After driving up and down the canyon a bit, I finally found a spot that looked good enough to stop and take some photos. I was still feeling great about all of this. Went to the stream, set up my shot, and started shooting away. It was awesome, despite me slipping into the water, several times. For some reason, those rocks were extremely slippery… more so than usual it seemed. So after shooting for about an hour (well, 30 min of shooting, 30 min of falling), I decided it was time for a new location. Packed everything up and started heading down the canyon. As I was driving down, I was looking around and up the mountain sides, and noticed quite a few trees were changing colors!! So exciting! Naturally, that just boosted my excitement by about ten fold. I was going to get my first fall shots, TODAY!!

So on a whim, I decided to head down to the Alpine Loop road that goes from the American Fork road down to the Provo Canyon road. Simply beautiful drive. If you’ve never done it, I highly highly recommend it. In the summer, it’s just amazing. In the fall… nothing can match it’s sheer beauty.

As I’m driving to the canyon, I start picturing all the amazing photos I’m going to capture. All the greens, yellows, reds, and oranges. An phenomenal combination of colors. One only nature can display in such awe. Well… I get down to Provo Canyon… with absolutely no photos. Yep, you guessed it. There were no autumn colors at all. At the most, there were probably just a handful of trees that had changed already. So, I guess I’ll just have to go down in a week or so. Hopefully we get a couple good cold nights so that they change.

When I get home, I’m still feeling pretty confident about the photos that I got from Millcreek Canyon earlier. I start transferring all the photos over to my computer, and can’t wait to look at them. As I open up Lightroom and import the photos… I can’t believe my eyes. No literally, I couldn’t believe my eyes. None of the images popped out at me. Did I really not capture one decent photograph?! What was going on? I was all pumped up, feeling like I was going to do great… and nothing?! Something can’t be right.

Often I find myself doing that. Feeling all excited about the photo adventure… and coming home with nothing like what I had imagined. Do I have too high of expectations? Do I judge myself too harshly? Both of those are correct. Let me show you why. Marc Adamus is my landscape photography hero. Every time I go out to shoot, I imagine his photos and want mine to look like his. But when I get home and see that mine don’t look anywhere near like his… I get disappointed. If you’re wondering why I feel this way, hop on over to his website and look at his gallery. They’re simply amazing. I can never get tired of looked at them.

Marc Adums

But, I guess all I can do is keep going at it. practice makes perfect, right? Another thing that I’ve thought about is maybe my gear isn’t holding up to my standards? So… starting today, I will officially be accepting donations towards my gear fund. Haha. You can donate via PayPal, or cash… I’m easy like that.

Anyways, enough typing, my hands are hurting. Here are the two photos that I got from my mis-adventure yesterday.

Thank you for reading and viewing.

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

But then, all those lovely clouds everyone saw yesterday… decided to unleash their rage down upon me and completely soak me from head to toe. Normally, I love the rain and thunder/lightning. But… not when I’m at the top of the mountain carrying a bunch of expensive electronics. Haha. So, wasn’t one of my best hikes.

But, after looking at my shots (a grand total of 8), I decided that one of them would be decent enough to edit. So… here it is, in color and Black and White.

Thanks for looking,

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

I hiked the Ghost Falls trail in corner canyon over the weekend. I had no idea that canyon even existed until a couple weeks ago when I found a trail map online.

It’s located down in Draper, Utah. The canyon is small, but has quite a few different trails that you can hike or bike. I chose Ghost Falls because of the waterfall.

The area is beautiful. Nice and green with lots of vegetation. I’ll definitely have to make a trip out there with my dSLR instead of just my cell camera, which actually does surprisingly well… as you can see for yourself.

Thanks for reading!

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

(Note: It’s been so long since I’ve done this, I can’t remember how to do the pictures… so if they don’t work… it’s not my fault. )

Last weekend, Friday May 20th, I took a trip down to my homeland… aka Arizona. I went with a couple friends from here in Utah. We drove down to Havasupai in the Grand Canyon to do the hike. I have been wanting to get down there for 3 years, ever since the major flood in 2008. I had hiked it in 2007, so I was able to see how it was “pre-flood”… but I really wanted to see how much of a change there was. And let me tell you… the change was pretty significant.

The hike down was nice and relaxing (for the most part). Gentle 10 mile hike down… but once you got to the Supai Village (8 miles in), you really didn’t want to hike the other 2 miles to the campsites. But, once you got to the campsites… it was a total relief.

First thing I noticed… is Navajo Falls… is basically non-existent, compared to what it was. It’s pushed back from the trail by about a 1/4 mile. The first falls you actually see is “Rock Falls”, which is a temporary name until they can find a more suitable name for it. It’s a beautiful set of falls. The front-most section falls down gracefully, with a bunch of smaller falls (in true Havasupai fashion) behind it leading to Navajo Falls. Lots of green vegetation and the beautiful red cliffs as the backdrop.

Once you finally get to Havasu Falls, you’ll notice that it’s flowing at about half of what it used to. And, most of the turquoise pools that you see in all of the pictures… gone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still amazingly beautiful, but… just isn’t like it used to be. I fully support the Havasu Tribe to “reconstruct” the old Havasu Falls. Haha.

Saturday we hiked down to Mooney Falls where it was pretty much the same “destruction” as Havasu Falls… still pretty, but just wasn’t the same. Then Beaver Falls, which I didn’t notice any difference… but I could have just forgotten what they looked like from before.

Sunday we left, but instead of hiking out, we took the helicopter out! It was fun. 15 minutes of flight time vs. 6 hours of hiking time. Haha.

After that, we stopped at the South Rim since the two that joined me had never seen the Grand Canyon. It was… Grand, as always.

Overall, it was a great trip. I’m glad I got to go down and see the changes and finally get to take some pictures.

Hope you enjoyed the “report” and pictures. Thanks for reading!

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

Havasupai Website

A few weeks ago I went out with a friend to the Great Salt Lake here in Utah. The whole reason I wanted to go out to get some shots, was because it was a full moon, and the sun would be setting at the same time the moon was rising. And me and my infinite wisdom, thought, “Oh sweet! I’ll be able to get a full moon shot with a beautiful sunset!!” I believed that, till I was out there and waiting for the moon to rise as the sun was setting… enjoying the wonderful stench that spews from the Great Salt Lake. After a while, it hit me… D’OH!! Oh well, at least I got ONE good shot out of it, right?

Thanks for reading/looking/browsing/parusing/etc…

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

Once I actually got up to Alexander Basin, it was fine though. It had just rained so everything was nice and freshly cleaned… plus it smelled wonderful. As I was getting my stuff set up a few hikers were coming down from Gobblers Knob, which then left me to be the only one on the entire mountain. It was awesome!

And then as I was getting ready for the following shot, I looked up to see a deer staring right at me. I stayed as still as I possibly could and the deer would go back to eating, but then snap it’s head back up to look at me. Just couldn’t quite figure out what I was. Haha. After about 15 min of the same thing… it finally bounced down the hill to graze elsewhere.

I didn’t quite get the shots I was hoping to get, but all in all, I’m pretty pleased with this trip. I don’t think I’ll be going back to Alexander Basin though, time for a new trail to explore!

Thanks for reading,

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

Last Thursday I went and hiked up Mount Air. The trail for Mount Air is nice and lush with beautiful green vegetation and a nice blend of wild flowers scattered about. It really makes a tranquil environment. Great for clearing the mind… which you need since you’re hiking up hill the entire way. Haha.

Yesterdays hike, up to Alexander’s Basin, was a lot like the hike to Mount Air but with a lot more green vegetation and wild flowers. And also a lot steeper. The hike to the basin is about 2.5 miles, one way, and literally up hill the entire way. The hike up is nice though, you’re almost never in direct sunlight which helps with the heat, but you’re still able to get a nice breeze coming up the canyon.

Once you finally reach Alexander Basin you’re greeted with a wonderfully thick forest of white aspens (I think they’re aspens) with beautiful green foliage hugging their trunks.

Then as you continue hiking up towards Gobblers Knob it’s nothing but thick green ferns with a scattering of beautiful wild flowers that adds a perfect accent of color. That’s as you’re looking up while hiking. But if you stop and turn around, you’re greeted with a magnificent view of Millcreek Canyon and the surrounding area. I wasn’t able to get any real pictures of those views… but I’ll hopefully be going back this Wednesday and I’ll get some then. If weather cooperates with me.

Thanks for reading and make sure to check back for some photos of the majestic views overlooking the canyons.

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

]]> http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/07/alexander-basin-millcreek-canyon/feed/ 0 http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/05/great-salt-lake/ http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/05/great-salt-lake/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 02:30:12 +0000 Jeremy http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/?p=242 I went out to the Great Salt Lake this weekend after seeing a spot that I thought would make a good photo-op later on.

After wading out in the smelly, retched, dirty, salt water to get to the optimal location… I set up “camp”. The wind was a bit strong, which made the water look great (specially for photos), but it also made it difficult to keep the camera/tripod perfectly still for some timed exposures. Thankfully the lake isn’t very deep, at all, so I was able to extend the tripod legs out and lower the center of gravity quite a bit to help reduce the overall shake from the waves/wind.

All of these shots were taken with stacked GND filters, a solid neutral density filter, and a polarizer filter. Then, I shot with the mirror locked up and a remote trigger with a 2 second delay. Unfortunately, with the wind and waves, I still wasn’t able to get a really sharp image. But, over all, I’m pleased with the results.

Here are two photos (the same one, obviously), just with different processing styles.

Thanks for looking,

Jeremy Davies | Sur-Real Photography

And here’s one I just edited.

And then here’s one shot, with a bit of a goofy processing to it. It wasn’t really raining… FYI.

]]> http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/05/great-salt-lake/feed/ 0 http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/04/red-butte-garden-slc-utah/ http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/2010/04/red-butte-garden-slc-utah/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 17:15:15 +0000 Jeremy http://blog.sur-realphotography.com/blog/?p=231 Well, I finally got out with my camera. The weather has been pretty nice, and it’s supposed to be beautiful the rest of the week… which is wonderful! Yesterday I went out with a friend, David, to the Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City. The garden itself, is beautiful. They did a really nice job setting it up and making it look great. As far as the flowers go… well, I was still a bit too early. But, in a couple weeks I’ll be heading back there to hopefully see it in all it’s glory.

Here are a few shots that I liked from the outing. Hopefully next time I’ll be able to get a few more keepers.

Thanks for looking.

Jeremy | Sur-Real Photography

Starting Today, there are two sales going on at Sur-Real Photography!

Sale Number One: Nothing says I Love You like a Professional Portrait session.

From now till the end of February, you can get a portrait session for you and your loved one at an amazing price of $214! How is $214 an amazing price?! I’ll tell you.

For the session price of $214, you will receive:

• Professional Pictures of you and your loved one, on location
• One (1) 11×14 print (of your choice)
• One (1) 10×10 Book of all the edited pictures! $150 Value! [10 pages = 40 sides]
• A beautiful online gallery to show all your friends, for FREE!
• Memories that will last a life time. Priceless.

My schedule has just opened up tremendously till the end of February. All portrait sessions will be on location, no studio sessions! All portrait sessions will require a 50% deposit at time of booking. The rest of the fee will be due at the scheduled session date and time. After the portrait session is complete, please allow up to 2 weeks for your pictures. The photo book will require a little more time.

To book your portrait session, please book it either through contacting me, or automatically through this website.

Sale Number Two: Nothing says I Love You like a Fine Art print.

From now till the end of February, you can get 14% off your total order at my Zenfolio site! If your loved one has a thing for landscapes, show her or him how much you care by getting a high quality fine art print of an amazing scene. All photos are printed on high quality paper done by a professional printing lab. It will be shipped directly to you.

Coupon Code: surrealphotovday

Question? Please, do NOT hesitate to contact me to ask any questions you may have.