Late Powell

Several weeks ago I got a call from Waterski Magazine for a VERY quick trip to Lake Powell to shoot professional waterskier, Marcus Brown during a vacation with his in-laws. I left at 8:00 pm from SLC and arrived at the dock at 1:00 am, slept, met the boat at 7:00 am and was back on the road at 2:00 pm. It was spooky driving from I-70 to Bullfrog and not seeing a single car the whole way, with no moon in the sky.

Marcus was very patient as we tried to find glassy water (a slight breeze prevented that, even at Powell), and having to pass my spot over and over in the coldish end of season water.

I liked this photo because the sun must have hit the spray in a weird way to create the greenish hue. I'll post more later....

John Zaugg's First Marathon.

I flew out to D.C. over a month ago to document a long time friend's first marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon. It was a great course, very well organized and wall-to-wall people the entire race. I would consider it a success since the following day, he called and said he's planning on another one.

Enjoy the show.

BYU v. Florida State

Here are a couple of photos of the BYU v. Florida State game on Saturday. I had several others but these were the favorites of the mix. The bobbled pass was an amazing display of athletics and focus on the part of O'Neill Chambers of BYU. I got about 15 frames of this catch, a couple out of focus between the sharp ones. It seemed like forever until the play was over.


This photo is of Luke Ashworth of BYU who got hit pretty hard by Patrick Robinson of Florida State after hauling in a quick pass in the first half. It looked worse than it was. He was in the air both when he caught the ball, and when he was hit.

Ogden Fire

This is a slide show of a huge fire in Ogden last Sunday. It's a week late and I am sure the building looks much different now. I feel terrible for the residents that lost everything in this disaster. Luckily, no one was injured but I heard some residents talk about how they had to leap from their second floor balcony to escape. Ogden fire fighters and police were very cordial and very helpful in helping the media gain access to some decent photos. I am grateful for that.

Fun With Pink Bunny Pajamas

** CLICK ON THE PHOTO**

There was a big commotion at the Union Station in Ogden today as I photographed a couple of brave souls dressed in Pink Bunny Pajamas from Aunt Clara's Creations

Lance, Leeann, Sally and Shane were great sports and had fun drinking Mountain Dew, eating Cheetos, bowling, putting up Christmas lights, shooting their eyes out (yep, that's a real Red Ryder BB Gun), and all sorts of cheesyness.

We even had an unexpected model show up in her wedding dress, which I'm sure made her bridal shoot even more memorable. Enjoy!

Wet Willard

Had some fun at Willard Bay the other day. This thing called "The Molecule" was the biggest hit. It warmed the reluctant E-Man up to the cold water, after lots of coaxing.

The engineer in the photo has finely tuned the trajectory of the mass of H2O to reach the apex of its tangent from the surface of the water at the exact point as to impact the unsuspecting target with maximum force and volume.

Gutter Scooter

I shot some kids riding their scooters in the gutter. Summer boredom is here in full force. Hey, sounds like a project, to document bored summer kids. Hmmmm.... How uninteresting.....

Ragnar Relay Wasatch Back - Slideshow

Here is my first attempt at embedding a slide show into a blog. It is a few photos of the Wasatch Back Relay last weekend. If you haven't heard of it, it's a crazy party where teams of 6 or 12, collectively run 188 miles, from Logan to Park City, over several steep mountain passes, with no sleep, lasting 17-32 hours and all with (mostly) smiles on their faces.

After a few attempts at getting the size of this thing right, it seems to have worked...Enjoy!

Start Building an Ark

If you haven't noticed, it hasn't really stopped raining in Utah for a few weeks or so and I thought it was relevant that I post this photo. Does it sort of feel like this? At least it's postponing the heat of summer a little longer.

Back on the Blog Wagon

As many of you know, this blog was started as a means to motivate myself to get outside my comfort zone and shoot a decent photo every day for a full year. The last time I posted was about three months shy of that mark, which came and went on February 23rd.

It was a difficult challenge to shoot a good photo everyday for a year.

During that same time, I was also working on another project of publishing a book about the city in which I live. It's a documentary portrait project about Ogden, Utah which started out kind of small, and has since mushroomed into this huge art project with all kinds of community support.

Earlier today, I picked up the posters I will be hanging in shops all around town advertising the book. I just received a call from a company handling the customs clearance since the books, which have been on a boat from Hong Kong for a week, arrive in California on Friday. I just finished cutting 35 frames which will display some of the photos at the Union Station on June 5th at a book release party.

A short year and a half ago, I never would have imagined this would be possible. Back then, a book wasn't even on the radar, not even close. My wife and I had batted around an idea about a "print on demand" book from our time in China but nothing like this.

Yet here it is, just weeks away from arriving on my front door and who would have thought this was possible. Not me.

It certainly hasn't been a one man show. I had a bunch of help from a whole host of people. Early on, it came from the folks at Union Station who allowed me some time to shoot at their place. As I started shooting photos, there began to be an enthusiasm and the people I photographed began offering more and more suggestions as to who else should be included in the book.

I got a bunch of help from The Union Grill staff who sent people over from lunch and were very generous with their time and delicious food.

Keith Johnson, a friend and fellow photographer who understood the scope of the effort, was an enormous help in his countless hours of editing photos and offering constructive criticism and generous praise. And Mike Terry who produced a sweet marketing video (which I have yet to do anything with,(sorry Mike), I'll be posting it later this week).

I certainly couldn't have done it without the generous individuals who offered to sponsor the project. If anything came as a complete shock to me, it was the generosity of the sponsors allowing me to raise nearly $12,000 to help cover printing costs. That blew me away, and I can't thank those people enough.

Steve Conlin has been a huge support by providing advise and publicity, and for getting the attention of community leaders who have also been a big support.

And most recently, Simon, who has offered his time and expertise to help make a bazillion frames which will end up costing less than a tenth of what it would have.

I know this is starting to sound like the Oscars and will even more so when I include my dad in the list, who has also been a big contributor with his time and resources.

So there it is. A blog post about the "I AM OGDEN" book. That is probably the main reason I have been such a slacker blogger the last several months.

I hope you enjoy reading and I will attempt to keep this a little more current.

BN