Stansbury Island- Utahs’ Hidden Gem

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Most of you out there are probably like me: where ever you live, even if you live in Utah, probably didn’t even know that it was possible to get out to Stansbury Island. And if you did know that, pat yourself on the back and then refrain from calling me a retard. The point is, most people think of everything from the Great Salt Lake on west to be an ugly, barren wasteland. And I have to admit, I was in that category for a good chunk of my life.


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Turns out I was mistaken.

There is inherent beauty in most places we go. You just have to know where to look. Photography has helped me enhance the ability to see the best of things and people – to see not just the good stuff, but the great and incredible in everything out there.

There is an undeserved misconception about what the Great Salt Lake is or is not. It is created by people who may only drive by on the interstate and never stop to enjoy the sites of the lake. Some claim that Great Salt Lake stinks.

I’m here to tell you all that these ideas are completely misleading and grossly wrong.

I’ve had the opportunity to go out to the lake in a couple different location with Scott Stringham, who’s entire photography mission is to showcase the sites of the Great Salt Lake in its incredible beauty. Just look at his stuff- breath-taking work.

Back to the main point- Stansbury Island.

This place used to be illegally closed before the state of Utah fought the rancher who had closed the island through the courts and won. So the island is completely accessible. After traveling to the extreme north end of the island we got to a kiosk. At this kiosk, you learn about lake Bonneville, which is what the Great Salt Lake used to be after the ice age. From there you can follow a trail marked with signs that show you the level of the lake at certain periods of ancient history. This trail winds through a maze of big red rock overlooking Stansbury Bay, creating an amazing panoramic view.

Rocky Vista- Stansbury Island

Heading west down to the beach I noticed that the water had a red tint to it from the brine shrimp and bacteria there. This red tint coupled with the near rock hard salt bed of the lake in some places forms the conditions for and extremely calm waterscape that perfectly reflects the intriguing sunset sky above. This is such an incredible place.

Great Salt Lake Sunset- Stansbury Island

Later on that night we had the chance to get some great nightscapes as well. It was a different animal from silver lake however. When facing east for the Milky Way view, rather seeing the stars against a black backdrop like at Silver lake, we were looker out over Salt Lake City, with the glow of light pollution adding a middle layer of bright highlight to the exposure. But I think it just added interest to my photos.

I really had a blast getting to go out to Stansbury Island for these photographs, and I couldn’t be happier with how mother nature provided us with such a great evening for photos. Check out the gallery HERE.

Silver Lake, Utah– in which I capture my first StarScapes

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When I started to get serious about photography, I really didn’t understand the journey that I was on. My singular goal was to learn how to photograph cool things that I could use as a computer wallpaper. It really bothered me for the longest time that I had no idea how to capture something of such a high quality that I could look at it for more than a couple minutes, let alone all the time. This obsession is what led me into doing landscapes and nature photography…. Which led to learning about one, Royce Bair, pro photog, and the guy who does this in his spare time.

After getting to know who Royce Bair is and his Nightscape photography, I really wanted to learn. And as luck would have it, there turned out to be a meetup at Silver Lake, Utah, about 45 minute from my home, just this last weekend.

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Two things here: Summer in the Wasatch Mountains is cold as St. Nick’s toes…. at night…. in May and June mostly…. And my younger brother didn’t dress for the occasion. Because of all this, I couldn’t stay until the Milkyway came out around 11pm. We ended up leaving around 1030pm(full disclosure here. I had been up since 6am that morning and was really tired. It was a good thing we left when we did, really).

Not realizing these things when we left the house(I can forget I’m working on little sleep. Don’t call me out on Transformer-Sized plot holes, alright?) we got to the lake a bit too early. 8pm-ish to be approximate. So we had to wait, but not in vain.

summerscape

While we were waiting for the sun to go down, we were “sighting-in” our cameras, so to speak. I was setting up my “infinity focus” so that the maximum amount of the frame would be in focus(If your lens has no designated infinity, you’ll really have to work a bit to figure where that is). We do this so that it does not become an issue trying to do this in pitch black.

Back to the EPIC TALE.

8pm proved to be too early if we wanted to spend the least amount of time in the cold. In the photo above, it was already somewhere around 40 degrees fahrenheit.

It really took till about 930pm and about a dozen photos later before we started getting faint hints of the stars. After a while, I started to get stuff like this:

nightscape

This particular photo was taken at around 1015pm. As we got progressively colder and tireder, it was decided to start packing up to leave. However, having spent all evening gazing across the lake watching faint lights as people would paint light into their long exposures necessary for capturing stars, I had to try it at least once for myself.

So I recomposed on a tree that was behind me, let the other photographers next to me what I was getting up to, and then I let the shutter go. While it was open, I used my trusty little Streamlight Stylus Pro and painted the tree that was in frame for a couple seconds. For a very first attempt at light painting, I don’t think I did too bad.

nightscape

After getting a quick look at it in my camera’s preview screen, we packed up and got the hell out of Dodge.

A few reflections

Royce Bair’s instructions on how to capture your first Nightscapes were wonderful. It was like plugging ingredients into a exceptionally crafted and refined recipe. I got to the lake with enough time to set my focus, plugged in the settings, and snapped away all night. I will admit though, that when it was earlier in the night, I kept the ISO a bit lower than the recommended 1600 in order to capture a more muted look on the mountains and in the town than I otherwise could have gotten. Just a personal preference. Had I stayed till the MilkyWay came out, I would have cranked my ISO all the way up to 1600, however. There would have been no way I would have missed that shot.

Having gone on this journey and learned a lot, I can only say that I’m hooked on nightscapes. I will be going back to Silver Lake in the next couple of weeks, as well as scouting out new locations for nightscapes in the near future.

 To my full StarScape album go HERE

Summary: The Process of Learning Basic Photography

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I’ve been intending to write a sum-up of my new-found hobby, but I’ve not known where to go with it. I think I’ve mostly been searching for title that wouldn’t construe this post as a tutorial, because I’m the last guy on earth to be giving advice on how to get started in photography. I take pictures purely because I like to, and this is just a repository for it.

That said, I kinda want to show off what I’ve been up to.

It all started when I finally took the plunge and upgraded from my mega-zoom point and shoot Nikon into an older, but still great, Canon Digital Rebel xt DSLR. It’s 7 years old, but hey, I’m a beginner, and it works great.

I had read up on the basics even before this purchase, trying to maximize my p&s Nikon. It’s taken and still does take great photos. I just needed to upgrade so that I could have greater control over the camera’s settings.

Auto-Mode; Ameture Photographers’ (sometimes) Enemy?

It got interesting when I started learning how to venture outside of Auto mode. I could take some good pics in Auto, but not the type that require manipulating shutterspeed, aperture, utilizing a greater ISO range and so forth, in order to create art or add expression. So I started taking lots of crappy pictures, and in view of the fact that I’ve only really been practicing with manual modes for maybe a month now, still take tons of craptastic photos. I hear it’s part of the hobby.

Over time I’ve gotten more familiar with the manual modes, and I can more easily make changes to the settings on the fly according to current lighting conditions and so forth. Practice, practice, practice.

Post-Production; Kinda sucks and doesn’t all at once

No Watermark Here…..

One of the biggest hurdles has been learning the basics of photo editing on the computer. I’m pretty tech savvy, but have never had much practice with slightly more advanced editors such as Photoshop Elements or Gimp(Gimp is actually comparable to the full photoshop suite, but that’s for another day).

But wait! That’s a watermark in the lower left hand corner! Why am I proud that I can do an amazingly simple task!?

First things first are learning to retouch, resize, recompose and so forth. That turned out to not be too daunting. I haven’t ventured much past the basics here, as I’ve not had much need to, but I felt like it was time to learn how to add a watermark and forever brand my images so that they will always be known as mine(I post a lot of images to facebook, and I want whoever is stupid enough to steal such poor quality work to know where it came from). That was more difficult as it required me to do more than I’m willing to post about at this late hour.

But suffice it to say that it’s been an adventure. Regardless of whether or not I have much talent, at least I’m satisfied that I’m making progress in the right direction and that I finally have such a great stress reliever that gets me off of the couch sometimes.

Is NASA Worth Spending Billions On?

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The NASA insignia. Español: Insignia de la NAS...

For over 50 years, NASA has been pioneering space flight. NASA began with unmanned flights all the way through landing men on the moon, within the span of a decade, and then embarked on largely scientific missions with the Space Shuttle. Long story made short, NASA has been on the cutting edge of technical innovation for half a century. It was never cheap, though. From their humble beginnings, NASA has always required vast amounts of money to make itself go.

We now flash forward to our day, 2012, and we see that NASA’s budgets have been severely slashed, the Space Shuttle has been decommissioned, and America now relies on Russia to get astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This picture is the one that some paint, while others pontificate on the merits of directing federal monies to private companies to develop their own craft to take astronauts and supplies into Low Earth Orbit(LEO). Continue reading →

Salt Lake County Republican Nominating Convention is Coming Up and I’m Getting Ready For It

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I know that it’s boring for most to talk about political issues at the county level for a lot of people, but like it or not, it’s one of the closest governmental agencies closest to you, and therefore, your personal interests.

I don’t have a big long spiel for you right now, but because I’ve had the opportunity to talk about issues with plenty of candidates here in Salt Lake County, I figured I’d compile what I new and pass it along to you, the humble reader. Saturday is the convention, and even though I thought I would talk about my choices before now, I’ve continually been gathering info on all available candidates. I’m very certain I’ve made my choices, but I don’t have time to reason out why and how, so tomorrow evening, I’ll post my Pre-Republican Salt Lake County Nominating Convention Picks. For now, I’ll just post a link to what the candidates have posted online for my county and district, with a link to where you can find info for areas of Salt Lake County and Utah that aren’t mine.

Salt Lake County Mayor

Salt Lake County Council At-Large

House District 42

For the rest of the Republicans running for office in Salt Lake County or for a house or senate seat in Salt Lake County, look at Salt Lake County GOP. The candidates for statewide offices area found at Utah GOP’s website.

Look for my post tomorrow on my pics and why I chose them.