my 20-year high school reunion</a>, which I'm still not convinced actually took place. But the rash of personal updates that were posted to our class Facebook page in the aftermath of the event triggered enough interest that I might consider attending the next reunion in 30 years or so.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
On the afternoon of Thursday, September 4th, a couple of weeks into the new semester, I was driving home from Salt Lake when I got a call from my mom. About twenty minutes later I was standing in the Lakeview Hospital Emergency Room listening to a doctor tell me my father had just died of a heart attack. The rush of support from family and friends that followed quickly turned a long-feared parting into a bittersweet reminder of the meaning behind our mortal existence.<br />
<br />
A couple of months earlier, I was taking pictures of my nieces in my sister's backyard when I turned the camera on my dad and told him to smile. When I took a closer look at the results later that day, I was almost hesitant to post the image. <i>This looks like the kind of picture someone posts as a memorial</i>, I thought to myself. It was too late for a Father's Day post, but I went ahead and posted it anyway.<br />
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<br />
Sure enough, the following September, we used the shot for his obituary, as well as the funeral and viewing. I had to shake my head at the element of foreshadowing in the whole sequence, but I am infinitely grateful to have caught the image.<br />
<br />
The day after he died, I decided to follow through on my plan to attend the Salt Lake Comic Con, hoping a little distraction might be good for me. I would up spending about half the day wandering around the Salt Palace <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.989462824403764.1073741847.509787392371312&type=3">taking pictures of diehard fans</a> dressed to their geeky nines and wondering why Bruce Campbell couldn't just show up and sign an 8X10 for me so I could move on to more important things back home. Bruce never showed, but I did manage to shoot a bunch of tag-team wrestlers I found performing on the conference floor. I can't help but think my dad would have been amused at the situation: he wrestled in high school.<br />
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<br />
Everything that happened in the wake of Dad's death took on a different tone for the rest of the year. Not so much because I was angry or depressed or confused about what was happening. Rather because the weight of the experience made everything else--social life, pop culture, job issues--seem painfully insignificant. I mentioned before that I've penned several drafts of potential blog posts in the last few months, but next to <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/09/six-degrees-of-gratitude.html">what I wrote about my dad</a> in September, they almost seem silly.<br />
<br />
Silly or not, life had to move on. A couple of weeks into September I stopped by the Utah State Fair and learned that one of my submissions took First Place within its division. The Fair Theme was "Greatest Hits," so I entered a favorite shot from a concert shoot I did last year at The Depot in downtown SLC. I called it "Gibson + Hair = Rock."<br />
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<br />
Throughout the year I was also able to do a number of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/joshterryphoto">formal portrait sessions</a>, which means a lot in Utah. Around here, everyone has a dozen different friends and family members they can choose from, so when someone tags me for the job, my heart and my wallet are extremely grateful.<br />
<br />
But of all my subjects, my favorites are always predictable. Neither of my nieces were especially excited to be taking family pictures out at Wheeler Farm this past Halloween, but I managed to get one shot that my sister can use as consolation when they are at each other's throats in the coming years:<br />
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<br />
As the holidays arrived, my family knew things would feel a bit off, so we tried to come up with a few new traditions to liven things up. On the Saturday before Christmas, a few of us went up to the Bountiful Temple, and I was able to go through for one of my great-grandfathers, which was very cool. In the middle of the shopping and the end-of-semester grading and the usual chaos, I stopped by a couple of area temples to take some night pictures, and came up with some fun results.<br />
<br />
Here's the newly remodeled <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.931417750202906.1073741887.156702617674427&type=1">Ogden Temple</a>:<br />
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<br />
…and here's the always picturesque <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.943835868961094.1073741888.156702617674427&type=3">Salt Lake Temple</a>:<br />
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<br />
For Christmas itself, my mom and I stayed over at my sister's house, which meant we were on hand for the big morning event with my nieces. Chaos may have ruled in the living room, but outside the first legit snowfall of the season came just in time to make a White Christmas.<br />
<br />
2014 will always be marked as the year my dad died, but it was also a year that was full of blessings and opportunities. In fact, his death only served to remind me of blessings I've enjoyed my entire life, and will continue to enjoy in the future. My experience this Christmas echoed what I encountered while preparing for Dad's funeral: often the process and the logistics and the to-do lists and the formalities leave you wondering when you will actually have the chance to step back and appreciate the point behind everything you are doing. A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzjFEMmM0Xs">recent church video</a> underscored this idea quite well.<br />
<br />
It's easy to tell yourself that, "once I take care of X, I can sit back and enjoy Y," but when the Xs keep coming, eventually you realize that you just have to make time for Y. That's probably one of the biggest reasons my family was able to cope with Dad's death. Over the years we've made plenty of time for Y.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to a great 2015.<br />
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<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-83024419795118144372014-09-14T09:48:00.001-06:002014-09-14T10:17:38.559-06:00Six Degrees of Gratitude<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>(Adapted from an address I gave at my dad's funeral in September 2014)</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
night my dad died I had a hard time sleeping, but not for the reasons you might
assume. I wasn’t lying in bed crying, or shaking my fist at God and wondering
why he took my dad away. I had told him I loved him many times, so I wasn’t mad
that we didn’t have one last moment to share things unsaid. I wasn’t thinking
about all the ways my life was going to change without my dad around, either.
For hours, all I could think about was how lucky I was to have my dad as my
father. I thought about all the time we spent together, and the talks we had at
concerts and on test drives and on our staircase at home when I couldn’t sleep.
I thought about how talented and gifted he was, and how he seemed to draw from
an infinite pool of information whenever I’d bring up almost any topic. He was
brilliant, he was kind, and I could talk to him about anything.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He just
seemed to know everyone. I’m pretty sure that 1950s Val Verda is the cradle of
civilization for south Davis County, because it seems like everyone I know has
some kind of connection to my dad’s home ward. I don’t know if that makes him
the Kevin Bacon of Davis County, but I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
point I want to make is that I am so infinitely grateful to have been raised by my father.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When it
comes to defining my dad, a number of images spring to mind. If he had a logo,
it would have to be a mustache. He was a science guy, and loved Gary Larson’s
“Far Side” cartoons. He loved Ray Bradbury's stories and the poetry of Mason Williams. He spent the last twenty years of his life with a cassette
player on his hip, listening to enough books on tape to fill the Library of
Congress. My mom used to read books onto tape at the Utah State Library for the
Blind, and I think she did it so she could sneak in messages about grocery
shopping and fixing our sprinklers because she was tired of telling my dad to take
off his headphones all the time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“It was
the best of times, it was the worst of times…Honey, take out the garbage. It’s
Tuesday.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A lot of
people know my dad as a car guy. He had a BMW before BMWs were cool, and one of
my most vivid childhood memories is the sight of him flying past the rest of my
family in his brand-new red CRX on the intersection where 4<sup>th</sup> North
in Bountiful curves into Main Street. After his eyes went bad and I got my
license, we made it a tradition to go test drive cars together, and when I
finally bought a ’64 ½ Mustang, I think he was more excited that I was. I
always swore that one day I was going to drive him out onto the Bonneville Salt
Flats, toss him my keys, and tell him to go for it. I was going to try it one
time, too, but the flats were too wet and I almost got my car stuck off the
side of the freeway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’d like
to be able to zero in on one thing that would define my dad, but it’s a
fruitless exercise. He’s the brilliant guy who would come do science
presentations for my first grade class, and the gifted photographer who would
inspire me to follow in his footsteps. He introduced me to Apple computers,
taught me to drive a manual transmission, and looked a lot like George Lucas
when he grew out his beard. Together we saw Simon & Garfunkel in concert,
watched the Jazz come back on the Bulls from 8 points down in 40 seconds at the
Salt Palace, and one of my greatest trips ever was when I got to take him back
to Chicago and show him all the places I served on my mission. He was an
example of patience, waiting a year after my mom’s baptism to get married
because they wanted to get married in the temple. He was a classic example of a
priesthood holder, dutifully taking me along on home teaching appointments even
when I couldn’t understand why we had to visit the people who didn’t want to
come to church, and showing me the power of a priesthood blessing over and over
and over again. And when he became a grandpa, he was thrilled to teach my
little nieces how to pray.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I
put together my father’s obituary, I realized that his life wasn’t built on a
lot of traditional achievements to list off in a bunch of bullet points, like
job promotions or major awards. What I found was that my father’s greatest
achievement was his character, his passion for life, his impact on other
people, and a barrage of intangibles that can’t be expressed in words. And
maybe that’s the point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A couple
months back, he and I were on our way home from Brigham City after I’d dragged
him along on one of my summer pilgrimages to get a burger at the Maddox
Drive-in. I’m sure I had been talking his ear off about some irrelevant thing I
was tossing around in my head, but as we drove south on I-15, we hit a quiet
spot, and after a moment, my dad said, “you know, I've been really lucky.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was
coming from a man who had fought diabetes since his 20s, lost his vision back
in the ‘80s, had a kidney transplant and bypass surgery in the ‘90s, and capped
it off with a stroke about ten years ago. In spite of that, my dad could look
at all of his blessings and be humbled. My dad never wanted to be defined by
his health problems, and in that moment, somewhere around Farmington, he
defined himself. He was lucky, and we were lucky to have him. My dad is my
hero.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
whole experience has been a challenge, and I know there are going to be times
in the coming years when I’ll miss my dad a lot. But I know this separation is
only temporary. I have been comforted by my testimony of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, and the last few days have been a testament to the power of the many
prayers that have been offered on my family’s behalf.
The Gospel is the key to our happiness in this life, and the Atonement is what
is going to bring us together when it’s all done.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-35861283095929840252014-09-01T10:37:00.000-06:002014-09-01T10:37:48.599-06:00An open letter to Viewmont High School's class of 1994<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">(In the wake of my 20-year high school reunion last month, my classmates began posting life updates on our class Facebook page. It's been some of the most compelling reading I've come across in a while. And naturally, I had to kick in an update of my own…)</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once upon a time
in the winter of 2002, with a two-year LDS mission to Chicago and a BS in
something or other from the University of Utah on my resume, I considered a
position as Utah’s Public Affairs Officer for the Natural Resources
Conservation Service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I said to
myself, “Josh, dirt is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But you know this isn’t
your future, right?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, I do,” I
replied. “And frankly, I’m getting a little concerned about this talking to
yourself in public thing. Your date looks awfully uncomfortable, and those
Chick-fil-A employees are starting to stare.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so, the next
fall, I found myself in grad school, writing seminar papers on Chicano cinema
and teaching fraternity pledges how to use MLA citation on their plagiarized
papers about marijuana legalization. I graduated just in time to attend my
10-year high school reunion unemployed, single, and living with my parents. The
world was my <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-bacchanalian-binge.html">Vegas buffet quality</a> oyster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Things happened.
Stuff was done. Trips were taken. Then one day, my friend said, “Here is money.
Will you take pictures of my family in this idyllic public park?” and I said
yes. Then my buddy’s wife said, “Do you want to join this band and <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2012/07/forever-young.html">play loud music for a bunch of kids</a> at a charter school?” and I said yes. And I <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2008/07/chicago-2008-vol-iii-george-and-me.html">met George Lucas</a> in a mall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The years went
by. Drums were played. Photos were taken. Speeding tickets happened. I taught
firefighters to use MLA citation on their papers about marijuana legalization,
and I spent an uncomfortable amount of time thinking about Fidel Castro’s beard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then one day my
lawyer friend said, “All this random stuff you do is going to get you killed on
your taxes. From this point on you shall become incorporated.” So I became
<a href="http://www.woundedmosquito.com/">Wounded Mosquito Productions</a>, because that was the best name I could come up
with on the phone. And taxes were paid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another day, a
different friend said, “will you come talk about movies and stuff on my TV
show?” and I said yes. Then a friend from another job said, “will you read
these words into this microphone so social workers can be trained in suicide
prevention?” and I said yes. The lady at the community college said, “would you
like to teach Salt Lake area students to add MLA citations to their papers on
marijuana legalization this semester?” and I said yes. And Howard Stern told me
<a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2014/06/fifteen-minutes-of-infamy-or-how-i.html">I gave him a headache.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then one day I heard
that my 20-year high school reunion had arrived, and I dismissed it as
government propaganda designed to trick me into enrolling in Obamacare. “There’s
no way The Man is going to convince me it has been two decades since I finished
high school,” I said. “Besides, I have to <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWQS3Wx1okrpIh64WMs39Zgr8Hv9OY3Z1Xm8d0l7Hjm7UWTVFxRC5wzCbIPdvgDqAuSL0GbqeeYQi4YmklehkO6tdkj0LqKIz35SlZMI_bOjATtyREccImkIYqgGNxTg7ZMF6UDA/s1600/windmill_cowbell_ns.gif">play a show for an empty bowery</a> in
West Bountiful that night, so I cannot come.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I looked at
the pictures, and I read all the updates, and I thought to myself, “These old
people have done many things, and have given birth to many small children. I
will post too, but I will only include a current photo, because pictures of me
with hair are way too depressing, and my yearbook is in storage.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Stay gold, class
of ‘94.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-16654963832926479632014-06-02T11:10:00.000-06:002014-06-02T11:10:59.850-06:00Fifteen Minutes of Infamy, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Reality Television<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>January 31st, 10:00pm</i></div>
It's late on a Saturday night in Salt Lake City, somewhere between the Bar Deluxe and the Sears parking lot just down State Street. I can't remember if it is before, after, or even during my band's gig at the Deluxe, because I'm on a contact high from rocking out The Black Keys' "Little Black Submarines" for seven people. In my weakened condition, Chidsey tries to recruit me for his latest viral video project, a percussion piece where one guy with hair will play the heads of three bald guys like bongos. It's a natural progression from his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDTQuSP80s">previous percussion video</a> where three men in tuxedos slapped the belly of a massive, shirtless Polynesian. I accept his offer.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>February 19th, 9:30pm</i></div>
Twenty minutes earlier I was in a plush seat at The Gateway Megaplex, attending a press screening for "Three Days to Kill," but now I'm heading up the darkened back stairway of a nearby studio on my way to tape Bald Man Bongos for the Sqwak.com YouTube channel. I've listened to the audio recording of our piece several times, but the sensation of performing while a man stands behind me and slaps the top of my head in time complicates the experience, and leaves me with a sore scalp for the next week. This is a stretch of my comfort zone, but as I pocket my performance check, I figure it was good for a laugh.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/F9Absy9dgXA" width="560"></iframe>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i>
<i>March 18th, 4:30pm</i></div>
I'm sitting on the couch in my living room, trying to decide whether to sign the basic performer contract for "America's Got Talent," a reality television show I have never actually watched. The Bald Man Bongos video only had a modest response, but Chidsey was able to parlay some of his industry contacts into a slot on the coming season's opening round competition. I pause at a passage informing me that the show's interpretation of my performance may lead to public ridicule, and I wonder what William Hung is up to these days. I am torn. Half of me thinks the bongo act is debasing and insulting to my true talents. The other half of me thinks performing this debasing act on national television could be a subversive and satisfying mockery of the entire reality television genre. Finally, out of loyalty to my friend, I sign the contract, and vow to hold it over his head for the rest of his natural life.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 20th, 1:00pm</i></div>
I am on an airport shuttle between LAX and Hollywood. Twenty minutes earlier my comrades and I got off a flight we shared with Patrick Stewart and Nathan Fillion, who were returning home from Salt Lake City's FanX convention. Stewart is a newlywed, but not to another man, as the misinterpretation of his friendship with Ian McKellen has led some to believe. We are sharing our shuttle with three reasonably-baked teenagers who travel the country performing extreme pogo stick stunts. During my time as a Utah Jazz season ticket holder, I would often watch the halftime performers and wonder what led them to a life where they could make a living shooting arrows with their feet or using magic hula-hoops to change their clothing in a split-second. I realize that I have now entered this world.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 20th, 2:00pm</i></div>
I am seated at a table at the Hollywood <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/03/cafe-confessions.html">Hard Rock Cafe</a> with the rest of the Bald Man Bongos crew, listening to our waitress tell us about her efforts to make it as an actress. Because she is latino, she tells us, she often gets cast in gang-related roles, but for now she is OK with it. When she leaves, I wonder aloud whether it is better to be a small fish in a big pond like Hollywood or to work in a place like Salt Lake, where there might be more opportunity but less exposure. Sitting next to me is Ritchie T., a comedian who produces one of Salt Lake's most popular radio morning shows. Across from him is Clint, a professional percussionist who coaches drum lines for the Utah Jazz and for Utah Valley University. He's sitting next to Chidsey, who became one of the youngest NBA Directors of Video Operations ever right out of college. There are certainly pros and cons to working in Utah, but the beehive state has no shortage of talent.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 20th, 10:00pm</i></div>
Technically, I am literally neck-deep in a Hollywood pool party. Four white guys from Utah, milling about a hotel pool at 10pm on a Sunday night, throwing a pair of oversized silver plastic pool balls at each other while the extended coda from "Layla" glides over the outdoor PA system. Only one other guest of the Loews Hollywood Hotel shares the patio, sitting alone and reading a book far from the water's edge, privately hoping we wouldn't acknowledge his presence. Up in the distance, in the darkness, the famous Hollywood sign rests on the mountainside, overlooking the odd scene, and a little closer by, various curtains open as different hotel guests gaze down into the pool and its out-of-town occupants. We laugh and joke and pull stunts and eventually get into serious discussions about life and marriage and what on earth we were doing there in the first place. Tomorrow is our big day.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 9:00am</i></div>
The green room wraps around in a half-circle, filled with random bunches of people, and dotted with little interview stations and video cameras resting on tripods. Employees, dressed in all black, filter throughout the chaos, herding and coordinating the myriad of contortionists, musicians, and glorified circus freaks who are stretching, rehearsing, or just meditating nervously as they await their calls. One microscopic woman looks like your everyday gymnast, until she pulls off a wig and reveals the effects of the cancer she is fighting. Two Asian girls mill around in Kabuki makeup, and in another spot a married couple rehearses some sort of modern dance routine. An older woman wanders around dressed like Marie Antoinette, lugging a homemade ventriloquist doll that is supposed to be Britney Spears, and right as we walk past the orientation desk, a 60-year-old farmer drags a state fair-quality hog through the middle of the room in a wagon. All around the room, on everything from mirror stickers to broad red, white, and blue banners, the "America's Got Talent" logo marks the territory of our nation's most beloved talent show. The performers around me sense their big chance, the potential payoff for years if not decades of practice and preparation. Their hopes and dreams are on the line. I am with them, but I am not one of them.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 5:45pm</i></div>
After an awkward exchange with a man in a yellow suit named Nick Cannon, I walk out onto the stage of the Dolby Theater to perform the Bald Man Bongos routine in front of 10,000 screaming teenage girls. A month earlier, Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars on this same stage. Out in front of the stage is a massive, brightly lit table with four seats. I recognize Howard Stern, Heidi Klum, one of the Spice Girls, and the bald version of Howie Mandel. I have a modest touch of the butterflies, but in all honesty, I felt more nervous playing at the Bar Deluxe.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 5:47pm</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The performance does not go well. Ten seconds into the act, Howard hits his buzzer, and it feels like the entire stage is going to crumble to the earth. But we know we can still keep going until all four judges have buzzed us out, so we press on while Heidi and then Mel B. drop their hammers. Finally we stagger to the finish line, saved only by the empathetic Howie Mandel, who is coaxed into joining us on stage for an encore performance. As Clint dives in for a bonus round of head-slapping, I glance out of the corner of my eye to see my friend attacking Howie as if he were guilty of war crimes. You would have thought Howie ran over Clint's dog with an H2. When he can finally take no more, Howie flees the stage and dives towards his buzzer like he's trying to avert a nuclear holocaust. 0-for-4. Bald Man Bongos will not be advancing to the second round.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/J63RrtiI9Ck" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<i>April 21st, 5:49pm</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The crowd still hasn't calmed down from Howie's beating, but now we're standing in front of the judges listening to the creator of Fartman explain that our performance gave him a headache. I nod in agreement, because that was kind of the point. Heidi Klum chimes in, declaring that we "are not a million dollar act." I ask her if she thinks we might be a $20 act, but she doesn't respond. Mel B. says something, but I wasn't really listening to her. I was just thinking that The Spice Girls fell into that same two-year pop culture vortex that claimed The Macarena, Hanson, and George Clooney's bat nipples while I was on my LDS mission. Howie also says something, but I'm distracted by the strange looks on Heidi and Howard's faces. They don't seem to understand that our act was supposed to be a joke. I've struck out with plenty of girls over the years, but my failure with supermodel Heidi Klum has brought me into a brand new level of futility.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 5:52pm</i></div>
We shuffle off the stage and have an awkward exit interview with Nick Cannon. Now that he's seen us for what we are, his cool skepticism has been replaced with an awkward sense of obligation to finish our bit without telling us to our faces that he thinks we're idiots. I'd be hurt, but I don't care, and as some of the stage and production crew express their sympathies, I still get the sense that no one got the joke.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 7:00pm</i></div>
We're still waiting around in the green room. Supposedly the producers still need to get some additional interview footage for our segment, but after the results of the performance, we aren't feeling super motivated. None of us are disappointed that we are out of contention for the grand prize, but we all wish we could have executed our act more smoothly, silly or not. We are also very tired; a little Hollywood goes a long way. Chidsey and I are camped out by the entrance while the others hunch over their smart phones.<br />
<br />
"I really appreciate you coming down to do this," he says.<br />
<br />
"It's OK, man," I reply. "You've done a lot of stuff for me over the years."<br />
<br />
Chidsey smiles and gazes out into the chaotic green room once again.<br />
<br />
"We're even, by the way."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>April 21st, 10:00pm</i></div>
We have relocated to an Italian place called Miceli's to cap off our Hollywood experience with some vestige of class. The dimly lit restaurant, just off Hollywood Boulevard, has a gorgeous, romantic interior, and the walls and ceilings are covered with used wine bottles left by previous customers. As we shuffle into our table, we notice the old man playing a piano nearby while a tall black man named Boise sings old standards. A few seconds after we gaze into our menus, Boise hops down off the riser and asks us if we would like to start with some drinks. Boise is our waiter, and he is also an actor. He is not from Idaho. Ritchie T. pays the piano player five bucks to play "As Time Goes By." Time goes by.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>May 27th, 1:30pm</i></div>
A month later, back in Salt Lake, we are in another studio. We are now being interviewed for a KSL news segment to promote our performance. We've gotten word from Hollywood that our bit will air on the season premiere, only six hours away. The KSL reporter, Mike, dutifully asks us questions about the act and where it came from and where we see it going. We smile and make jokes and I accuse Clint of being the Mormon George Clooney. Mike asks us if we could see our act converted into a full Las Vegas-style theater show. I don't think he's ever actually seen the YouTube clip.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>May 27th, 7:30pm</i></div>
I am sitting in the living room of a modest Provo apartment, surrounded by a few dozen people I have never met before, as well as Chidsey and Clint and Chidsey's friend Stacey. Clint has decided to throw a viewing party in our honor, and so I am watching "America's Got Talent" for the first time. I feel confident that we will not become William Hung 2.0, but I still wonder how the show's producers will choose to portray us. At the very least, I feel assured that if we do look bad, we will only look bad in the midst of people I will likely never face again. Early in the broadcast, there are lots of clips of performers chatting backstage with excitement about how the judges "are looking for something they've never seen before." None of our candid footage is used, probably because instead of chatting excitedly about the visual extravaganza that is "America's Got Talent," we were discussing the timeless influence of Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters and making jokes about getting Heidi Klum's phone number. A smug nine-year-old plays a brilliant piece on a keyboard, and a middle-aged man with a per mullet sings a slow-jam off-key while Howard mockingly slow dances with Heidi. Suddenly I see my face on TV, and a minute later, a rapid-cut montage of our entire on-stage sequence has come and gone. Bits and pieces of our full performance, the follow-up with Howie, and our stage exit are all whittled down to a surprisingly charitable blip on the season premiere radar. I am relieved. When it ends, everyone in the apartment applauds, Chidsey, Stacey and I stand up to stretch, and then we leave for home.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-10988396594125388242014-05-25T10:59:00.001-06:002014-05-25T10:59:54.424-06:00The Long and Winding RoadHalfway through Spring Break last March I stopped by a downtown Nissan dealer and started a marathon. I have loved cars and driving since long before I was old enough to have a license, and it is only that love that sustained me through the month-long torture that was my car buying process.<br />
<br />
I'd wanted a new car for quite some time, but it wasn't until recently that I felt comfortable with the idea of getting serious. There's something comforting about driving a car that is paid off, even if it has a laundry list of cosmetic defects that would cost twice its blue book value to fix. But even if paint jobs and upholstery tears could be tolerated, things like belt changes and dead alternators can't be ignored, and as the tally from those expenses began to add up, the red light on my car search finally turned green.<br />
<br />
Over 29 days, I test drove more than a dozen cars, some multiple times. I revisited old favorites, like the Nissan Maxima and the Honda Accord, and I explored new territory with a Mercedes C300 and an Infiniti M35. I rounded blocks in the Mazda 6 and the Volkswagen CC and the Acura TL at dealerships from Murray to Ogden, collecting business cards and engaging in negotiating showdowns with impatient salesmen all along the Wasatch Front. At one point I was a nine dollars a month from a return to my Maxima roots, but a night's rest later, I was back on the search.<br />
<br />
It wasn't that I couldn't find cars that I liked. Every car I drove had its positives, which is no surprise when you're coming from a 12-year-old Honda with 175,000 miles on the odometer. But often the cars that impressed me most were too far out of my price range (IE, the Mercedes), or carried the threat of future expenses down the line (IE, the Mercedes). Even the best cars still had concessions (as impressive as it was, the Mercedes was burdened with an automatic transmission), and the process left me feeling like I couldn't get what I really wanted, and ultimately would have to find the best possible option to "settle" with.<br />
<br />
It was starting to feel a lot like dating.<br />
<br />
At least in this case I didn't have to worry about the car liking me back. I did, however, have to deal with car salesmen, the cantankerous mother-in-laws and disapproving father-in-laws of the car-courting world. Or, more accurately, the "good friend who totally knows this awesome girl who has just got to be your soulmate and just happens to be single even though her only apparent qualification is an additional X chromosome." Over that month I heard more lies than an audience at a campaign stump speech. Obviously everyone was going to sing the praises of whatever car they were shilling; that I was prepared for. What I struggled with were the transparent pressure lines:<br />
<br />
<i>"My boss is angry with me for offering you this deal." </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"I've got a friend who has been asking me to tell him when we got one of these in; he'll be coming by later today." </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"We've got a mechanic at our Orem location whose mother has agreed to buy this car depending on what you decide to do before 8pm tonight."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Hi, my name is Bob."</i><br />
<br />
If I like a car enough, I can look past the sales BS (see: Jerry Seiner Nissan, June 2000). But it's a stretch. And four weeks in, I still hadn't found a car worth the sacrifice. What I did have was a vivid illustration of the argument and persuasion tactics I had been teaching my students for ten years. You may never write a research paper again for the rest of your life, but the principles of English 2010 can come in pretty handy on a used car lot.<br />
<br />
Another challenge I had was figuring out what I really wanted. I was torn between the practicality and reliability I'd usually favored (Go Japan!) and the driving enthusiast inside me who leaped to life when zipping a 2005 Mini Cooper S down a back road in Murray. After all, if I'm still single, why not have fun while I can?<br />
<br />
Five years of watching "Top Gear" on BBC America probably wasn't helping, but it was actually those three crazy Brits who guided me home. For five years, I'd watched Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond bicker and clown as they tore their way through six-figure sports cars that should play into my budget right around the time Amber Heard shows up to ride shotgun. But whenever they've come down to earth to take a look at options for the unwashed masses, the one car they almost universally praised was the Volkswagen GTI.<br />
<br />
So I bought one.<br />
<br />
My journey ended at a Volkswagen dealer in Salt Lake shortly after leaving my English class on Thursday morning. A test drive at a Layton VW dealer early in my search stuck with me through all the Nissans and the Mazdas and the Acuras, and a little online research led me to a brand-new discounted GTI with a manual transmission, a color that fit me, and just enough features to balance the practical stuff with the fun stuff. And when I redlined it between second and third, popped the clutch and stomped on the gas, I completely forgot that I was giving up a sunroof and leather upholstery. <br />
<br />
When the last of the haggling and the signing was finished, I went out to the parking lot to clean out my old Honda. As I dug through eight and a half years of memories and hidden "treasures" (including a pair of unopened contact lenses from 2008…???), I went through that odd separation anxiety that happens when adventures connected to an intimate object make you think that object has real human feelings and consciousness. In those eight plus years I'd made numerous trips to Yellowstone, an epic cruise up the Pacific Coast Highway, and several swings to Vegas. I'd been in and out of Salt Lake a million times over for various jobs, and when one of those jobs took a sour turn a few years ago, I drove that Honda out to the foot of Devil's Tower in Wyoming to get my head back together. We had our issues, as I've openly acknowledged, but even the Millennium Falcon had its issues, and you could see how Lando and Han felt about that old piece of junk. As I cleared the last of the salvageable scraps out of the trunk, I stared at the University of Utah Alumni license plate frame on the back bumper, and briefly considered whether I should pull out a screwdriver and take it off.<br />
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I left it. It's time for a fresh start. And I'm sure the Top Gear guys would agree.<br />
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<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-26716329774896083242014-05-19T11:15:00.003-06:002014-05-19T11:15:47.572-06:00Classic Hollywood Entertainment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Took a stroll down Hollywood Boulevard on a recent trip to LA*. Turned this little sequence of photos into my first animated GIF in about 10 years.<br />
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The guy jumping over the volunteers is obviously the first visual draw, but the closer I look, I also notice:<br />
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<ul>
<li>…the guy loses his hat mid-flip.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>…all the people who turn their heads to watch him.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>…the people he jumps over first look up to see if he lands.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>…wait…there's a cop watching the whole thing?</li>
</ul>
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*A more extensive post on the reason for this trip will appear in the coming months.</div>
The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-44634055980792162042014-03-02T10:56:00.000-07:002014-03-02T10:56:18.220-07:00The Bacchanalian BingeWe were gathered around our table near the edge of the buffet floor when the fatigue took hold. Randy staggered off to the dessert bar to pick out the capstones of his evening meal. Brian was slumped across the table, staring through me with a look that said any attempt to finish the last half-dozen cocktail shrimp on his plate might keep him from returning home to his wife and five kids alive. And as I gazed at the half-full plate in front of me, I realized that if I wanted any dessert, I would have to waste some of the unfinished shrimp, flank steak, sausage, salmon, sushi, and edamame I'd gathered on my last run.<br />
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"I think I've hit the wall," muttered Brian. "I may have to skip dessert."
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<br />
Brian was officially down for the count, but I remained determined. I knew I was near my limit, but I also knew that I couldn’t justify the price of my meal without at least sampling the Caesar's Palace dessert buffet. Yet if I didn't want to feel like an oblivious first-world heel, I at least had to try to finish what I had on my plate.<br />
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Our trip to the buffet was the climax of a quick weekend trip. 36 hours earlier we'd thundered into town in Randy's black V8 Hemi-powered Dodge Challenger. For him, the excursion was work; he was making his yearly pilgrimage to Sin City to attend the annual vendor's expo at The Venetian, and he had $40,000 worth of outerwear and $6,000 worth of yoga pants to prove it. For Brian, it was a rare timeout from the responsibilities of work and family. For me, it was a chance to spend the weekend with two guys I'd known for over twenty years. Plus I was curious to see if there was a difference between Salt Lake City inversion and enough second-hand smoke to choke three chorus lines of showgirls.<br />
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The Caesar's buffet was probably the most Vegas-like event of our trip. When you’re a non-drinking, non-smoking, non-gambling, non-strip clubbing Mormon on a budget, Sin City is kind of a useless destination. Sometimes you can build a trip around a concert—I’d made the trip in the past to see the likes of James Brown and Eric Clapton—but the 25-foot billboard of Faith Hill's road-weary stare outside the Venetian wasn't doing much for us. Still, when you’re a photographer, you don’t need high-priced events for entertainment, and I had become obsessed with <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcM3Q_EVuiQHdwOIb1zxXvxj0knbjBjWA2w719n72P7a8V5jiajjjmn6-96RkTJKdfYgi0t0swJbsiJqNAZZrT_rmine9eSPfIFQI7-akyQ-gpYM6TaDNm18OSMK1okcGuyWByjQ/s1600/vegas_2014-37.jpg">immortalizing the sad hooker-peddlers</a> that lingered on street corners clapping pass-along cards at you. After two days of taking pictures, hanging out in the hotel hot tub, and watching our food budget, our last night in town felt like a good time to hit up a traditional Vegas buffet.<br />
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The trouble is the Vegas buffet means different things depending on where you are in Vegas. On your way into town, billboards advertise rock-bottom prices for prime rib and seafood, and usually inexpensive room rates as well. The theory is that bargain-basement food and lodging will translate into more money in the slots, but once you hit the heart of the Strip that theory busts like a bad hand of Blackjack. The top-ranked Caesar's Palace buffet is priced at a staggering fifty-bucks a head, and the only reason Brian and I agreed to get on board was that our gracious leader offered to spot us $20 each so he could get his crab legs fix.<br />
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With that in mind, you might assume that no matter how quality the experience, the price is too high to get a clear thumbs-up. But for $30? That was a more compelling discussion. The buffet at Caesar's, dubbed "The Bacchanalian" after the Roman god of wine, is located at the west end of a vast web of casino rooms, ensuring that casual patrons of Caesar's Forum Shops at least get a brush of temptation before dining. We arrived around 7:30pm and found a bank of automated reservation kiosks, just one feature that made entrance feel more like going through airport security than grabbing a bite to eat. The plus side is that once we confirmed our reservation and the little computer told us we had a 102-minute wait for seating, we were free to wander around at our leisure rather than shuffle through a massive herding line for an hour and a half. My comrades and I used the window to take in another Bellagio fountain show and add a hundred extra photos to my portfolio.<br />
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When we did get back, we still had to pass a series of checkpoints before landing at a remote table on the far side of the establishment. Along the way we posed for a group picture that was anything but complimentary, and were given a small flap of rubber that was supposed to keep you from burning your fingers when you picked up the hot plates. Eventually we placed our drink orders with our waitress (wine enthusiasts should note: Bacchus doesn’t include alcoholic drinks in the $50 head price) and set out in search of food.<br />
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The forgettable set-up didn't appear to have any symbolic design in mind, and unlike the rest of the multi-acre complex, the buffet area wasn't littered with the half-to-fully naked statues that generate that odd “tasteful, yet tacky” vibe you encounter so often on The Strip. Maybe concrete naked bits aren’t good for the appetite. Tables were strewn throughout a mood-lit main room, and on its far left-hand side, the buffet wound around a perimeter that transitioned through genres from seafood to Italian to "that place where a guy chops up random pieces of meat for you." For my first run, I went straight to the seafood area, loading up on oysters, crab legs (already halved for easier access), cocktail shrimp, and a cocktail sauce that I'm happy to report featured a generous proportion of horse radish. Later I would sample the sushi bar and the cutting table, taking care to work in a cornbread muffin or a piece of cantaloupe to offset my massive meat binge. The buffet offers plenty of non-meat alternatives, including an extensive salad bar and a pizza bar, but any sucker who fills up on buffet-quality pizza and romaine lettuce after dropping $50 on a buffet deserves to lose big on the casino floor.<br />
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Throughout our meal, the atmosphere was consistent. Our drinks were refilled and our old plates were removed promptly, though the annoying "thump-thump" beat of the elevator-style electronica playing over the buffet's PA system seemed to drive you to eat faster than you wanted to…probably so the staff could usher in the next wave of mega-diners. The buffet was always well-stocked and clean, and the quality of the food was well above average, though like at most buffets, you got the feeling that no individual item or genre is quite as strong as it would be at a restaurant that chooses to specialize in that item or genre. I've had better shrimp, better sushi, and better steak in other places, but never all at the same spot. $50 is still a stretch, but the Bacchanalian is still a notch above the other Vegas buffets I’ve sampled over the years, including the Bellagio and its underwhelming “Gourmet Night” special.<br />
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Once I finally wandered over to the dessert bar, located in the middle of the main room, I grabbed some berry cobbler, a mini-crème brulee, a cookie, and something else I can't remember that apparently wasn't as good as the other stuff. The dessert quality was a good reflection of the buffet quality: excellent for a buffet, not as good as a specialist.<br />
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What my comrades and I determined by the end of our meal is that the value of the Caesar's Palace Bacchanalian has less to do with the quality of its food than your capacity for gluttonous consumption. Ten years ago I would have been able to put away two more plates, and even the $50 price tag wouldn't have felt like an unfair hit. But that was ten years ago.<br />
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“Gentlemen,” I declared solemnly, “I hate to admit it, but I’m not the man I used to be.”<br />
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Nowadays, the buffet experience is justified more by the occasion than it is the food I managed to put away. And as the capstone of a weekend away with two of my oldest and closest friends, it was a price I was more than happy to pay. Brian was,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=27541532"></a> too…right up until the moment he sent Randy and I to Walgreens the next morning to score him some Pepto Bismol.<br />
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The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-77101999505224934652014-01-19T09:21:00.000-07:002014-01-19T09:21:32.006-07:00My Most Powerful Movie Moment of 2013I reviewed well over 60 films in 2013. That's only a fraction of the total films that were released last year, but still a generous total. For a recent episode of "The KJZZ Movie Show," I was asked to identify the most powerful moment I encountered out of all those films. Not an easy task, especially when any potential candidate will have to compete with Vin Diesel's flying torpedo-skull.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gX0AP72ahr0" width="560"></iframe><br />
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The clip I finally landed on took place late in <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865592987/The-Secret-Life-of-Walter-Mitty-an-amusing-inspiring-smart-PG-option.html?pg=all">"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,"</a> which came out on Christmas day late last year. Since (at this writing) the movie is still in the theaters, I couldn't elaborate too much on that moment on the show. But I can afford a little more liberality on my blog. So consider this a spoiler alert.<br />
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"Walter Mitty" is the story of a shy daydreamer (played by Ben Stiller) who finally decides to take charge of his life. Part of this charge-taking involves finally engaging his dream girl, but most of it involves tracking a mysterious photojournalist (Sean O'Connell, played by Sean Penn) across the globe in search of a missing negative. (Walter works for LIFE magazine and needs the negative for LIFE's final print cover.) Over the course of the film, Walter goes from Manhattan to Greenland to Iceland, back to Manhattan, then to Afghanistan, and finally up into the remote Himalayas in search of his target. And that is where my favorite moment takes place.<br />
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When Walter finally catches up to his man, he finds him perched behind a telephoto rig high up in the mountains. O'Connell is on a hunt of his own, trying to photograph the elusive snow leopard. The two men have an amusing exchange about the negative, then the leopard appears.<br />
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But O'Connell never takes the shot.<br />
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To Walter's confusion, the cryptic photojournalist merely gazes at his muse through his viewfinder. He explains that sometimes, in situations like this, he chooses not to take the shot, opting to stay in the moment instead. On the surface, it's a completely illogical if not insane decision. <i>All that work, and you don't even take the shot?</i><br />
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But after several years of shooting on my own, it makes perfect sense.<br />
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As a photographer, you can find yourself in the middle of a situation and completely removed from it at the same time. I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to my computer after a shoot and scanned through the results, wondering what it would have been like to actually participate in the experience I just documented. I've photographed three different Holi Festivals, and never thrown chalk in the air myself. I photographed several friends at the Dirty Dash a couple of years ago, capturing the elation of diving headfirst into a pool of muddy water, yet never felt that cold, jarring sensation on my own. Photography is one of my deepest passions, and most important creative outlets, but it is not a substitute for living life. That's what "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" is all about.<br />
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Luckily, that lesson didn't come with a rush of regret after a wasted life. Even if at times I've let my camera separate myself from the world, I've taken advantage of other chances to engage my surroundings, whether it was <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2006/08/manly-guide-to-hiking-zion-narrows.html">hiking the Zion Narrows</a>, <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2009/08/stuff-i-learned-on-my-road-trip-to.html">driving up the PCH</a> south of Big Sur at sunset, or <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2011/08/birthday-list-item-3-play-drums-at.html">talking my way onstage</a> at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago. But sometimes I do need to remind myself to get out from behind the viewfinder and suck in the moment for myself, and at the end of a long year of reviewing movies, "Walter Mitty" provided that valued reminder.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-57823454448669970242014-01-05T11:04:00.000-07:002014-01-10T12:43:10.139-07:00The Road Less TraveledFive years ago I was confronted with a difficult choice. After spending ten years of my life attending young single adult wards, I was asked to move on. My options were to attend a traditional family ward, "upgrade" to the mid-singles ward, or just stop going to church altogether.<br />
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Going inactive was never an option, so the choice came down to whether I wanted to continue the marital-status-segregated tradition in the mid-singles ward or take my chances with a traditional family ward (there was also a half-joking notion that I would start a geriatric biker gang, but sadly that never came to fruition). After mulling things over, I began attending the family ward at the end of my street, sucking in my gut and preparing for the crying-baby-chaos of Mainstream Mormondom. Out of obligation, I made a token visit to a mid-singles ward in Salt Lake, but quickly decided that I would rather feel out-of-place with the married people. At least at the family ward I still felt like I was in the game. Plus I actually liked having all the little kids around.<br />
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Throughout the transition, and even at times today, I felt resentment at an unspoken message I had been hearing ever since my old YSA bishop announced that they would be clearing the records of anyone over the age of 31. The message was that I didn't fit anymore, and needed to go off with my own kind.<br />
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Of course, no one ever said this, at least in those words. My YSA bishop initially invited all the old-timers to continue attending activities, and bristled at the notion that we were being "kicked out." But whenever I swallowed my pride and dropped by occasional YSA activity, it always felt like I was welcome, but out of place, like I was going back to prom after having graduated high school.<br />
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I said "no one ever said this, at least in those words." But they did say it in other words. One person responded to the blog post <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2008/12/geriatric-cleansing.html">announcing my departure</a> by saying guys in their '30s shouldn't be chasing 18-year-olds anyway. Months later, when I didn't quickly endorse a friend's regular get-together that featured guys and girls exclusively in their '30s, she remarked, "well, unless you would rather chase 18-year-olds." Both responses were understandable, but <a href="http://ksumail.kennesaw.edu/~shagin/logfal-pbc-eitheror.htm">based in rhetorical fallacies</a>. Just because I didn't feel like going cold turkey and dating women in their '30s exclusively didn't mean I wanted to chase 18-year-olds. I didn't even have a problem dating women in their '30s, anyway. I just wanted to make the decision on my own, not be pushed off into some social category by cultural mandate. As a grown man, I resented the idea that my social circles were being dictated to me.<br />
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My experience confirmed an idea I'd long suspected: that YSA culture is a simultaneous blessing and cursing. If you get into a good ward (as I had), your entire social life never need extend beyond the doors of your weekly sacrament meeting. There are more than enough activities and more than enough dating options to keep your social calendar active and vibrant throughout the year. This is great if your desires for marital success are fulfilled in a timely fashion. But if you put all your eggs in one social basket, then get too old to stay on the farm, well...<br />
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In the time since I left the YSA ward, I've seen my social life take a drastic turn. A routine of almost daily activities and weekly dating has become a lot of empty weekends and a dating pool that is shallow at best. People I thought were going to be lifelong friends have redefined the concept of "out of sight, out of mind." But while the frequency may have flatlined, the people I have maintained friendships with and the girls I have dated have been as high if not of higher caliber than the people I encountered during my YSA firehose years. At times I've wondered if passing on the overcrowded mid-singles scene was wise, if not an act of outright rebellion. But that wonder has never led to conviction.<br />
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Readers have debated the sentiment of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken*" for decades. Is Frost happy he chose the less-traveled path, or is his poem a statement of regret? Five years after getting off the LDS singles ward train, I'm inclined to say "both."<br />
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<i>(Note (1/10/14): OK, it turns out I misquoted the name of that Frost poem when I first published this post. It's fixed now.)</i>The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-58065423632025137382013-12-29T10:25:00.000-07:002013-12-29T16:17:35.462-07:00Behind the Lens: My 2013 Post-Christmas Photo EssayDear friends, family, and cyber-stalkers...<br />
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The time has come for the obligatory 2013 recap, and for the second year in a row, I have opted to do it in photo essay form. This blog almost bit the dust in 2012 (I only posted seven times all year), but for some reason I decided one of my goals for 2013 was to publish one decent post a week. As of this posting, I have reached that goal (cue mild applause). Still, in spite of my weekly posts, I feel like I barely scratched the surface on this year, so maybe these images will fill some of those gaps:<br />
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<i>(To see more images from each of these shoots, check out my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wmosquito">Facebook page</a>, and feel free to "like" it while you're there. Unless you don't like it, in which case I apologize, and will try harder to produce better images in 2014.)</i><br />
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<b>"Pimping 'Lincoln?'" Park City, Utah, January 2013</b><br />
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In January I <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/01/memories-of-my-first-sundance.html">covered my first Sundance Film Festival</a> for the D-News, spending a day up in Park City watching a number of indie flicks. In the early evening, I took a break from all my <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865571522/Sundances-Big-Sur-shows-the-miserable-life-of-an-alcoholic-writer.html?pg=all">screenings</a> and grabbed my camera for a few shots on Historic Main Street. We were already past the "Celebrity Sighting" phase of the festival at that point, but I did come across a familiar face or two. I don't know if this guy was trying to drum up Oscar attention for "Lincoln" or if he just thought wandering Park City dressed as the famous ex-president was just a natural use of his spare time.<br />
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<b>"Baldies Buffing," South Jordan, Utah, April 2013.</b><br />
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While I was wandering around Sundance, my old "KJZZ Cafe" boss called to recruit me to do weekly film reviews for the KJZZ Movie Show with host Melanie Nelson and Standard Examiner critic Steve Salles (we air every Sunday at noon and 10pm). As a result, I spent a good part of the year bouncing around to different Megaplex theaters taping review segments, and of course, seeing lots and lots of movies (over 50 this year). It was a lot of fun getting to know my new co-stars and crew, and reacquainting with some old KJZZ friends as well. Even when they had to go through the weekly ritual of buffing down my too-shiny head prior to taping.<br />
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<b>"Operation Smile Celebrity Ski Challenge," March 2013, Park City Utah.</b><br />
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In March I was able to team up with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/T-Squared-Action-Sports/372163781337">T-Squared Action Sports</a> to photograph a charity ski race up at The Canyons in Park City. It was a benefit for Operation Smile that featured Zachary Levi from "Chuck," Mark Eaton from The Utah Jazz (back in the '80s), and several Olympic-level skiers and athletes whose names escape me, such as the aerodynamic-looking fellow in the shot above.<br />
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<b>"Niko at the Depot," Salt Lake City, Utah, April 2013.</b><br />
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I really only photographed one concert this year, but it was special for a few reasons. It was my first shoot at The Depot, and over the course of the evening I got pictures of four different bands. The first act was a local band named King Nico, notable (for me, anyway) because their new drummer was a student of mine at SLCC a few years back. Call it bias, but I went out of my way to make sure I got some good shots of a role that is traditionally the most difficult to photograph in a live setting.<br />
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<b>"Thunderlips Promo Image," Farmington, Utah, April 2013.</b><br />
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Later in April I was able to do something I hadn't done in over ten years: get a paying gig for one of my own bands. Thunderlips made its professional debut at the Orchard Lanes bowling alley in North Salt Lake as part of their weekly Rock and Bowl Series. We did a special group photo shoot to mark the occasion, and were good enough that we got invited back for a repeat performance in June. You can see highlights of the show <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwMxiLhaUs8">on YouTube</a>.<br />
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<b>"Supercross Chaos," Salt Lake City, Utah, May 2013.</b><br />
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Another opportunity via T-Squared came later in the spring at the Supercross Championships up at Rice Eccles Stadium. "Chaos" is the only word that feels appropriate to describe an event that has so many simultaneous subjects performing at once, especially right after the opening gun, when pileups like the one pictured here are liable to occur.<br />
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<b>"Bon Voyage," West Valley, Utah, May 2013.</b><br />
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Yet another example of how my teaching experience spills over into other aspects of my life. In May, one of my former students joined the Navy, and asked me to cover a farewell party for her friends and family. The party was pretty routine until she and her friends got into a water fight. This little present from her boyfriend was a surprise, and I was just grateful I was in the right spot to catch it.<br />
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<b>"Bizarre Bazaar," Bountiful, Utah, June 2013.</b><br />
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This summer I was recruited to do a little volunteer coverage of my stake's Youth Conference event. Before heading up the canyon for the full event, the kids participated in an elaborate bazaar staged in the Stake Center's gym. That's where this happened.<br />
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<b>"Bracing for the Burnout," Bountiful, Utah, June 2013.</b><br />
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This is easily the least action-packed image I caught at Bountiful's annual "Burnout" event, but it's probably my favorite. For the uninitiated, the event is little more than a bunch of cars with big engines taking turns squealing their tires and trying to create as much smoke as possible. Judging from the reaction of Tiger-Boy here, it's a pretty loud event. Big thanks to my old roommate Rhee for scoring me the press pass on this one.<br />
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<b>"The Happy Fishmonger," Seattle, Washington, June 2013. </b><br />
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At the end of June I joined the Cheetahman for my third trip to Seattle in four years, which was my justification for seeing movies on two of the days we were there (in my defense, re-watching Vin Diesel's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCYvEGDATWw">flying "Fast and Furious 6" head-butt</a> at Seattle's remodeled Cinerama was a noteworthy event). This time, instead of spending 20 minutes trying to freeze airborne fish at Pike's Market, I tried to get a wider perspective on the spectacle. I love this one mainly for the expression on the employee's face.<br />
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<b>"The Shriners," Centerville, Utah, July 2013.</b><br />
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I wasn't able to photograph the Bountiful Days of '47 Parade this year due to a schedule conflict, but luckily I got my fill of "zany people parading in public" earlier in the month at Centerville's 4th of July event. I'm not sure the Shriners even participate in the Bountiful parade, so I might have gotten the better end of the deal.<br />
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<b>"Lightning on 89," Bountiful, Utah, July 2013.</b><br />
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When I first moved into my loft apartment in Bountiful back in the summer of 2012, I thought my west-facing deck would be an ideal spot for photographing electrical storms. But I didn't get a decent shot until July of this year, and even then it only happened because I went outside and pointed my camera south over Highway 89.<br />
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<b>"The Wild Ones," Bluffdale, Utah, July 2013.</b><br />
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Later that same month I did my first official engagement shoot, for my buddy Jeff (Thunderlips guitarist) and his fiancee (now wife) Allison. I wanted to do something a little different, and they wanted to do something a little different, and that's how I wound up hanging out the back of a speeding SUV in Bluffdale one night, trying to hold my telephoto steady enough to get some action shots of the happy couple on Jeff's motorcycle. When we finally wrapped up, it dawned on me that I'd been doing the whole shoot without my neck strap on. Sometimes you dodge bullets, and sometimes you dodge really expensive bullets.<br />
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<b>"New Niece," Kaysville, Utah, August 2013.</b><br />
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Just before leaving for my annual trip to Island Park in August, I got the best news of the year: I was an uncle...again. Congrats to my sister and brother-in-law, and condolences to all of my Facebook friends who will continue to be inundated with niece photos for the foreseeable future.<br />
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<b>"Rodeo Rejection," outside West Yellowstone, Montana, August 2013.</b><br />
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Even after years and years of visits, somehow I can always find something new to shoot in the Island Park/Yellowstone area. This year I visited plenty of old haunts, but before calling it a trip, I was able to shoot my first rodeo at a spot outside West Yellowstone one night. The lighting was rough, but I still caught some chaos.<br />
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<b>"Sad Jedi," Salt Lake City, Utah, September 2013.</b><br />
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Photographing Salt Lake City's first-ever Comic Con event was like shooting fish in a nerd-shaped barrel. I got so many images I wound up creating separate Facebook albums for the "posed" shots and the "candid" shots. I also met Lou Ferrigno, but that's <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/09/comic-con-closure.html">another story</a>. Of all the images I took, this might be my favorite, though. The turnout on Saturday was so massive that hundreds (if not thousands) of people had to be turned away. I don't know if this aspiring Jedi ever made it in or not, but man…he just looks so darn sad.<br />
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<b>"Terror at the Fair," Salt Lake City, Utah, September 2013.</b><br />
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There was a common theme operating in many of the shots I caught at the State Fair this year: abject horror.<br />
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<b>"Christmas Chill," Salt Lake City, Utah, December 2012.</b><br />
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When I picked up my submissions to the Fair's photography exhibit, I found out that one of my shots will be touring the state with the Arts Council this year. I caught it last December at Temple Square while shooting with my friend Dennis, who brought along a flash remote that produced some fun results. Arts Council-worthy results, anyway.<br />
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<b>"'Supermassive Black Hole' - Live Muse Cover," Layton, Utah, September 2013.</b><br />
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Later that month Thunderlips (now modified to "The Atomic Thunderlips") played a benefit show with Shanna Taggart and Danny Wood up at the Ed Kenley Amphitheater in Layton. Thanks to some generous help from friends and family, I was able to get enough coverage to patch together a few concert videos, including this Muse cover featuring Shanna on lead vocals.<br />
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<b>"Ms. Volleyball in Action," Layton, Utah, November 2013.</b><br />
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I did a number of portrait sessions for individuals and groups in 2013, but in early November I got one of my most unique opportunities. A friend from high school hired me to do an "in action" portrait shoot for her niece, who plays volleyball for Layton High. Lucky for me, her niece turned out to be Eliza Katoa, who went on to be named "Miss Volleyball" <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865592750/Taking-charge-2013-Deseret-News-Ms-Volleyball-Eliza-Katoa-of-Layton-achieved-goals-helped-others.html?pg=all">by the Deseret News</a> shortly after her verbal commitment to play for the University of Utah next year.<br />
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<b>"The Western Shore," Antelope Island, Utah, November 2013.</b><br />
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Early in November, Dennis and I teamed up with his uncle for a personal backcountry tour of Antelope Island. The shot above was taken on the west side of the island, and the little dots near the bottom of the image are a pair of riders on horseback. The funny thing about Antelope Island is that it is part of the backdrop of most any day along the Wasatch Front, yet few people realize the kind of natural beauty that is right in their backyard.<br />
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<b>"Dinner Conversation," Kaysville, Utah, November 2013.</b><br />
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November saw another big family milestone as my parents celebrated their <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-best-english-1010-students-i-never.html">40th wedding anniversary</a>. To commemorate the occasion, my sister and brother-in-law hosted a massive dinner party up at their new home in Kaysville, stocked with the friends and family who contributed to the success of those four decades. I can't remember what my dad said that provoked this reaction from my mom, but maybe leaving it to the imagination is the better option anyway.<br />
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<b>"Turkey Pull," Bountiful, Utah, November 2013.</b><br />
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One of my most satisfying experiences this year was actually <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2013/12/surviving-turkey-bowl-2013.html">playing in a football game</a> without sustaining some kind of injury. After putting in my time at the 7th Ward's annual Turkey Bowl, I grabbed my camera to fire off a few action shots before moving on to my other Thanksgiving festivities. As you can see here, my teammates took a few liberties with the whole "flag" part of "flag football."<br />
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<b>"Candid Christmas," Salt Lake City, Utah, December 2013.</b><br />
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By December, another busy year stayed busy even as it wound near its close. As fall semester wrapped up with a marathon grading session, I knocked out a few more photo gigs, including the last of several I was able to perform for the LDS Missionary Department throughout the year. I was kind of dreading my assignment--take close-up candids of people on Temple Square at Christmastime--for multiple reasons: 1) The air is terrible, 2) December was even colder than usual, 3) Getting recognizable photos of individuals on TS at night is almost impossible, and 4) If I do get a recognizable image, I have to ask the person permission to use it, and I'm actually a very shy person (which is what led me into the loner art of photography in the first place). But the shoot turned out great, and I even talked to strangers without any problem.<br />
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<b>"Frigid Nativity," Salt Lake City, Utah, December 2013.</b><br />
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With the pro job out of the way, I returned to Temple Square with Dennis later in the month to work out our creative muscles a bit. He brought along his flash remote, just like last year, and also just like last year, it led to some gorgeous results. By the time I got done firing dramatic images of the reflecting pond Nativity, I could barely feel the fingers on my right hand. But as they say nowadays, "Pain is temporary; a high-resolution digital RAW image is forever, provided you back it up properly and avoid the inevitable crash or long-term deterioration of your hard drive."<br />
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So there you have it: a handful of heartfelt moments that represent the best of the year that was. As I look back through these images, I can't help but notice that I didn't wander too far this year in terms of mileage, but I think I made the most of what was going on close to home. I picked a lot of these images because of subtle details instead of showy presentation, and I do think there's a lesson there: often happiness comes from appreciating the little things instead of getting all the big things we want. 2013 was a year full of ups and downs, and at the end of it, I'm pretty happy with the ups I was given.<br />
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Here's to the best in 2014...The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-12422488840910990762013-12-22T09:15:00.002-07:002013-12-22T09:15:56.890-07:00The 10 Best Christmas Songs in My iTunes CollectionThere is no season more inseparable from its music than Christmas. It doesn't even matter if you aren't a Christian; both the secular and religious bring the musical goods when December rolls around. I briefly considered making a list of the worst Christmas songs of all-time (hello, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHblJ4BNQMU">Mr. McCartney</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3ylq0qUwhg">Wham!</a>), but this is supposed to be a season to celebrate things that are awesome, not awful. So here is my heavily-biased top-ten list of the best Christmas songs on my iTunes account. You're welcome. Merry Christmas.<br />
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(Half of the fun in making this list was listening to all of the non-Christmas tracks I came across by the same bands.)<br />
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10. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8cwDqsqN2Q">Christmas Must Be Tonight</a>, The Band<br />
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I never find myself binging on The Band, but every now and then I'll hear one or two of their tracks, like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM">"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"</a> or of course, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFqb1I-hiHE">"The Weight,"</a> and I'll just kind of zone out to their own unique vibe. I think that's the best way to enjoy these guys: a little at a time, so you don't spoil it. I was pretty excited when I dug up this song, which carries a different tone to the rest of the tracks on this list. And also unlike much of this list, its subject is the actual nativity story itself.<br />
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9. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SENE9S479Zk">Please Come Home for Christmas</a>, James Brown<br />
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Listening to selections from the James Brown Christmas Album has become kind of a running gag of a tradition ever since I discovered the thing back in high school. And with tracks like, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT6HsC0dYGA">"Hey America"</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUabyfwVDuI">"Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year"</a> (be sure to listen to the ending!), who could blame me? But in all seriousness, The Godfather of Soul's manic delivery is a pretty good match for this number. A better match than <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35MNkV1pXUA">"The Christmas Song,"</a> at least.<br />
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8. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTyuW1Q2oxU">What Child is This?</a>, Mormon Tabernacle Choir<br />
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One of those transcendent Christmas melodies, the linked clip features a guy rockin' it pretty hard on the oboe (Or is that a clarinet? Cut me some slack...I'm a drummer). If MoTab ever snags Ian Anderson from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SyXC7KRveg">Jethro Tull</a> to do a guest spot on this song, I may jump into the annual bloodbath competition for choir concert tickets.<br />
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7. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67RT0ctQMJg">Merry Christmas, Baby</a>, Otis Redding<br />
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Otis Redding just has one of those voices. To be honest, this isn't even that great of a song. But it's Otis Redding, man. OK, fine, just listen to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNGIg8f-0Wc">this</a> instead.<br />
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6. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7wD2XKFTZA">Santa Claus is Coming to Town</a>, The Crystals<br />
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The first of three selections off The Phil Spector Christmas Album, also known as the greatest Christmas album OF ALL TIME. Forget everything you know about Phil Spector, because that <a href="http://woundedmosquito.blogspot.com/2009/05/gulf.html">will depress you</a>. (OK, you can remember the anecdote about pulling a gun on The Ramones, because that's pretty cool.) Just know that his Wall of Sound technique combined with the Girl Group Era creates a perfect vibe for a (mostly) secular Christmas album. The beginning of this song is a little goofy, but just wait for that first heavy drum fill...magic time.<br />
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5. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NzMJzuyLnw&list=PL3XNp_XbDJKNO--mn5ZKej77qnM718JV2">Overture from "Scrooge,"</a> Leslie Bricusse<br />
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The soundtrack from Albert Finney's musical version of "A Christmas Carol" was my family's Holy Grail of elusive albums for years until a family friend was able to use some cutting-edge technology to rip the musical tracks from a VHS copy of the movie. I later found an original vinyl copy of the soundtrack at Randy's Records in downtown Salt Lake and thought I'd cemented my status as "World's Greatest Son" for at least the next five years. None of the individual songs work alone quite as well as they do in the context of the film, which my family has watched every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember. But it deserves inclusion on this list even as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.<br />
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4. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZDgz5UuT68">Sleigh Ride</a>, The Ronettes<br />
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Selection number two from the Phil Spector album, this take on a Christmas favorite comes via the same group that brought us the immortal <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-bcn6Rwn44">"Be My Baby."</a> Not much more to say than that, but do I need to?<br />
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3. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PzetPqepXA">Christmas Time is Here</a>, Vincent Guaraldi Trio<br />
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For a season of celebration, Christmas does have its melancholy side, and I think this track off the "Charlie Brown Christmas" captures that as well as anything. Its wandering piano and haunting vocals are charming and kind of creepy at the same time, but the total effect is pretty remarkable. Of course, fans of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oabcM9SOF-E">"Arrested Development"</a> will always love this one, too.<br />
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2. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKE2vDurA6A">Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)</a>, Darlene Love<br />
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The third and best entry from the Phil Spector album, and a heavy contender for my top spot. It for sure takes my "best secular Christmas song" title. This one is the perfect blend of the joy and heartbreak of the Christmas season, driven by the Wall of Sound and some desperate vocals from Darlene Love. There are lots of other versions of this song, including a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmZBC92pgrE">passable take</a> from U2 during their Bad Hat Era, and crap versions from Mariah Carey and Michael Buble, but none of them measure up to the original.<br />
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1. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/o-holy-night-cantique-de-noel/id4620507?i=4620495">O Holy Night</a>, Mormon Tabernacle Choir<br />
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This one lingered at the back of my musical mind for years until it was immortalized on my last night in the Missionary Training Center. The Missionary Choir performed it during the evening's Christmas Devotional, and combined with the atmosphere and drama of my impending departure, it became my all-time favorite Christmas song the moment they hit the high note in that final chorus. By that weekend, I was trudging around Kankakee, Illinois in 40-below-zero weather wondering how on earth I was going to get through the next two years. "O Holy Night" is one of the songs that helped me get through that first Christmas, and many others since.<br />
<br />The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27541532.post-38857680172549972262013-12-15T09:18:00.000-07:002013-12-15T17:37:47.391-07:00An open letter to my brand-new English studentsDear brand-new students,<br />
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Congratulations and welcome to my English class. I'm happy to make your acquaintance. Not just because your desire for education translates into my paycheck, but because I am one of those strange people who actually enjoys teaching. No, really. It's true. I've been teaching for over ten years now, and I've even passed on some higher-paying opportunities to keep doing it. Kind of nutty, eh?<br />
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Anyway, there's no reason to expect anything less than a fantastic semester together, just like many I've enjoyed over the years. But just to be safe, I thought I should give you a heads-up on a few items. As much as I love teaching, there are a few things that consistently muddle up every semester, and maybe addressing them now steer you clear of some headaches down the road.<br />
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Ready? Here we go:<br />
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<b>1. You are no longer in high school.</b><br />
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This should be obvious, right? I mean, the simple fact that you are choosing your own classes and major and schedule and even campus has probably tipped you off to the fact that you are in a completely new and different world. And trust me, it is a better world.<br />
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But let me tell you what else this means. It means that you are expected to behave as an adult. Not in terms of throwing spit wads in class, more in the sense that I will not be treating you the way some of your high school teachers did. If you blow off an assignment, I won't say anything about it. If you decide to skip class for a day or two or twenty, that's your business. But things add up, and when you find out at the end of the semester that a missed assignment or several missed days of class have knocked you from an A- to a C, the fault is yours.<br />
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Which leads us to number two...<br />
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<b>2. You actually need to attend this class to pass it.</b><br />
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Throughout your college career, you may come across a class or two that is so routine all you have to do is study enough to show up for the midterm and final in order to get a passing grade. Not so with me. I actually do this thing in class every day called "teaching," and we do activities in class to help you do something called "learn." Participation points are given for these activities, and trust me, they add up. Now, if you feel like you have already mastered the skills you need for my class, well, why didn't you already test out of it? Besides, do you honestly think that there is nothing I can teach you? If you don't want to attend my class, take it from someone else online. Because one of the things I love about teaching is interacting with human beings who want to learn.<br />
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<b>3. Plagiarism is stupid. Don't do it.</b><br />
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I know that the internet is a wonderful thing. I know that it makes research super easy, even if the super easy sources like Wikipedia are about as reliable as the electronic goods you might buy out of the trunk of a Buick. I also know that life gets busy, and in spite of your most noble intentions, sometimes you just don't have time to get the job done right. But you need to understand that in those situations, cutting and pasting some article off the net and slapping your name on it is a very bad thing. A "get kicked out of school" type of thing. You also need to understand that cutting and pasting chunks from different web sites without a citation is still wrong, even if most of the paper is still your very own writing. <i>They aren't your words</i>. Don't pretend that they are.<br />
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<b>4. Don't text or do other stupid things with your phone while I'm talking.</b><br />
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I know that smart phones are a wonderful thing. I know that they make socializing and communication super easy, even if that communication is mostly a bunch of cute acronyms and emoticons you share with your BFF that have nothing to do with class. I also know that sometimes emergencies happen, and that you need to let your mom know where to pick you up after class so you can go get a Happy Meal.<br />
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But here's the thing: English is a very subjective subject. For example, imagine I'm grading your paper, and I notice you've neglected some important concept, like say, including in-text citations on your MLA research paper. Now, if my primary association for you is, "that kid who keeps playing with his phone all through my lectures," do you think I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt? Of course not. I'm going to nail you to the wall. <i>And I'm going to enjoy it.</i><br />
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If it's a real emergency, step outside and do your texting or calling in the hall. You don't need a pass. You can even go pee all on your own. But when you're in class, and I'm talking, put the phone away.*<br />
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<b>5. Realize that "passing" this class is not necessarily "passing."</b><br />
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Technically you can pass my English class with a D. Technically the Toyota Prius is a fart on wheels, but I digress. Most programs, even if you don't plan on transferring to a university, require at least a C+ out of your English composition courses to avoid re-taking them. You know what that means? A handful of students every semester who do just enough to <i>not</i> get credit for my class.<br />
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The ones who go down in flames are much better off: at least they flunked in style. But I feel for the sorry suckers who come to just enough classes and turn in just enough assignments to get a C-. C's may get degrees, but in the English department, they don't give you transfer credit.<br />
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<b>6. General courses are good for you.</b><br />
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This may be a good time to talk about why you are in college. Or maybe, how you may not realize why you are in college. Nowadays a lot of people think that the only function of college is to get a job and make money. And really, that is a big part of it. But people limited to that narrow mindset get frustrated when they have to take general classes in Biology or History to get their degree in Accounting or Engineering.<br />
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"I'm never going to use this for the rest of my life," they say.<br />
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"Generals are stupid!"<br />
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"Why should I include outside sources when my passion gives me credibility?"<br />
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(Sorry, that last one was unrelated...)<br />
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Now, to be fair, I don't get a lot of flack from my students on this topic, because most sane people understand that even if you don't spend your professional career writing research papers, you will be using communication skills in some form pretty much every day, and that's really what my classes are about. But I still hear this complaint all the time, and it is annoying.<br />
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Here is why it is annoying: you are not in college to just get a job; you are here to be <i>educated</i>. A liberal education--not liberal in a Sean Penn sense, liberal in a "look at all this variety!" sense--is meant to train you as a human being. Not just a cog in some corporate machine or factory. If all you want is a job, that's what trade schools are for. That is what all those colleges are for that advertise quick degrees on TV and go out of business in a year. They just believe that college=job, and if that's what you're looking for, and you feel good about putting all your professional eggs in one basket, even if those eggs are going to be replaced by some other fantastic yolk-based product in five years, and your regular yolks are going to be about as useful as the handful of zip discs I still have in a box somewhere at my parents' house, then awesome! Good luck to you!<br />
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Do you want to have any clue about what is going on in the world around you? Do you want to be an educated citizen who can be trusted with things like voting and driving on the right side of the road and not sounding like a complete ignorant fool when commenting on some internet article like this one? Then stop complaining about general courses. No one expects you to be able to break down cell mitosis after a long day of writing case briefs. And really, knowing the difference between Mexico and Canada on a world map is not the key to personal fulfillment. But the fools who can't do it are the same people who have been giving Jay Leno cheap sketch material for the last 25 years.<br />
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<b>7. Sometimes life is hard. Take responsibility for it.</b><br />
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Every single semester I encounter a laundry list of excuses for missed assignments, chronic tardiness, long stretches of absences, and any number of other gaffes. Sometimes it's because they work full-time, or that their job suddenly changed their hours so they can only attend my class once a week. Sometimes they've taken too many credit hours. Sometimes it's because they HAVE to get two classes done this semester, but the only way to make it fit in their schedule was to sign up to take them back to back, even though they are on different campuses with a half-hour drive in-between. So why can't I just soften my icy heart and give them some special exemption?<br />
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Because <i>everybody's</i> life is hard. Everybody has to make sacrifices. And once I start changing the rules to accommodate one hard case, the degree ceases to mean anything.<br />
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Here's a thought: are you the only person whose job required them to get a college degree? Did someone force you to go back to school even though you have a full-time job and kids? Did someone force you to have the kids in the first place, or to dump a full load of classes on top of all your other responsibilities? Don't get me wrong: I love kids. I also love school, and making money and paying my bills. But my point is this: just because you've chosen to put too much on your plate doesn't mean I am obligated to change the rules to fit your circumstances. Everybody can make excuses. Everybody has it tough. But we all have to meet the same standard, and sometimes that means taking a little longer to graduate, or accepting the B you earned instead of the A you wanted. You may as well get used to it now.<br />
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OK, take a deep breath. Nice job. If you're still here, you're probably fine. The people who weren't ready should already be out the door. Please understand that I'm not even kidding when I say a great semester is in front of us. You have to write papers, but you get to choose your own topics, as long as they aren't dumb (and I still let a lot of the dumb topics slide, to be honest). Plus I use lots of music and video clips in class, because they are so much more entertaining than I am. You will have to do a group project, but that's OK. At some point in life, we all have to learn to work with other people. Good luck on your new semester, and as always, let me know if you have questions.<br />
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(Just try to pay attention so that your questions aren't about things I've already answered, because...oh, never mind.)<br />
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See you in class,<br />
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Josh<br />
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*Yes, I know that sometimes students can download the textbook on their phone and follow along. That's great, but you can't tell me that the students who are zoned out are zoned out because they've become lost in the virtual pages of the Harbrace Guide to Writing (Second Edition). If you've got the book on your phone, come tell me. Otherwise, put the dumb thing away.The Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00712852431374218114noreply@blogger.com