All images: City Creek Canyon Nature Preserve, Utah

As mentioned earlier one of the goals for my foothills project is to create some greatest hits. In a sense I don’t have control over this. I can increase my chances by spending more time in the field, but only time will tell if an image becomes a greatest hit. The idea is that the surest way to create stellar individual images is not by searching for those individual images, but by approaching the same subjects over and over again. One of the best examples of success from a project oriented approach is Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30; he made 29 unmemorable pepper images before making what would become one of the greatest photographic hits of all time. The idea of project work versus greatest hits is brilliantly articulated by Brooks Jensen in “Letting Go of the Camera”, a great collection of essays on photography and the creative process.  Brooks Jensen is one of my favorite thinkers on the subject of creativity and art. He says what I want to say, only better. His LensWork podcasts are an endless source of inspiration

Whites in Flight, City Creek Canyon, Utah

Following are a few of the parameters of my Foothills Project

I’m defining the Foothills as the geographical area making up the north east corner of Salt Lake County; the area runs from City Creek Canyon on the north to I80 in Parley’s Canyon on the south, with the Bonneville Shoreline Trail creating the western boundary, and the Salt Lake County line creating the eastern and northern border as it wraps around the top of City Creek Canyon.
Drawing the border at the county line is a bit arbitrary as similar topography lies both north and east, but one of the ideas behind this project is to really concentrate on the areas closest to where I live.  While well utilized by bikers, runners, hikers, and dog walkers, the beauty of these areas is a little more subtle and the vertical relief is a little less dramatic than the three Wilderness Areas in Salt Lake County south of I80; therefore these areas have received far less attention from photographers.  There are 32 distinct summits above 10,000 feet in Salt Lake County, none of which are in this area.
One goal of this project is to represent the broad spectrum of natural life that occurs in this area. I want to show a wide variety of plants, animals, and landscapes; equally important is the idea that I’m not trying to merely document life in the foothills, I’m trying to create artistic impressions. In order to keep from dragging this project out indefinitely, I’ve decided to set the opening day of the downtown SLC farmers market, June 9th, as my deadline for an actual finished product.  
The product I’m envisioning is a small self-published book containing the best images from my efforts; with most of the images in the book created between March 30^th and June 1^st 2012. I also plan to include a few of my favorite images captured in the foothills in previous years.  I’m hoping that this project will lead to the creation of a greatest hit, or two. Also, and this is important, no new equipment, all images must be captured and processed with the equipment and software I already own. This project is not an excuse to gear up; it’s an excuse to spend an exorbitant amount of time exploring my backyard.

Western Tailed-Blue, Killyon Canyon Conservation Preserve, Utah

My foothills project is taking on a life of its own. What started out as a deeper exploration into the foothills landscape with an emphasis on the diversity of wildflowers has turned in to a full blown project. At least that’s my excuse for spending several hours each day rambling along foothill trails. This project has already been quite rewarding as I’ve ventured into new territory, literally and photographically. I’ve even found myself doing something I haven’t done since I was in elementary school, chase butterflies!

White Iris Detail

I spent a half hour photographing irises in my back yard the other day.  It must have been the first time I’ve ever photographed an iris, if not it might as well have been; I’ve certainly never photographed an iris like this before. With a 1.4x converter behind my Nikkor 70-300mm lens and the Nikon 6T close-up lens on the front end, I was able to go inside the flowers. I photographed several details at various apertures to achieve different amounts of depth of focus, but kept coming back to wide open. The combination of a small slice of focus and lots of smooth unfocused color was much more pleasing to my eye than sharp focus throughout the image.  As I explored through the viewfinder I couldn’t help but think of paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe; I began to work with the intention of expressing some of that same sensuality.

Clockwise from top left: Starry Solomon Seal (Smilacina stellata), Foothill Death Camas (Zigadenus paniculatus), Dog Tooth Violet (Erythronium grandiflorum), Western Spring Beauty (Claytonia lanceolata),  American vetch (Vicia americana), Shortstyle Bluebells (Mertensia brevistyla)

Even a short hike in the foothills can be very productive photographically as many species of flowering herbs are now in bloom. The first two images are from previous years, while the other four are from this year. The bottom center image was created today. Looking forward to adding to my collection over the next few weeks.

...the heart has its seasons its evenings and songs of its own...Robert Hunter

This image is one of my more personal photographic expressions.  Captured in the foothills near the mouth of Red Butte Canyon, it doesn’t really say that much about the specific location but rather speaks of a place in the inner self, some universal geography of the heart. The image’s simplicity is amplified by the vagueness of its reference to the landscape. And yet, without this reference to terra firma the power of the image is lost.

Please help me decide on a title for this image.

This is a new image from last Friday, captured about an hour after my previous post, in the foothills just west of Dry Fork. Although I’d been out hiking and photographing for more than five hours and was eager to get home for dinner, this scene stopped me in my tracks. I spent about ten minutes making fifteen exposures of three different compositions. This is my favorite from the set; it’s also one of my favorite images of the year so far. The light on the landscape isn’t moonlight, but lights from downtown SLC, lighting last years dried and golden grasses and creating a phosphorescent dreamscape. What I like best about this image is its fairy tale quality; it has the feel of a Chris Miles painting.

Russian Olive Silhouettes on the Shoulder of Little Black Mountain, Salt Lake City Foothills, Utah

Every year I plan on spending more time in the foothills. Those rolling ridgelines, grassy slopes, and stony outcrops north and east of Salt Lake City, from City Creek to Parley’s Canyon and east to East Canyon. I’ve always felt there was a ton of potential to make some really personal and compelling landscapes. As well as great potential for intimate landscapes, those artistic impressions of the geography, somewhere in-between the grand landscape and the microcosm. Not to mention the infinite potential for making close-up wildflower portraits.

 Every year I make a couple of forays into the foothills, make a couple of decent images, and quickly get drawn away, first by the water flowing out of the canyons, and then by the opening of the high glaciated basins of the Cottonwood Canyons.

Pioneer Limekiln in Limekiln Gulch, Salt Lake City Foothills, Utah

I hadn't been here since I was a teen. I had a vague memory, but had forgotten the exact location of this Limekiln until a few days ago when I spotted it from the ridge-line high above. Thought it was about time for a visit. The next morning brought light rain and brooding clouds that I thought would be perfect for a photograph. Originally built in the mid 1800's  this restored Limekiln, and others like it were important to the early construction of Salt Lake City. I did use Photoshop to remove the chain link fence erected on the backside of the kiln to keep people off.

Wildflowers at Sunset, Mt. Timpanogos Wilderness, Utah

A single image does not necessarily indicate the amount of time required to create it. This is not to say that an image doesn’t have to stand on its own merits regardless of how much effort went into its creation, but in landscape photography some images may take years to coalesce. The idea for an image may be there, but Mother Nature does things on her own time.

This is one of my classic images; one of my strongest examples of timing and the decisive moment in the landscape. This image captures a strong combination of seasonal and daily timing to be sure, but there is another element at work here. There’s an additional layer of timing that, after six years of returning to this location, at the same time of day, at the same time of year, finally produced dramatic clouds. The fact that it was dead calm for this 4 second exposure is somewhat of a miracle.