3 days later, the DAY before the wedding in question, I ended up in the hospital with an incredibly painful ulcer, followed of course by a Lamborghini Gallardo sighting. Ulcers and Lamborghinis go together? I hope not…

Stay tuned for Part 2, coming tomorrow. They’ll be Holga shots, so you know they’ll be interesting!

Day 1: Spent most of the day in planes or the airport. When I landed, my phone started shutting down randomly, often and mostly wouldn’t come back on. My sense of direction was in there (Google Maps), but even worse, so was my hotel’s address… Then when I finally got to the hotel, it was a lot more dodgy than Travelocity had made it appear online. I switched hotels and got myself a long overdue dinner for a measly four bucks.

Delicious food is everywhere and at every price.

Day 2: My first actual day in NYC was spent wandering in a jetlagged haze and trying to get Apple to tell me what was wrong with my phone. Long story short, I now have a new one.

MAN I love New York’s fall colors…

Day 3: I saw a couple of cops waiting for the same train I was about to get on in the subway. I had my giant pro camera with me, so like a crazy person I decided to try shooting some video in a public place and see what happens.

Cop: “Sir, what are you doing?”
Me: “I’m shooting some video…”
Cop: “You can’t do that here, sir.”
Me: “Why?”

She really didn’t like that question. Fortunately, I was able to defuse the situation and she left me alone.

The law doesn’t actually prevent you from shooting photography or video in any public place. I actually looked this up long before the incident, though I also knew that photographers have been getting increasingly harassed by authorities and stupidly painted in a very negative light.

I did end up shooting video in the subway, just when no authorities were around to give me trouble for it.

Still, I was bummed about the incident, wandered into Central Park again but within a few minutes got some calls from real estate agents wanting to show me apartments.

Day 4: After a long and busy day, my good friend Brittany requested some pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was more than happy to oblige. It was already on my to-do list anyway Along the way of course, I took pictures and footage of what I could.

Day 5: Attended the PDN Photo Expo. Like a bridal fair, but for photographers shopping for stuff.

Later that night, wandered some more. It would be my last night there…

Day 6: Waited to push off from the gate for a little longer than expected, then finally climbed to the skies.

Day 6.5: The same night I got home, despite having already done a LOT while in NYC, some friends invited me to a Halloween party, so I went.

The dancefloor:

Day 333/365

Snowman! That’s my little Mason, grinning next to our accomplishment! (iPhone photo)

According to Dustin Izatt, the fundraiser has generated close to $2,000!! Thank you!! Thank you for your donations, thank you for your kind words of support and for you pro photographers out there, thank you for your generosity in offering to lend your pro gear! Support poured in non-stop and from the farthest places.

She’s slowly recovering and as I’ve told her before, I’m convinced next year is still going to be great for her.

Second, not really news, I turned 30 on October 31st! In sad news however, my doctor tells me I have about 50 years left to live… What do you even do with news like that?…

Blog, that’s what!

Day 288/365

It was unbelievably cold out at the Salt Lake that day. That wind was beautiful on her dress, but not so much fun to shoot or be shot in (no pun intended haha).

Des & Eric:

Day 289/365

Who says Halloween pumpkins have to look scary and angry at the world? From the day-before-halloween party(iPhone photo)

Day 290/365

October 31st, 2009! Halloween! My birthday!

I was out at the park with my little boy when I realized that if you try really hard, you can actually get what looks like shallow depth of field with an iPhone! (iPhone photo)

Day 291/365

Right! As in, “Take a right!” or “I know, right?!” or “I’m right!” or just plain old “Right!” (iPhone photo)

Day 292/365

I only WISH I’d taken this shot… Alas, it was taken by Heidi using my iPhone. I just loved it so much I had to show you all. The composition, the movement in the shot, the nostalgic feeling as if on a roadtrip… Really really cool. I’m jealous! Gimme back my iPhone! (iPhone photo)

And my shot from a bunch of kids waving glow sticks around!

Took a little walk to take a break from editing. This is uhh… a wooden fence (iPhone photo)

Ok, here we go:

Day 172/365

Natasha in perfect balance… Ok no. She actually fell over a lot.

Day 187/365

The first model shoot I’d done in ages… This is Tim

Day 188/365

Natasha and I were both shooting Tim. We shot so late at night (ie. past midnight) that my camera classified this image as having been taken the day after our shoot started.

Early the next (or rather, the same) morning I did a family shoot, but since Tim’s shots showed up as being the same day as the family shoot, I think I’d rather show you Tim again.

Day 189/365

Jessica’s bridal shoot very nearly turned into a complete disaster.

We were headed to the Salt Flats and as we approached our location, we saw a truly spectacular dust storm from afar. I mean the thing was so big that at first I thought it was downpour. You know how rainy clouds from far away look like dust coming down? Well this cloud was on the ground and the dust was going up… So far up in fact, that it reached the actual clouds… People were pulling over just to take pictures of it.

Not good.

Once we got into it, I thought “Crap, time to think about rescheduling”. The wind was blowing amazingly hard, the rain was coming down like no other. When we got there, we started weighing our options; wait it out, hurry back to the Salt Lake and shoot what we can there before the sun disappeared, or reschedule to a different date.

We decided to wait it out.

And man was it worth it.

Funny thing was, the storm had passed us when we started shooting, but by the end of our shoot, it apparently decided to do a 180 and come right back towards us.

Day 190/365

The shot nobody liked. Did this for Utah Business Magazine. The magazine chose an entirely different shot.

Day 191/365

I replaced my old umbrella stand with this one, because the old one broke.

Day 192/365

Light-painting with my iPhone. For those who don’t get it, I basically set my exposure in my camera to being 30 seconds, then used the “Flashlight” iPhone app to paint light onto the rock. It was an interesting effect others had done that I’d been meaning to try out for myself.

Day 193/365

Vertigo. More expirimentation with long exposures.