Michael Tallman Photography Blog

It’s time to retire this old clunker of a website.  It’s not completely finished yet, but as it stands the new website is a lot better than this one.  Please visit:  http://www.michaeltallmanphotography.com.  This address http://michael-tallman.com should also work for the new website as soon as all of the DNS servers propagate and do their thing.  (I only sort of know how this stuff works)  I don’t recomend trying to email me at my @michael-tallman.com address for the next few days - it will probably end up in the black hole.  You’re better off using the phone - 801-879-2989, or the contact form on my new website will also work: http://www.michaeltallmanphotography.com/contact/.

My blog has been broken for a few days so I am behind on my posting - and I have a lot to post!  Here are some pictures from the river trip I took with some friends at the end of April.  We floated down Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River for four days.  The paddling was very mellow for the most part and we all had a great time.  I enjoyed having some time to take photographs in the desert!

On our fourth night we all took sun showers with our surplus water.  Everyone was feeling relatively clean so I took a group portrait, dogs and all.  We ate very well every day - that night we had grilled ahi tuna and pineapple over a green salad.

I was in Wisconsin this weekend photographing Heather and Hans’ wedding out on a prairie.  More pictures coming soon!

I met Megan and Mike for their engagement session at their home up in the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City. They live right near City Creek Canyon, where they often take their dog Lady for walks in the woods. It was on one of these walks that Mike proposed to Megan so it was a great choice of location for some photos. Lady was not interested in sitting still for pictures that evening!

Megan and Mike are friends of ours - Megan works with my wife Leah and Mike is now essential to the functioning of Michael Tallman Photography. Without him, I would still have a pile of paperwork on my table and no photographs would be coming out of this computer! Mike does a great job on my very complicated tax returns.

Megan and Mike are having their wedding in May at Log Haven.  Family and friends can see the rest of these photos and order prints here.

I had the honor of photographing Theresa and Kyler’s wedding at The Canyons in Park City, Utah.

The wedding was held at the Red Pine Lodge, accessed by gondola up on the mountain.  A week of snowstorms created a winter wonderland up there, but as luck would have it the sky broke open and it was pure magic!  We had snow falling and sunshine at the same time during the portrait session.

The gorgeous winter ambiance was enhanced by flowers from Every Blooming Thing, music by Reviver, and great event planning work of Christine Miller from Libella Events.

For the first time at a wedding I made use of my avalanche shovel to make a picture happen!  I had my assistant Jen clear out an area in the woods so I could make the portrait below.  I did not think to have her clear out a spot for me though so I was post holing in two feet of snow to get the shot!

Click below to see the slideshow.  The music in the slideshow is by M. Ward and Neko Case, both of whom will be playing outdoor concerts in Salt Lake City this summer - don’t miss those if you will be here!  Thanks to Erin for coming along as my second photographer.  You can sign up to view the rest of the photographs here - they will be online in a few weeks.

No fooling!  My neighbor Lauren about to spray me with a foot of snow:

I met up with Kyler, Theresa and their lab Iggy at their home near Liberty park for their engagement session.  From there we drove up to the hills above the university and took a walk on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  Clouds were just beginning to roll in at the beginning of a big spring snow storm.

Kyler and Theresa are getting married up at the Canyons in April.  Iggy will not be allowed to attend, so it was important to include him this time.

Kyler likes to show off Iggy’s ability to run up or down just about anything to fetch!

Leah and I just got back from a vacation in Sayulita, Mexico.  Sayulita is a great little surfing and fishing town about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta on the west coast.  I wish we were still there enjoying the sun and sand!

I had fun capturing the details of this colorful place with my new point and shoot camera, a Sigma DP1.  It’s a great little camera if you know your way around f-stops, shutter speeds, and ISO’s, and if you don’t mind zooming with your feet!

We subsisted almost entirely on fish burritos and margaritas.

We took surfing lessons - I got up on my first try, but we definitely looked better while we were practicing the stance on the beach.

Although I was on vacation I took my first wedding photograph of 2009!  I’m always trying to stay sharp.

I met with Rachel and Otto up at Alta on a gorgeous bluebird day.  They chose Alta because it is their favorite place to spend time together here in Utah.  I met my wife Leah on a chairlift, so I can relate!  We took a lap around the resort and had a drink at the Goldminer’s Daughter Pub.

My favorite spot for photographs on the mountain is up in the Devil’s Castle Area.  There was some nice light reflected from the other side of the canyon here.

I could not have asked for a more beautiful day to shoot in this amazing playground!  I am looking forward to photographing Rachel and Otto’s wedding at the Mill Creek Inn this July.

Salt Lake City is a wonderful place to live, with great access to outdoor activities like skiing, mountain biking, hiking, and fishing.  We do have a problem with pollution though.  When high pressure systems settle in, the air down in the valley gets trapped between the mountains that surround us.  The smog gets much worse in wintertime during inversions.  On “red days”, residents are encouraged to limit driving and cautioned against exercising outside.  I can see the air in front of the houses across the street when I open my front door, and I can taste it in the back of my throat.  One Utah public radio commentator said that we were “swimming in our own toilet bowl.”  I have assigned myself the personal project of photographing the air when the smog gets bad.  Unfortunately getting pictures of air is not as difficult as it sounds in Salt Lake City!

This was taken a few days ago after just a couple days of smog buildup:

These were taken during our last big inversion in the middle of January: