Stephenson's Folly

When Robert Louis Stephenson exhibited his Rocket, onlookers scoffed that steel wheels and steel rails would not work. More than 150 years later, we all know how that combination worked out.

At the Utah State Railroad Museum, behind the Ogden Union Station, is a forlorn-looking remnant of a steam locomotive. The boiler and wheels are there, but the cab, pilot (cowcatcher) and tender are not. This engine is known among museum volunteers as "The" 223, and is 131 years old this year and undergoing complete restoration to operation.

This picture shows the third driving wheel from the front, with the frame-mounted brake shoe. It was requested as a series of photographs for an upcoming book about the "last four" locomotives of the same class as the 223. I don't know if this picture will be published yet, but I like it.

Steel and Sky

 Many thanks to Nelson for inviting me to collaborate with him. Here I present one of my first pictures, and hope that we can all learn something from each other.

I have always liked the mining industry. The direct contrast between the hard steel and metal, and the often incredible locales in which miners work, has fascinated me since I was young. I think this picture is a good example of what I mean. The little ghost town of Silver Reef, a few miles north of St. George, Utah, is littered with remnants of the silver mining age, and that's where this was taken.

A blizzard the day before left the area surrounding covered with an few inches of snow, and my lens had a frozen smudge from my attempts at photographing said storm, so that's why the center is a bit blurry. Oh well.

Anyway, this is the elevator car, propped up on the headframe by an I-beam welded to the structure (the cables that supported the car have long been cut and dangle from the wheel above).

This picture was taken with my cheap Canon Powershot in below-zero weather, and has not been edited yet. Normally when I find a good one among the hundreds that I take, I will run it through the standard Photoshop processes of sharpen, contrast, etc. Below is the final edit, with an attempt at removing that blurry light spot:

And now, that light spot is transformed into a dark spot...but I am only to blame, for not paying attention to the sky behind the car.

Ice and Wind

The wind gave this tree some crazy icicles.

This is actually one of my previous photo shoots, I was looking through some of my older pictures and saw a few that I liked, so I decided to post them. This was actually the first photo shoot that I did this year with snow, but it was the day after it snowed so a lot of it had melted and then frozen again while the wind was blowing so there were some pretty cool ice formations. I also took a few pictures that weren't so up close, making this a more unique photo shoot.

In some places, the snow still seemed to be unaffected by the temperature and didn't melt.

The snow was already completely gone from this tree.

This is one of the few landscapes I've done, but I liked it enough to upload it.

I took quite a few picture of the ice close up, but this  was really the only one that turned out well.

Running Through the Snow

The melted and re-frozen ice made everything look like water was still dripping from it.

Even though I hate it when it snows (I have to get up early for work to clear the sidewalks), I love what it does to the mountains. Needless to say, when it snowed Monday night, I left as soon as I could from work in the morning (no projects so I was able to be gone from 10:00-12:00) and headed for the 27th street trail head and started taking snow covered pictures, In all it was a very successful photo shoot, and wearing the proper snow gear, it was a rather pleasant, though short hike as well. the only down part was actually after the shoot. While I was formatting some pictures, I accidentally deleted one of them, the one that in my opinion was the best one of the day. I really do think that a hike through a wooded area, though, is one of the best wars to start a day. while working at scout camp you take that for granted, but I really noticed the difference in my day. Running up the trail through the snow; however, also made it painfully obvious how out of shape I was, I only did so for an eighth of a mile before slowing to a walk. I realize the snow makes it harder to run, but I used to run a 6 min mile every week. Well, I guess that's what computers do to you. At least photography gets me outdoors more often, maybe I'll start getting back into shape. The only real disappointment of the day was that I was leaving when the sun came over the mountain to where I was, and with such great lighting against the snow, it seemed a sin to leave with most of my pictures taken in the half light of early morning that perpetuates the mountain slopes in the winter.

I don't even know how the grass was still so green but it was.

This is actually one of the trees right outside my work, but same wintry atmosphere.

It seems ironic that a plant as annoying as one of these burrs could make fore a good shot.

I'm pretty sure these are Russian olives, but these were red, and I've only ever seen them light green.

I really like the ice crystals in this shot, this was right after the sun came up.

Come to think of it, besides the one patch of grass, berries were almost the only living things I saw besides bare branches.

A Walk Through the Park

Beauty comes whenever you look for it.

I have always been a believer that beauty may be found anywhere so long as one looks long enough to find it, indeed, the longer one looks the more beauty is found. Many times plants such as trees and bushes may seem chaotic and unbecoming when viewed from afar, but when you look op close, focusing in one a single branch or a patch of bark a beautiful simplicity emerges that would have been impossible to see otherwise. This was made clear to me on one occasion while I was working as a Camp Loll staff member working in the nature tent having a discussion with the nature director about lichens. In this discussion he talked about how different all kinds of lichens were especially in size. As I went to look as an area on a tree I was amazed at how many different species of lichens I saw in such a small space. Each one contained its own beauty and ellegance, but this could not be seen unless you view them closely, sometimes even requiring the aid of hand lenses. It is for this reason that I seldom take pictures of landscapes or anything of large scale. I prefer to find the simple beauty that comes from looking close. Sometimes I regret that I don't try harder to capture the majesty of alpine landscapes,or the beauty of lakes at sunset, but to be able to find the beauty I the small things pleases me more, for they are not marred by human impact, rather the scarcity of nature in heavily populated area seems to make such things even more beautiful, as they are contrasted by their bleak surrounding.  For this reason I picked the park surrounding the Weber County Main Library as the location for my first photo shoot with my new camera, looking for those moments of clarity where a picture appears.

The lichen growing on a tree as it reaches upwards.

The brightly contrasting colors of the berries make for a great shot.

Still pools of water are always an area of interest to me.

This snow lays on a path though an empty field, I have always liked this path because when the grass around it is growing, it looks very much live the trails found in the Tetons