I'm sorry it took so long, but the pictures from my trip to Utah are finally up in the Gallery. Click on "Photo Galleries" to the left, and then "Landscape", and then finally "Arches and Canyonlands" to see them. Let me know what you think. I have a lot of other pics from the trip that are interesting, but not really worthy of putting in a gallery. I guess that's what a Flickr account is for. : )

Nothin' like natural light photography with the aperture wide open! That, and a cute model always helps. This was shot a couple of evenings ago, just hangin out on the front porch. Nikon 50mm 1.8 lens + Nikon D300 = pure magic!

Jillian spent a week at the Little Princess Ballet School. She had a great time and we got to watch her "dance recital" today, where she got to show off her moves. Fun stuff!

Self portrait, shot with 5 second timer, while doing a lighting test. I liked how it turned out.
I learned a hard lesson last night: portrait photography requires a whole different skill set than landscape photography. I spent a good hour with Alicia doing portrait shots of her, only to get frustrated with my lack of posing and lighting skills. I think I need to take a class on posing or something. Of all the shots we took, I really only like 2 or 3 at most. I'll probably put one of those in the gallery section shortly. Oh well, at least the practicing is fun. If only Jillian would work with me for more than 3 minutes at a time!

Here's a teaser from my Utah photo trip that I took 2 weeks ago. It already seems like 2 months ago. Hopefully soon I'll have a new gallery up with my best shots from this trip. Also, I hope you finish my journal of the trip and post that in the "photo journeys" section of this site.
This picture was taken around 9:30pm, with an almost full moon providing the light on the mesa. Exposure was 30 seconds. On the full size image you can see thousands of stars.

Ashlyn at about 18 months. She's starting to turn into a little talker, though with a very limited vocabulary. Hearing her try to say "Jillian" is quite amusing.
Nikon D300, Sigma 18-50 2.8 EX, window light

Every once in a while our Senior Pastor will encourage the staff (actually, it's a requirement) to take a day away from the office and spend it in solitude, spending time in the Word, in prayer, and listening for God's direction. Yesterday was my day of solitude, and I spent it down at Galveston Island State Park. The weather was just perfect: no humidity, about 70 degrees with a light breeze, and some salty fresh air to clear your head. I read through the book of Matthew and spent a good amount of time in prayer.
There was hardly anyone on the beach or on the path that went through the wildlife preserve. It was a wonderful time.
The first 2 pictures are in the preserve, and the 3rd of course is the beach. If only the ocean was blue instead of brown. : (

We had a nice visit with my folks over the past 3 weeks. The girls really enjoyed playing with Grandma and Grandpa. It was especially neat to see Ashlyn warm up to Grandpa the last couple of days.
Hopefully I can do some more updates to this blog. I've gotten really bad, I know. There is a new camera in my future, and I'm sure it will prompt more images! : )

Jillian has really enjoyed using our Fuji point & shoot camera. It's cool to see things from her perspective. As much as I want to, I just hate handing her the camera and letting her lose because one drop on the kitchen tile and the camera would be toast. Fisher Price makes a kid-friendly digital camera. It just might be her Christmas present.
I thought these were pretty good shots for a 3 year old.

You gotta love natural light. This was shot in our garage! Some background shading was added in Photoshop.
Not much to say here. Just thought it was a cool shot.