Powder Mountain Hill Climb

I jetted up to Powder Mountain Saturday to try to take in some of the snowmobile hill climb competition. I wasn't there as long as I would have liked to have been due to the SL 1/2 Marathon I ran in the morning, nor was I prepared as I should have been (one 4 gig card - c'mon) but I was able to pick a spot and get some fun captures of some professional riders. Here are some of my favorites...

This is Keith Curtis, #711. He is Polaris's new allstar and let me tell you a very classy, down to earth guy. I got to talk to him a bit after the rounds and was impressed with his humbleness and attitude.


















Well, the above were my favorites. Too see a ton more click here...

Dead Horse Point - Canyonlands

Dark and dreary skies has been the story for me lately. I watched the weather for weeks before our trip, anxious to have beautiful weather. It was looking good until about 5 days before the trip and the forecast took a turn for the worst. It seems whenever we go somewhere that is supposed to have epic photo opportunities it is gray and over cast. I really shouldn't complain too much because we really lucked out. It was snowing the whole time back home in SLC and we just had cooler temperatures and wind. I try to make the best of it and keep a good attitude. When conditions are crappy I usually turn to HDR (high dynamic range) photography. This is a process of capturing multiple pictures in the same place at different exposure values. You need to capture at least 3 frames but it can be up to 9. Later is post, these images are placed on top of each other and with the help of software it can provide an almost surreal result that can be quite pleasing to the eye. When lighting is bad and everything is flat and lacks dimension I like to experiment with this. Some people like - some people hate. I happen to like it but I like it with caution as it is to get carried away with results sometimes and can ruin an image very quickly.



This is at Dead Horse Point state park - near Canyonlands National Park. Both of these pics were 9 exposure HDR shots.