Memories and Giveaway Winner Announced!

I know you all have been anticipating this for a week now, but the April giveaway winner is...

Bill Delano. He's a fantastic filmmaker out of New Orleans who I met in a small mountain town in the Dominican Republic and traveled with and even photographed a while back, you should check out his site. And as for the next giveaway, it will have to wait until I come back from my summer travels.

In other news, it's snowed the last two days. Yes, snowed. Thanks, end of April snow storm. I found these pictures from Christmas this last year in San Antonio. The first from my favorite record store back home, Hogwild Records off of N. Main and the second in New Braunfels in the Texas Hill Country. It's a sign for the river, explaining how it's closed for the season, but don't worry, the season reopens Feb 2. I wish Utah winters would end by Feb 2, I'd even take mid-March.

Zack and Ashley Sneak Peak.

Film images from a wedding I shot in Oregon earlier this month. I am so close to being done editing these pictures! Taken me a little bit longer than expected with finals and moving to a different house, but they will be done so soon.

Also, giveaway ends tonight! So enter while you can this last day! It will be my last one until I come back from Bosnia end of June, so get it now.

Small Town, Idaho

I got off the exit for Burley, thinking that I was in fact going to Burley. However, I ended up going left instead of right because I liked these factories, and therefore, not into Burley, but into another town it ends up. I don't know the name of it where I went, but this is what this mystery small town in Idaho looks like.

Interiors: Kitchens and Electrical Boxes.

Taken in Albany, Oregon at a recent wedding reception I photographed.

Installations and Fine Things

A roommate of mine [Heather Robinson] studies studio art at BYU with me, and for an installation class she did this book project. Installation art is where you create art for a specific space. Sometimes it is a corner of a gallery, sometimes it is in a public elevator, or under a staircase. Hers was for bookshelves in book stores. She turned old books into art by creating collages inside of them with notes she's written, drawings she made, or cut outs from magazines or fliers from other exhibits. They are little vignettes of her life, put onto shelves for anyone to see. She is reverse shop-lifting, by going into stores and leaving these books on the shelves for unsuspected people to find. She asked me to photograph her project for a class, as for the actual books, they are now on shelves if you can find them.

The Historic Columbia River Highway, Oregon

The first planned scenic highway in the US, this road goes up to Crown Point (the last image) and then back down through turnoffs for a ton of waterfalls, including the most famous (and full of tourists), Multnomah Falls. There are other places to hike all around it, including my favorite, the Oneonta Gorge. There's also a place to camp close to the end of the loop, Ainsworth State Park, and it is great with places to hike into camp but also hook up sites, where I stayed on my drive back. And both are right off the 84, so it's not difficult to get to.

April Giveaway to celebrate Earth Day!

It's time to do another giveaway, probably the last until I come back from Bosnia. The deadline for this one is in one week. April 29. Same rules as last time, just different pictures to choose from, which will still come to you as a matted 11x14.

There are multiple ways that you can enter, and so, you can have multiple entries. So do them all, and you have a better chance of winning.

#1: Comment on this post. You need a topic so you feel like you have an excuse to comment? How about your favorite place in the world you have been. Don't have a google account? Post as anonymous and just leave your e-mail there for me so I can contact you.

#2: Post about this contest on your blog. Or twitter about it. If you twitter about it, just use @brighteyedphoto so I can track it. If you post it on your blog, however, be sure to e-mail me about it so I know because that is harder to follow. Oh, and feel free to use the image on this post.

#3: Book a sitting or order prints from me.

Do all 3! Enter a million times! And Happy Earth Day!

Population 800: Goshen, Utah

I've been putting together a blog for this project for my folklore. I just put it together and I'm not sure yet if I'm sold on the layout and what not, but it's a start. Let me know what you think about it and start following it, I will put more updates as I work on the project when I come back from Bosnia on there as well as on this blog.

Breads in a Blender

While photographing breads, I wanted to tie in the earthiness of homemade bread with the grains in the bread and the wood of the cutting boards it would be served on. The browns and tans really work well together, so I used them throughout the shoot as a backdrop to warm up the scene. Also we wanted to show not just what the food is, but also what goes into making the food. Often times we don't think enough about what goes into the food we eat, or even realize what these things look like. Shooting for Blendtec and trying new foods with different ingredients and mainly raw foods has been really interesting for me, because I am quite the picky eater. Their recepe book comes out end of this summer, I believe, with all the foods and then some that I have photographed.

One of the things of interest for everybody is the variety of special health foods. One of the main types of foods explored, even with the breads, is gluten free. I didn't really realize how intense needing a gluten free diet is, but a girl in my program has celiacs and explained to me how crazy it is. So if you have weird food needs, check out this book with my fabulous photography in it by the end of this summer, and in the mean time, check out her blog with gluten free foods and restaurants.

Donate Blood: Join the Roller Derby

I have photographed this girl two completely different ways in the last year. Once as a bride and the other as a roller girl. She is quite fantastic. I love the roller derby and have a whole series in my head planned out of images that I want to take as a sort of advertisement for them. One day. Also, makeup was done by a wonderful girl in the theatre department at BYU, if you need a makeup artist, I'll get you in touch with her, because she is always willing and excited to work on projects, especially involving blood.

Windmills and Motels

Somewhere between Pendleton and Portland.

Population 800: Eureka, Utah, Population 766

Man on Ocean Drive

Man sitting with an empty chair besides him on Ocean Drive, South Beach. He told me his name at one point, but I have forgotten it now.

Wedding today, then hitting the road the make my way eventually back to Provo. I'll be back and blogging in a few days.

Tree Farming

A tree farm in eastern Oregon, taken from out my car window. Possibly known as GreenWood Tree Farm.

One day I woke up thinking I was going to fly to Portland

Ends up you can't rent a car without your driver's license.
Luckily I figured this out right before (as in 2 hours) before going to the airport so I packed up my car and hit the road. I have a wedding to photograph on Tuesday, and good thing I'm a dedicated human begin and always down for a good trip. It's been wild, drove out, picked Ryan Cason up at the airport, hiked some waterfalls, camped on the coast, hiked some more waterfalls in the Gorge, showered in the gas station, and just finally got into Portland (hence the internet access now). I've mainly shot film, so it'll be a while for some pictures, but here are some from the drive out. More to come.

Oregon Bound.

Goodbye, I am off to Oregon for a while as of today. I will be photographing a wedding in Portland on Tuesday and before that I will be going into the wild and going on a mini road trip throughout the whole area, going to the coast and the Gourge/Hood River areas. So be looking for pictures, stories, and lots of pictures to come once I come back or find internet connection.

(Images from a day trip I went on over Thanksgiving break through southeast Utah--twice in the same week. I enjoyed it that much.)