I Know What I Did Last Summer

I tried to get a bunch of hiking in this summer. I wanted to get as much exercise in as I could while seeing the beauty around me. Here are some of the places I went:

I traveled up a slot canyon until I got to:



...waterfalls. I climbed up the waterfalls and went from there to some more.

I took the photography class and went to see a canyon:


My camera didn't like the angle of the sun, so it was hard to get a good shot in the direction of the sun:


So then I hiked up another creek in a canyon to see some amazing sites:


Simply amazing when you think about how that was formed. And we hiked up a branch of the creek to a waterfall:

...because really, it's all about the waterfalls.


I also went to a land of canyons with an island in the sky. It has some amazing sites of canyons. It really is humongous.


And then I went next door to see some cowboy pants. That's what I see, anyway. How about you? What do you see?


In reality, I thought this hike was really pretty hard. Sure, I was in the midst of an allergic reaction (to Neosporin!), but that is no excuse for how poorly I felt as I was hiking this trail. All that hiking this summer, and it really didn't help much at all when it came to high grade hiking.

I went on more hikes than this, but I unfortunately didn't have my camera with me for those adventures. I did have my ipod on one of them, though, so I snagged this photo:

It's amazing how great the ipod camera isn't compared to an actual camera. Still, though, I'm glad I was able to snap a photo, even if it isn't the greatest quality. I decided that November would be the best time to do the above hike, but I really enjoyed the caving aspects of this hike.

So, that's what I did this summer. I want to continue to see the sites and take some hikes. How about you? Did you see any sites, go on any hikes, or discover any new allergies?

Water Photos

Last week at my photography class we talked about taking photos with action and how to catch it so it's still or how to make the action in the photos blurry. My camera isn't great at this particular option, so my photos aren't the greatest in the world, but here are some photos I took for this assignment. I took all water photos.

These are the photos I took that have some clear parts in them. I found that it was hard to have the entire photo clear, even though I was attempting to make it clear. I didn't edit or crop any of them. They are in the raw form.

This one was taken at the university at the end of our class last week.



The rest of the photos I took on a hike up a creek in a nearby canyon. I like that you can see little drips in this one.



This one is so cool how the water is bubbling.



The next three are blurry. It was much easier to take the blurry shots, especially because the sun doesn't shine too much in the slot canyon.



The white blurry sparklies are cool in this one.



I climbed up this waterfall, but we didn't go much farther because we were on a schedule. I didn't really enjoy the white spots in this photo. I didn't notice them until after I had chosen this one. Whoops. Oh well, it's still cool.



I hope you liked the photos!

Some Photos for You

I am dumb when it comes to taking photos. There are a lot of things that I've never even really thought about before that apparently matter when you take a photo. Well, I think it's kind of sad that I go on adventures to far off lands and just take whatever photos happen when I click the button. So, that bothers me a little. I mean, I still have my nice little point and shoot camera, but I want to know the art of photography because there are options on my camera and boxes and all kinds of things, and I don't know what they do.

So, I decided to take a class. I found out about a little workshop-type class that is only once a week for three weeks for a very reasonable price, and I decided to take it. We had our first class last week and got assignments to take some photos using different depths of field (it deals with how much is in focus in the photo), which is a photography term I kind of learned. We were supposed to take three photos with a smaller depth of field and three photos with a larger depth of field. I'm not sure I did it correctly, but here are the photos I took. If you know anything about photography, tell me how I did, please. Keep in mind, my camera is a Sony Cybershot, and it's not one of those multi-lens cameras where you have aperture and all kinds of awesome options.

The three with smaller depths of field:



I took this one during class last week. The teacher said I could use it if I wanted for the assignment. He told me I needed to get a better camera (he kept saying things like "This is a crappy camera!" or "You should buy a new camera, even a used one." or "How does this not have a manual mode? How much did you pay for this?"), but I think "whatever, dude" since I'm paying for the class, and it's only three weeks, anyway. I'm not trying to be a professional or anything. Just trying to learn something.



I made these cupcakes. Dub, you may be interested to know that these were the ones I told you about on Sunday that I took to my church activity. I saved these to eat myself.



This is at the war memorial. I had to take it at a weird angle to get this shot, and it was hard because my camera and hand kept creating a shadow on the flower. Eventually it worked okay.

These next three are for larger depths of field. Did I do them correctly? There's no real blur, right? It's mostly in focus?



The sun was starting to set, and I had a hard time trying to figure out how to get the lighting correct. I also cheated and cropped this one. Don't tell. Actually, is that even cheating? I mean, digital cameras are kind of a cheat, anyway, in my opinion.



Can you tell where I was standing when I took this?



I really liked the handicap sign in this one. Not sure why. Maybe because I associate both the church and the handicap sign with old people. Save the clock tower!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my photography assignment!