I’m doing another Temple Print Garage Sale, Saturday, Dec.8 at 8am. I’ll have lots of loose and framed prints for sale, all at special holiday prices.

I’ll have a good selection of 11x14 and 16x20 mounted giclee prints. These archival mounted prints can be put right into any 11x14 or 16x20 frame. They all have a protective finish and can be displayed without glass.

I have some amazing new frames this year and even more that I can order in time for Christmas.

My address is 708 N. Stewart, Mesa, AZ 85201. I’m ¼ mile west of Alma School and almost two blocks south of 8^th Street.

If you can’t make it to the sale, I still have holiday pricing on everything through the end of December

     While I was happy with my sunset image of this Temple, I still wanted an image with a stormy sky. A decent storm system came through southern Arizona, so I planned another trip to the Gila Valley. I got up at 3 am again and was making pretty good time until I reached the east side of Globe. I hit a fog bank that was one of the thickest I've seen this side of the Canada Halifax Mission. I couldn't see the highway very well and had to drive about 20 mph for several miles.
     I got to the Temple about 30 minutes before sunrise and was surprised to see that Mt. Graham was almost completely covered in clouds. The composition I had in mind featured a cloud-topped mountain as a big, looming backdrop to the Temple. I set up in a spot I had scouted on my previous trip. I was on the south side of the highway (literally) with the forward leg of my tripod in the rumble-strip. The wind from passing trucks shook my whole set-up and I had to time my exposures between the trucks.
     Clouds in the eastern sky killed what could have been some nice warm light, but it may have been too contrasty anyways. Out of the 14 or 16 sheets of film I exposed, this one had the best light. It's warm and soft, and the shadows aren't really contrasty. There is a little bit of warmth in the sky to balance the cool colors in the swirling clouds.
     I'm always on pins & needles until I get my film back from the lab and I always second-guess what I saw at the time. The daytime temps headed into the 90's, so I drove up Mt. Graham, parked under a tree, and took a two-hour nap. It's amazing how well I can sleep when it's 51 degrees at 9,000 feet.
     To make the most of my trip, I decided to try to shoot at sunset. I got all set up, waited for sweet light that never materialized, and ended up not even making an exposure. Still, the whole trip was worth it for this one image.

     I've had people asking me to be sure to photograph the Gila Valley Temple since long before construction was complete. I wasn't likely to overlook it. I've had ties to the Gila Valley my whole life. I lived there as a newborn while my parents were attending EAJC. I went to EAC for a short time before my mission and made a lot of friends and had a lot of fun. I've grown very fond of Mt. Graham over the years and even photographed a portfolio of the mountain for Arizona Highways magazine.
     I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Temple open-house twice and was able to scout for photo possibilities. The Temple faces northeast, so my timing for the right angle of the sun was important. Summer is good for interesting clouds that build over the mountain in the monsoon season.
     I wasn't able to travel to the Gila Valley most of the summer and worried I would miss out on the stormy skies. I kept an eye on weather.com and planned a trip when the storms were supposed to return. I loaded my gear in the car the night before, slept a few hours, got up at 3 am, and drove the three hours to the Temple. Sunrise was less than spectacular, and the clouds really let me down. I decided I needed to stay for sunset and try to salvage the trip.
     Big, dark clouds built all day, but decided to go away right before sunset. I had just enough for this image. The post-sunset light on the Temple was warm and soft and gave some nice pink highlights to the clouds.
     The little crescent moon had me worried. During long exposures it makes a distracting blur. The exposure was 20 seconds, but the moon was small enough in this wide-angle view to not show much of a blur.

     I knew I needed to shoot the Bountiful Temple at sunset. Like the Draper Temple, it's up against a mountain and not a candidate for great early-morning light. I was a little worried because all the good clouds seemed to have left Utah once I arrived. There were a few clouds in the western sky, but they always have the potential to do more harm than good.

     The Bountiful Temple shares a lot of design similarities with the Mt. Timpanogos Temple.


     After living in Arizona, Daylight Savings Time always throws me off. What seems like late afternoon to me becomes evening in Utah. Because I was in Bountiful on a Monday, the Temple was closed and the grounds were open only until 8pm. That was almost an hour before sunset. Thanks to a really nice security guard, I was able to shoot until 9pm.
     Sure enough, the clouds in the western sky began to kill the warm, late light. After a while, I started to see some promising gaps in the clouds as a big shaft of sunlight hit the Great Salt Lake and started to angle my way. At this point the light got really good and I had to put down the digital camera and work with the big camera.


     This next image was taken a little earlier, but you can seen the composition I was working with.


     Yes, I'd prefer a foreground other than a driveway, but the shadows help a little bit.

     I first saw the Draper Temple last August when it was still under construction. I've been looking forward to photographing it ever since. As I planned a recent trip to Utah I was excited to hear they were having lots of stormy, rainy weather. I was not so excited to find out that all the stormy weather left the state the day before I arrived.
     As you approach the Temple from the valley floor it looks great against the flanks of Lone Peak.


There's just one problem - you're looking at the back of the Temple. From the front there's pretty much just blue sky in the background, and blue sky is boring.
     I set up the big camera and tried to get a dusk image.


     I got my film back from the lab and wasn't happy with the results. The sky is a little too dark near the top and the different colored lights shining on the Temple would be hard to correct. I took some snapshots with my digital camera that actually looked a little better color-wise than the film images. I went back the next morning to check out the sunrise light and got a little better look.


     The fact that this Temple is so close to a big mountain means it doesn't get any warm, rich early morning light. By the time the sun comes over the mountain it's too harsh and contrasty. Obviously, late-in-the-day light won't do me any good either. I'll have to be there when the sky is stormy, with diffused light coming from the front.
     If you decide to visit the Draper Temple, take my word for it that the "Deer Crossing" signs are there for a good reason. I came within a few inches of sending a big, healthy doe to the great pasture in the sky and my van into the body shop. I guess deer are drawn to the Temple too.

     I've grown fonder of the Logan Temple since my one and only visit. I'm looking forward to another visit, now that I can walk again. I'm sure there are a lot more photo opportunities around the grounds.
     I knew right away it would lend itself well to being converted to sepia. The clouds were dramatic enough in the original (here)

     I've been rehabilitating my ankle for so long that I haven't done much new photography. It's about time I posted some images, so I'll show some new versions of older images. Here's a link to the original black & white version of this image.

     A few days ago I was reviewing a color print of the Jordan River Temple and started to feel a little nostalgic for the great summer clouds. I pulled up my folder of images of the Temple and noticed this sepia version doesn't quite have the same feel. For some reason, I sell more sepia-toned images than either black & white or color. The sepia and black & white conversions tend to have a more dramatic or stormy feel than their color counterparts.
     This sepia version also has a soft-focus effect. One characteristic of the effect is an increase in contrast. The sky is darker and more ominous, but the Temple has a beautiful pure glow. It's almost as if light is emanating from the building instead of reflecting off of it. The statue of Moroni is much more prominent as well.

   After I set up my large format camera to photograph the Logan Temple, I needed to wait while the light and clouds changed. My composition stayed the same, but the sky gave me a lot of variety. I had a little point-and-shoot digital camera (Casio EX-V7) that I had picked up on eBay, so I kept shooting to check the color of the light and the contrast. The human eye tends to even color and contrast out somewhat, and what you see is not always what you record on film. What you perceive with your eye and brain as an acceptable level of contrast might be way beyond what film or a digital sensor can record.
     A couple of times the sun broke through the clouds in the west and was really warm and contrasty. I rolled down the street a little (on my knee-scooter) and shot a few images of the Temple head-on. The shot on the left was with the white balance set normally for daylight (about 5500 degrees Kelvin). The one on the right was with the white balance adjusted down to approx. 3200 to 3400 Kelvin. The light was the same, and only the camera settings were changed. You could achieve a similar effect with filters on a film camera.
     While the light was nice and warm, the contrast was much too great. Notice it's hard to see much detail at all in the shadows cast by the Temple. The shadow of the tree has some light shining through, so it doesn't count. Also, you can see that the Temple appears to be leaning back. That's the result of a distorted perspective created when I tilted the camera up to include the top of the Temple. When that happens, the sensor or film plane isn't parallel with the Temple and you get a distorted perspective. In addition to the huge increase in resolution I get from my large format camera, I can make adjustments and keep the film vertical and parallel to the Temple. I'm not a big fan of leaning or tilting Temples.

     While I was looking through some old files I found this image. I made it several years ago and just kind of forgot about it. Recently, I've had more requests for color images. I'm going to start offering larger giclee prints in color, hopefully before Christmas. For some reason, I have a hard time coming up with good looking frames for color images.
     In the interest of full disclosure, I had to have something Photoshopped out of this image. There was a slight jet contrail running through the sky in the upper right. I knew it was there, but it was really slight to my eye. It showed up much better on film. For images like this, timing is everything. There's only a short time when the light in the sky and the artificial light on the Temple balance with the nice, rich blue of the sky. It's a nice effect. Lots of high-end real estate images are in this style.
     While I normally prefer more clouds, I was happy to get the nice, little pink ones on the right side.