Heber Creeper

Growing up, my dad used to ask us kids:

"Railroad crossing look out for the cars, can you spell that without any R's?"

Well.... can you? Leave a comment!

Yesterday we decided to go ride the Heber Creeper!



I haven't been to the Heber Creeper in years. I'm not even sure if they still call it that. When I Google'd the name I found Heber Valley Railroad.

Since I've been working every weekend for months on end (weddings, family portraits, etc), yesterday was a chance to get away from it all and do something different with the grandkids.



So what is the Heber Creeper? It is a nice relaxing train ride through some beautiful scenery. On a hot summer's day (yesterday) it was nice to be in the open air car of the train with the breeze blowing through our hair.



Of course, I couldn't leave my camera home... and equally obvious, I couldn't just take snapshots. So here are a few of my impressions of the outing:



























A couple of fun pics of me and the kids:









So next time you're feeling like you've just got to get away... check out the Heber Creeper!

Trash the Dress - Laura at the Grotto

The idea for Trashing the Dress has been around awhile, and I've blogged about it before, and still the opportunities for doing this seem few and far between.

I LOVE the idea!

In my mind, it's not really about ruining (trashing) the dress, but is more about using it in ways that you might not have dared to use it prior to your wedding day. What else are you going to do with your wedding dress? Hang it in the closet for 20 years and hope that your daughter (who thinks it looks old fashioned) will want to wear it?

Why not put it to greater use and make wonderful memories with it by doing a Trash the Dress photo session?

A little about this latest photo session:

Laura isn't married (though she tells me she came close). This isn't Laura's wedding dress (though she does have one hanging in her closet). This wasn't even a "planned" Trash the Dress session! I had asked Laura to show me around the Grotto and she just happened to have a wedding dress sitting in the trunk of her car. Are models always this prepared?!? Laura was fantastic!

With no warning, no time to put on makeup or get herself ready, we ran off to the Grotto for some quick pictures. And here is a sampling of what we brought back:











All of the above pictures are pretty much unedited with only some minor tweaking done in Lightroom. But for this last image I wanted to show something a little different. It came to my mind that I might like something of a fantasy look. So I gave the background something of a painted look, see what you think:



Thanks Laura! I had a great time, and really appreciate you showing me around the Grotto and letting me capture some awesome images at the same time.

Congratulations Thomas and Jaycie!

We started out Thomas and Jaycie's engagement session on a beautiful rainy day at Liberty Park. They were so wonderful. Not only did they not cancel due to weather, but they embraced it and had fun and we got some of the best images. Ever! :)







The wedding was at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.











Thomas proposed to Jaycie here - so a bit of a reenactment here:









Requiring a bit of effort (Thomas carried Jaycie half way into this field and her father carried her the rest of the way), this has to be one of my favorite images.



The reception was at the church near Jaycie's home.















Congratulations again Thomas and Jaycie!



The full set of images can be found on my web site.