A Day at the Races

A few days after photographing the Ferrari I got the chance to head out to Rocky Mountain Raceway and check out the races.  A great friend of mine, Dave Smith, who is also the guy that went with me to Antelope Island, used to race his 442 out on the track in NHRA events.  Now he doesn't race, but his family and friends still compete so he goes out pretty often to help them on the line.  This day he called me and offered me two free tickets to go see what drag racing was all about, so of course I grabbed my camera and jumped at the chance!  It was a blast being able to see the power of those cars and I had a great time hanging around a few of the drivers.  Check out some of the shots!

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The 'Mater jet car, so fast!

throwing out some heat!

The Grave Digger!

Ed Jones and the Jelly Belly Stage Coach

If one jet engine wasn't enough, try sitting in front of two...

So the one thing I'm going to remember for next time, ear plugs!  My ears were ringing for hours afterwards.  I couldn't believe how fast some of these cars went down the track!  Next time I think I'm gonna try to get right down on the starting line and take some real pictures.  Dave deserves a huge shout out for hooking me up with the seats!

The Yellow Ferrari!!!

That's right folks!  A yellow speed machine, that I got to photograph!  How did I get this chance you ask?  Because I'm amazingly lucky and have some wonderful friends with adrenaline packed toys!

It all started a few years ago when I had this idea to take a self portrait of me looking into the side mirror on my truck.  (kinda almost pretty much exactly like the image sitting at the top of this page.)  I tried it out, and found it to be incredibly hard to get the camera to focus on me rather than the mirror, while trying to hit my remote to trigger the shutter.  Now any of you other photo geeks out there would probably just think, "put the camera on manual focus!"  This didn't work because when I was outside the truck how could I possibly know what to focus on?  So anyway, it was hard!  I was okay with the end result, but I knew I could do better.  I wanted a better mirror that didn't have so many mineral deposits and I was hoping for a flashy frame, not my oxidized plastic frame.  I was on constant lookout for the right car.

Well as luck would have it, I moved into a new ward and met my new bishop, who just happens to live a rather wealthy lifestyle.  He owns this car, a Ferrari 360 Modena, plus a garage full of other gleaming beauties that just seem to "speak" to me, photographically speaking...  It just so happens that this bishop is one of the nicest and giving men I have ever met, and with very little coaxing he agreed to let me use it for my picture,  he actually thought I would be taking it to a location to shoot and he was fine with that, why didn't I capitalize?!   

I had the car secured, but this time I didn't want to be the one in the shot, I wanted to be behind the camera working my magic and learning some new photography techniques.  So I did what anyone would do, I found a beautiful model to take my place in the driver seat of that perfect car...  A girl I grew up with has done a fair amount of modeling and she was more than willing to help me with this project.  The shoot was on! 

I started the session about a half hour before sunset because the low, golden light brought out the color of the car remarkably well,  plus I had this shot in mind with the sun directly behind the mirror.  I only had a limited amount of time, so I knew I would have to work quickly.  Luckily everything worked out wonderfully and I walked away with some great shots.  Unfortunately, the driveway was sloped and didn't allow me to place the sun right where I wanted it in the shot, but I still really happy with what I got.  Thank you so much to Mark Ross and Haley Mears for their help!

The Slip n' Slide

During the first week in August my ward did a slip n' slide that was awesome!  I don't know the exact dimensions, but it was BIG.  We had a great time on it, plus we made snow cones as an added bonus.  I didn't take too many pictures because I was busy having fun.  But here are a few just to give you an idea.

Like I said, it was BIG

Noel looks like he got thrown in a dishwasher

He hit the grass and didn't stop...

The slide was what summer is all about, a chance to have fun and feel like a young kid again.  It was impossible to resist going down,  and while the water was cold, we didn't notice one bit, the adrenaline took care of that.  It's now my plan to do something like this every summer for as long as I can.  Come join me for the next one!

The Boating Season

A few summers ago my grandparents sold their boat, leaving me with no options for getting out and slashing the wake...  But this summer I weaseled my way onto a new boat and soon made a good enough impression to continually receive an invite.  These are a few pictures of the friends and myself getting a little water logged!  There are mostly pictures of me, this is because I've never had any good pictures of me on a wakeboard,  Thank you to Alisha Weiss for getting the shots of me!

Dick Baldwin, owner and captain

Alisha got up for her first time!

Jess figured it out too

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I love this shot

There goes Jess

We even got brother Baldwin out there!

Madison Wood, Jeff Treft and Maren Nilsen (now it's Treft!)

Show off...

Hopefully next year I can get out on the lake a few more times and really start to improve my skills,  Until then, I'll live up the snowboarding season!

Fourth of July Hike

This year for the Independence Day, Noel and Sean invited me to hike to Flag rock with them.  I had this vision of arriving at the same time the F-16's flew by on their route to various parades, so I accepted their invitation.  The hike was a great morning jaunt and while a cloudless day would have been perfect, the overcast sky kept the temperature down, which I couldn't complain about.  Well as it turns out, the F-16's weren't flying low over the valley, they were still there, but way higher than expected and it wasn't worth it to take a picture of them.  It was still cool to be sitting at Flag rock celebrating our independence, and I was more than happy to be there.  Next year I plan on doing the same...

Havasupai

It finally happened, I knew this day would come, but I didn't expect it till the end of August.  I took a backpacking trip without theBRIGADE...  Everything turned out fine, but I felt a little out of place without Jeff and Jake backing me up.  The trip took place July 6th through the 10th and it was a blast.  Here are some pictures to help tell the story.

That's me!

And this is Maren

Havasu Falls

Rock Falls

New Navajo Falls

Mooney Falls

Beaver Falls

Tayler Belnap flipping out!

The storm that turned to a flash flood

The pups reward, jerky!

It's hard for me to think of a place I've been that has more beauty than Havasupai.  Granted everywhere has it's own kind of beauty, but this canyon oasis is truly remarkable.  Hopefully I can make it back there in the next couple of years, but next time I want theBrigade with me!