Balance

Next week is the start of something big, something very different. I am going part-time at good ol' Backcountry.com so I can work part-time for the Forest Service. I am so anxious for this change. I feel like I've been running myself ragged the last few weeks. I've been feeling a little like the Polaroid below. Discombobulated. Disconnected. Maybe a little broken. I've been trying to fit full-time Backcountry work and part-time Forest Service work into the same day, mixed with regular life, and it hasn't been successful, so I'm very excited to free up some time to balance each job equally. And hopefully this means that I'll have a little more free time to burn through some film! I'm itching to shoot another roll through my Great Wall, and I've got Polaroid galore just sitting in my fridge waiting to be used. A couple of weekends ago when I spent a whole Saturday playing with cameras and sitting in the sun, I remembered what I have been missing. I think it helps that spring is just around the corner too, so here's wishing it comes fast and is quite good. No more snow!

G-Dub and Mini

Back in December when I was thinking of 2010 and what I should do with it, I quietly thought that this might be the year I would refrain from buying any new cameras. I think I may have even said it out loud once or twice. Well, it's March and that idea has already fallen flat, but I'm really not surprised. In January, not one month into the year, I bought "G-Dub", a beautiful Great Wall camera. I've wanted one for a few years now and decided to go for it. I shot my first roll of film in it on Saturday and I don't think words can convey how much I love this camera. First of all, it just looks cool, and second, the images are just so sweet. I had breakfast with a pal and we wandered around Salt Lake City all day (ALL DAY) and it was rad. I shot four packs of Polaroid, a pack and a half in my new Instax Mini back for my Diana+ Dreamer, and a lovely roll of Kodak Portra 400NC in the G-Dub. The sun was warm and bright, the day lazy, and the food tasty. We had ice cream for lunch. It doesn't get much better than that.

So back to my "2010 is a camera-buying free zone"... A couple of weeks ago, the Instax Mini back arrived in the mail, and after going through two full packs, I decided I really don't love it. I either need to shoot completely in blinding sunlight, or I need to buy a pricey flash for it, which I'd rather not do. It's a fun little toy to have, and the image quality is better than I thought it would be (on the images that aren't badly underexposed). There's a little bit of blur and the colors are lovely, but I think I'll just stick with the Instax Mini camera if I'm shooting Instax Mini film.

And if two cameras weren't enough, I'm leaning toward buying a new *gasp!* DSLR. Mine is six years old this year and it's starting to get missing pixels, and with the amount of shooting I'll be doing for the Forest Service, I really think I deserve a better camera. I've got my eyes on a Canon 7D, even though it's about $1800 more than I normally spend on a camera. (Most of my cameras were free or less than $100!) It looks like a swell camera and one that I'll get years of good use out of, so we'll see. Once April comes around, I just may be posting photos from new camera #3 in 2010.

Progress

One month and four days in, and I'm already making progress on my list. We had friends over for dinner a couple weekends ago and I crossed #8 off right quick. Saturday afternoon, I mentioned to a friend that I'd always wanted to make tomatillo salsa, and by Monday afternoon, it was underway. I was actually making the beginnings of dinner and by the time I was pulsing away with the food processor, I realized I could cross #16 off. The salsa was incredible, if I do say so myself. I'll be writing about it on Budding Foodie soon. And the last item about food, I'm making #21 for a family party next weekend. Yay Nutella! I've been a cookin' machine lately. It's awesome.

The wheels are turning for #22, #28, and #31, but the big one right now is #4. It's all going down starting tomorrow. My front room is littered with new bathroom goods, and my cousin is coming in the morning to rip all the existing things out. Everything goes but the tub. New shower surround, new toilet, new vanity/sink, new fixtures, new hardware, new floor, new backsplash, new towels, new rugs, new shower curtain. I. Can't. Wait. Progress. It's good.

Blue Sky Day

I had the pleasure a couple weeks ago of taking a drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon just east of Salt Lake City to shoot some photos for the good ol' Forest Service. I was asked to shoot something with blue sky and snow to replace the drab nearly black & white banner on Recreation.gov. When I woke up that morning, it was still dark but I could tell the sky was crystal clear. I waited impatiently for the sun to come up and sure enough, blue, blue, blue. I loaded my gear into the car, stopped for fresh batteries for my DSLR and and hit the road.

Winter in Utah is both beautiful and horrible. Down in the valley, we suffer from "the inversion", or a thick, choking, nasty, depressing layer of smog and freezing air that gets trapped under a layer of warm air. The inversion happens every winter, but this year seems worse. (I might say that every year.) Even on sunny days, if there's a high pressure system sitting on top of us, the smog won't burn off. This year we have not had our fair share of storms, so there's been a lot of horrible air days, sore-throat-inducing days, sad, "I just want to stay at home in bed" days.

A couple days before I went up the canyon, we had a blessed storm. It didn't drop much in the way of snow, but it did blow the inversion out, so that meant the air in the valleys was much healthier than it had been. All that aside, even on the worst days down in the valleys, the air way up above in the canyons is always crystal clear and you can actually see the blanket of gunk down below, and then watch as it envelopes your car as you descend. It's gross. Anyway, back to my story. The air was clear-ish with a blue sky at my house, which meant that it would be impossibly blue and crisp and gorgeous up the canyon, and indeed it was.

I took a walk along the side road toward Jordan Pines campground and reluctantly turned back at the Donut Falls trailhead. The road was closed, gated, and snow-packed, and there wasn't a soul around. I could hear snow falling from branches, and off in the distance, blasts from avalanche guns at Solitude and Brighton ski resorts reverberated off the surrounding peaks. It was so peaceful and beautiful, and I had no trouble finding "something with blue sky and snow".

I had such a grand time tromping around in the snow and breathing fresh air. I shot about 150 digital photos, one with my iPhone, and a handful of quick Polaroids. Once I got home, I prepped some photos and sent them off to the Forest Service, and shortly thereafter, my wonderful blue sky day got even better when I was told that indeed one of my images would become the official winter banner on Recreation.gov. I was pretty excited. The image above is a screen shot of the homepage, decorated with my handiwork right on top. The images below are my Polaroid triptych, the lonely iPhone image, and the full-size image of the cropped banner.

Five Years of Blogging!

February is here and so is the time to celebrate my blog's birthday! On February 27th, this space will turn 5! I feel like a geezer. See the first post that started it all. I'm sure you're wondering what I'm going to do to celebrate. Since blogs don't eat cupcakes or want to go bowling like I do on my birthday, I decided to open a spanking new shop! Please follow this link to my new shop at Big Cartel, where you'll find all of these items in the photo above, and many, many more. I'm offering prints and note cards, and for the first time ever, postcards! Most everything in the shop is recent, from my summer travels, to my lovely fall trip to NYC, to our relaxing December vacation in San Francisco, and also for the first time ever, I'm selling note cards of my Lubitel snow photos.

Everything is professionally printed and is ON SALE until the end of the month, and for a special treat, if you leave me a comment here and buy anything in my shop, I'll throw in a 5x5" Polaroid print for free!

PS: I still have a few things in my Etsy shop too, but most of it is at the new shop, and as always, if you see something here or on my Flickr photostream that you'd like as a print, I'm happy to do custom orders.