Chips and Salsa

Trav loves it when I take photos of him. He also loves it when I post said photos on our blog. (Note the sarcasm.) I've recently started shooting a lot of film again - instead of just Polaroid - and I've fallen in love with my vintage Diana toy camera again. It's been about two years since I used it last, and this image is from one of the last rolls I ran through it back then. We kayaked Pineview that day. It was late June of the first year with our kayaks. We put in on what I guess you could call the neck of the Point. It was a little sheltered beach just past the Sheriff's cabin on the north side, which as of last year, they'd closed by way of new No Parking signs standing sentinel over the dirt parking strip. Anyway, we put in and paddled to a nice little beach further west on the point, and played in the sunshine and ate lunch. I remember chips and salsa. That was our summer of kayaking with chips and salsa. We'd put our picnic lunch in a soft-sided cooler and tuck it in the stern of one of the boats, and off we'd go. Turkey sandwiches and chips and salsa.

We paddled more that summer than we have in summers since, and just thinking about it all makes me a little nostalgic and very anxious for the coming warm weather. And thinking about it also made me remember the video I made with my cell phone on what was probably our third or fourth outing that first year. It was 2006, April 22. Pixelated and tiny, it's a nine-second clip of Trav happily drumming on the top of his kayak while floating amid the soon-to-set sun. The water was glassy and deep blue, and seagulls chattered overhead. What fun we had. I am looking forward to getting out on the water again.

For the Love of Polaroid

As mentioned on my other blog, my work for this show is probably the biggest thing I've ever done in my photographic "career". It involved learning to see my work in a new way, a lot of time and effort and stress, and you know what? Every bit of it has already been so worth it. Just seeing the finished product gave me joy beyond belief. It's going to be the coolest show ever. (If you click the image, it'll get bigger so you can read it. It's worth it.)

Jug Mountain

Trav and I spent the first week of 2008 in McCall, Idaho and while we were there, we snowshoed at Jug Mountain Ranch. I shot this way back then with my vintage Lubitel camera and only just finished the roll last week. It sat in my camera for a year before I had time to shoot with it again. Trav bought me this camera for my birthday three years ago and I've only ever shot black and white snowy landscapes with it. I'd like to shoot at least one more roll before the snow disappears for another year.

Precious.

We heart Barack.

Zip Line!

Yesterday we went to the Utah Olympic Park and rode the zip line a couple of times. We rode it twice two summers ago but when we saw an article in Sunset last month about riding in the winter, we knew we had to try it. When we pulled in the parking lot, the thermometer in the Subi said 16 degrees F, and that was in the sun. The lift and the zip line were both in full shade. Needless to say, it was cold. It's been about 24 hours and I'm not sure if I'm completely thawed yet. The lift ride was chilly enough, but the zip line goes about 50mph, so figure in the wind chill and that's possibly why I couldn't feel my thumbs, which is why our video below got cut off halfway down the line. It's not easy working a tiny camera with tiny buttons with chunky fleece mittens. Below the video is us on the lift the first time up, before the cold really hit us. If you click on the photo, it'll take you to our Flickr photostream and you can see the other pics we took at the Olympic Park.