Fin de semana en Mazamitla

Zion – View from half way up Angel’s Landing

It’s not easy to capture the sheer scale of the geological goings-on in Zion National Park in a single pic. I tried fisheyes, stitching half a dozen shots into a panorama, then 40 odd shots into a panorama on me iTouch, zooming while shooting and trying to include teeny tiny humans somewhere in the image but I think the only answer is to start saving up for yet another lens… 18mm or thereabouts. Anyroad, hope you like this pic aimed down the valley from a relatively safe vantage point, unlike the ones where I feared for life, limb and camera on the icy stretch 20 feet from the top…

(lots more Zion pics here)

City Creek Canyon Trees

Dear jeebus, SLC and its surroundings doesn’t half look pretty in the snow. Just going to the local supermarket to pick up dog food is a joy if you time the sun/weather right… Here’s some trees in a rare second post in the same week. Amazing what can be achieved with an extra hour.

ps. Thanks for the comments at Flickr. I’ll be answering them properly v. soon. Honest

Naturaleza Congelada

First proper snowfall in Sugar House, just a few inches overnight, but enough to make for a lovely walk through the neighbourhood with young Atticus snapping the frozen remains of autumn. Clocks go back tonight in North’merica, y’all, and my snowshoes should be arriving from ebay any moment…

Fin del Verano en Ojos de Pez

Just got back from another fantastic trip back home to the UK. I think I managed to miss the worst excesses of the Utahn summer though it’s still hitting 90°F+, whatever that is in real money, on a regular basis.

Of course, Atticus is pretty resilient to whatever temperatures come our way but our walks tend to be around sunset now. These here fisheye shots are from a brief walk round the neighbourhood yesterday evening.

The next post might well be a timelapse video. I just ordered this gadget and can’t wait to test drive it… Hasta pronto y’all!

Wasatch Mountains

Haven’t had a portrait-orientation pic for a while… I still can’t quite get over the countryside round these parts. I expected desert, and more desert, and maybe the occasional cactus, but it’s lush- tons of springs, waterfalls, greenery. Very happy with this turn of events. And then after we got back home it started raining, proper thunder-and-lightning, Guadalajara-style rain. This is what Sundays should be like. Did I mention the complete absence of traffic too? Starting to understand why lots of people have told us not to tell the world about SLC…

Snow Melt through Sugar House

Icy stream flowing through Salt Lake City’s Sugar House park

Well it happened again- we moved. Subscribers to this blog can stay for free at the drop of a hat’s notice at our new place in Utah. We’ll stock up from the State Liquor Store well in advance. After nearly a month of not getting out much, we’re gradually expanding our explorations from IKEA and Home Depot to Salt Lake’s more natural surroundings. Baby steps though… Today our (gorgeous) local park, tomorrow, Zion… well, not literally. The 4th of July weekend’s not the best time to travel…

Las Lozas, Chile

DrSita and Martin’s little slice of the Chilean Andes. Not much good for agriculture (possibly walnuts…) but a presently uncontaminated source of water for the rest of the valley.

In the event of an apocalypse, it’s where we’re heading.

Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Me and the good doctor finally left Manhattan island for a bit on Sunday. Turns out we’re in the middle of “fall”. I can understand why people would live in Brooklyn. Sunlight gets to the street at times other than midday and they’ve got a lovely park. This here one has had a fair bit of post-processing, I was aiming for a watercoloury, vintage look and am happy with the result.

Seal Beach, Califas

It just dawned on my I haven’t made the New York category link yet… so I’ll hold off on new biggapple pix until I get round to that particular item.

This one’s from a wander down to the beach a couple of weeks ago on Sally’s birthday and our anniversary. Lovely light, lovely location. DrSita paddled and I got my trainers wet by accident.

Hungry, hungry

What with us moving to New York in the near future, here’s a shot from our garden while we still have one. Matey here is crawling across a solar-powered light that we have in the tree there. A lot easier to photograph than butterflies…

Diente de león

I could understand if it was called Lion’s Mane or something similar, but lion’s teeth always seems like a stretch.

Anyroad… I found out today that by affixing my fisheye lens (x 0.25) onto my manual 28-75mm (f3.5-22) it does a very passable impression of a macro lens. And I know flowers are right up there with sunsets for photographic clichés, but it’s spring innit. Hope you’ll bear with me while I’m going through this phase. I take requests by the way…

Weird weather

Yesterday Brunswick was treated to about 5 seasons in one day. Bright sunshine, gales, snow, hail, rain, cold then heat.

I wanted to get a shot of some of the blossom that has sprung up everywhere of late but with a sense of the elements too. This is a 2 second exposure with a tiny aperture and the polariser in full effect to get the flowers in motion. It took quite a few attempts but this is the best one I managed.

Shell Planet

I’ve got me mum visiting at the minute so we’ve put her to work making fantastic meals in exchange for showing her around the Maine countryside. Today we went to Bath and Harpswell. This one’s from the latter. Got to go now, chicken curry and apple crumble are almost ready.

Flow

Jesse gave me a quick tour of the surroundings of Amherst, Massachusetts on Sunday. He’s got a ton of fancy equipment but doesn’t have the same narcissistic urge to share his pics with the internet at large so I can only guess at the outstanding quality of what he shoots. This one’s from Rattlesnake Creek near Leverett. Trees about to turn, bubbling brooks and long exposures made for a bucolic Sunday morning.