Holiday Decor at the Straw Bale

The lights on our big trees are LED efficient fun.
If they weren't so dang expensive I would have added more.  

My ipod doesn't take the best pictures, but I think you get the
idea of the awesomeness of the Christmas tree ornaments!  

Italy large format photograph- 20 minute exposure

I realize that I haven't ever posted this photograph that Russ made on our Honeymoon in Italy.  It is a large format (4"x5" negative) image.  We were in Ferrara, Italy (where cars are not allowed!) eating dinner at a restaurant in the center of town across the street from the duomo when Russ decided to make this image.  Because it was dark it was going to be a super long exposure, approximately 20 minutes.  In not photography terms, he pushed the button to open the shutter and then 20 minutes later he pushed the button to close the shutter.  That is why you don't see me in the photograph, even though I walked thru it 3 times.  All you see are the things that were perfectly still for that 20 minutes and the lights on the bicycles that rode by.
A side note, shortly after Russ started the exposure (opened the shutter) I saw a guy balancing on a bicycle across the street (just to the right out of shot in this image).  Russ did a double take and then went to talk to the guy because he knew him from the SLC Bicycle Collective.  Crazy, right!?!  We were in Ferrara, Italy for one night and we ran into this guy who was there getting his doctorate.  

New Art in the Straw Bale House

A huge reminder of a crazy adventure we had on our spring break trip to Iceland is now hanging above our kitchen. We were trying to take a short cut from the south side of the island to the north side. At first the windy road was covered in a little snow, then a little bit of ice, then a lot of snow and ice. It was crazy...eventually our little rental car wouldn't take us any farther and we had to turn around. I turned into rain man as what was scary going up was treacherous coming down. It was about 5 PM and the lighting was perfect. The fields of moss and lichen covered lava rock were stunning with waterfalls cutting thru the cliffs in the distance. I kept mumbling and rocking "We just gotta get down. We just gotta get down." While Russ stopped the car to make the his best image of the entire trip. The negative is a 4"x5" black and white image. They don't make black and white photo paper as big as Russ wanted to print it, so he did some MacGyvering with his large format enlarger and laid the paper on the floor. He basically made six separate prints from the one negative. You will have to visit the straw bale house to get the full joy of the details in this photograph.


The striped image on the left is a drawing done by one of Russ' students of one of my students!