pelican_sunrise

Pelican Point

Pelican Point is home to a quarry where contractors glean all their structural fill rock for use in marshy or high water-table areas. It’s a busy, busy zone during the day, with trucks coming to and fro starting from about 6 am until dark. But at night, it’s a ghost-town, and the perfect place to have some solitude and setup an overnight time-lapse session. I’ve been wanting to do an overnighter for awhile, and I’ve been waiting for the right moment. It’s hard to nail it perfectly, and a lot of of the time, you can end up with a full night wasted, and a relatively boring series. I got to Pelican Point about 1 am, and setup my camera only to realize that I had left all my Compact Flash cards at home. Fernanda and I cruised over to the Wal-Mart in Saratoga Springs and grabbed a quick 4GB. On the settings I was using, I only had enough memory space for 241 images, so I did some math and decided that a six hour time-lapse could be condensed into roughly 216 images, if played back at 24 frames per second, and end up as 9 seconds of video. So I took a picture every 90 seconds to get the time lapse you see below. I don’t think I could have hit it on a better day, and I had a very amazing morning watching as the sun crept above the horizon and bathed my bare feet in warmth as I lay in the back of my car with the back hatch open to the air. Couldn’t ask for a more pleasant time. Here’s a few more pictures and then the video. It turned out so sick. The song is by Love As Laughter, called Coconut Flakes, and it’s from the movie 180º South, which is one of the best documentaries ever (in my humble opinion). Enjoy. Continue Reading

Lisa and Ben

I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a second. I say, hold on there, just a minute; Parker doesn’t shoot weddings!”

Now, that’s not fair. Yes, it’s true that I loath how most weddings (particularly LDS weddings) are celebrated, and feel that the manner by which most people carry out the tradition is silly and antiquated, but there is something on this earth that can get me to step way way outside my comfort zone and shoot the occasional wedding: food. And I don’t mean food as in exotic or luxurious food. I mean food in general. I mean survival, sustenance, fuel. That’s what happens when you’re a flat broke photographer trying to scrape by–you end up doing things that perhaps you otherwise wouldn’t do. Yes, it’s true that I think most weddings are silly, but that being said, I do get hungry, and weddings pay well, so don’t judge me. Continue Reading

Moustache May!

I labeled it as the “Greatest Gathering of Moustaches the World Has Ever Known.” Regardless of whether or not that’s actually true, this year’s Moustache May party, held on May 22, 2010, was a roaring success. The weather was not cooperating all day and I thought it was going to rain and ruin the adventures, but the clouds blew away, the sun came out, and people started showing up right on cue. Continue Reading

Ramakrishna

HDRI has been incredibly fun lately. This dark hallways at the Ramakrishna Vedanta Monastery had an incredible amount of detail that I wanted to capture. 5 exposures later, and a little love from Photomatix, and we got some nice colors showing through on this piece. Continue Reading

Mission Viejo

About a month ago I was hanging out in Springville, UT with my buddy Ryan Hong. At the time, he was living with his sister Lisa who was engaged to be married. We somehow got on the subject of photography and I peeked at their engagement photos, which were done by Jonathan Canlas, one of the most highly sought after film photographers in the western states. I commented on them, and it came out in the course of the conversation that I am a photographer, and they asked me what I charge to do just a reception, since they had all their Utah stuff planned out, they were still on the prowl for a photog to cover the California reception, because Lisa and Ryan are both from Mission Viejo, in Orange County. I sent them a bid, and was hired. Crashing at the Hong home and eating delicious food, and visiting interesting places with the grandparents has been really fun. Here’s a few photos that I took while we were at the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary in Modjeska Canyon. Continue Reading

Mordor

That’s how it started. The next morning Grant and I met up at the mouth of Little Rock Canyon in Springville, UT, just north of the Three Sisters, and started headed up the gulch. It’s a pretty interesting hike because there haven’t been too many people in there over the years, and the trail is pretty much a minimalistic game trail that has the occasional human footprint. Continue Reading

It’s Not Over

So, I know my last post was all about how the season is winding down, and everyone is in summer mode, etc etc etc. Fortunately for me (and maybe for all you?), Daryl is still in winter snowboarding mode, and it definitely stoked to be alive. We’ve been trying to get up to Grizzly Gulch the last few days but my schedule and the weather have been conspiring against all our efforts. Today we were lucky enough to make it to the feature for a sunset session, despite the fact that the rest of the crew was doing gay bike races and stuff (just kidding Andy, just had to rub it in). Continue Reading

All-Time @ Brighton

It’s funny to me how spring storms operate in Utah. Most of the time it’ll be calm and peaceful in the valley, and raging up at the resorts, less than nine miles away. I understand the science (at least, I understand it as much as I plan to understand it, or care to investigate it), but it’s just really interesting to me how I can meet Blake Nyman as Causwell at 8:30 with partly cloudy skies, and a temperature around 45º, and within 25 minutes be wrapped in the core a wild blizzard, with howling winds and lighting (yes, I said lighting). It wasn’t anything unexpected though, because I read the storm forecast, so we went to work. J. Eichhorst and Hayden Price accompanied us and we headed out to the slackcountry. Some of us a lot more slowly than the others. It took me like 25 minutes to boot pack across Millicent Bowl due to the fact that I was post-holing every step up to my knees and often to my thighs. All in all, it was worth it. We were able to get three solid shots, and then take a couple laps on one of the most epic pow days of the season. The snow pack was really sketchy, and I honestly felt like I was tiptoeing around up there to keep slabs from breaking off onto my friends. No wonder Tuesday morning’s avalanche forecast was HIGH. Anyway, enjoy these images. Most are screenshots from the video, and I recommend clicking on the images to see larger versions.
Blake looking very satisfied after stomping a decent sized drop.
Before
And after. Fully buried.
Hayden sending it into oblivion.
Blake; half-cab on the fun gap.

Red Bull 1976 Games

Working for Red Bull Energy Drink has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and occasionally I get to participate in really fun events, like last Saturday’s Red Bull 1976 Games, held at The Canyons Resort in Park City, UT. I showed up early to help my boss and the infrastructure team get the gates and the venue fully setup, then took a few turns with my longtime friend Blake Stephenson. The event started at about noon, and 863 images later, it was over. The premise of the contest is to wear retro gear to celebrate the Olympics that should have been. In 1976, Denver, CO was awarded the winter Olympic games, but due to political maneuvering, the games were shifted to Austria, so we at Red Bull decided that it was high time that 1976 got the glory it deserves. The contest consisted of a Snowbladecross race, and an old school air contest, where teams were judged based on skill, showmanship, and overall team mojo. I had so much fun taking pictures, the time just flew by, and I came away with about 80 really solid images. Here’s a few of my favorites of the bunch. Enjoy.
This guy was on point the whole time
Airing through the gap
Jason  Hindman on an all out sprint to the finish line
Lindsay Jacobellis should take some pointers from this homie
I think the X-Games would be better-off if it were like this.
In high-speed races like this, milliseconds count, so diving across the finish line was a commonly utilized tactic in order to shave a little time off your score.
Those of us who ride the terrain parks at either Park City or The Canyons are familiar with ski trains hitting jumps, but never quite like this.
Third place. The Shred Dogs of War
2nd place. Masterbladers? I think?
The defending champs: The Cream Team
Podium placement is something to truly be proud of.

‘Twas An Adventure

Andy Earl and I have been discussing the prospects of doing an overnighter just to iron out any kinks we had in our gear/packing habits/oral hygiene, etc. We plan to do quite a bit of multi-day touring next season, so we wanted to get a feel for how things would go; a trial run, if you will. We opted to go up to Wolverine Cirque because the forecast was predicting that steep, north facing terrain would be the best for early saturday morning skiing and riding, and Twin Lakes pass is fairly sheltered from the wind, and totally sheltered from avalanche danger if you camp just near the pass. Continue Reading