Mahler Foto

Red Butte Fire

2011-07-05T23:11:00.003-06:00

Heard about the fire Sunday afternoon and ran up there to see if I could get something. It felt great to be out shooting!

New Year's Eve, post-midnight

2011-01-01T13:20:00.006-07:00

Winter sunset

2010-11-17T18:23:00.005-07:00

Straight out of camera. jk, I did a little editing. But really it was pretty neat.

For the birds

2010-11-16T00:30:00.002-07:00

Did you spot the bird at the bottom right?

Notre Dame

2010-11-15T23:06:00.001-07:00

I took some liberties in photoshop on this one. PJs probably won't like it but it emphasized dirt and 'battle scars' on Wynn's jersey and gave a surreal look to the ending of a game which for the Utes probably felt like a bad dream.

Another football favorite

2010-11-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Disappointment

2010-11-09T20:07:00.002-07:00

Things I like about hockey.

2010-11-09T19:39:00.003-07:00

The fighting.

Things I don't like about hockey.

2010-11-09T19:28:00.005-07:00

These are the exact same exposure, straight from the camera. The gym lights pulsate and areas of the rink look dark and flat in half of the shots.

Oct. 23 - Utes 59, Colorado State 6

2010-10-23T22:30:00.003-06:00

Shaky Smithson pulls down a hail-mary touchdown pass over CSU's Tony Drake early in the 3rd quarter.

One year ago - Chicago

2010-08-06T01:32:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I get ideas for grand projects that end up sitting on my hard drive for months or longer. This is one of them. Finally got around to working on it recently. It is not seamless at high resolutions but is acceptable for the blog.

Aug. 5 - Watching the storm.

2010-08-06T01:02:00.004-06:00

Interesting how relaxing it is to be standing atop a hill with a metal tripod watching beams of instant death strike for 4 hours.

Some old shots

2010-05-01T17:38:00.004-06:00

I haven't updated in a long time. Well, here goes.

Photos from Oregon

2009-09-21T22:48:00.004-06:00

2009-08-21T12:44:00.000-06:00

The Living Room

2009-07-14T19:38:00.001-06:00

Sugar House Park

2009-07-05T12:33:00.000-06:00

Happy Fourth!

I've had it with this mother@$&#' moose in my mother@*%#&@' yard.

2009-07-01T13:19:00.001-06:00

I waited about 2 hours for animal control to show up, meanwhile the moose ran into some dark bushes. For the time being, I decided to blog about it inside (where I won't get any holes stomped in my forehead).

Painting with light

2009-06-20T01:13:00.004-06:00

It's a sad time in the summer, the Chrony stories coming too few and far between. Though it's also a happy time, for that same reason, because I have more chances to mess around and take photos like this.

Air Show, IT'S COOL.

2009-06-07T21:40:00.002-06:00

Girl Talk and Lupe Fiasco

2009-04-16T12:48:00.002-06:00

Seeing through sound

2009-04-14T21:32:00.003-06:00

A random unpublished photo

2009-04-08T15:06:00.003-06:00

This one day I was talking to Ty, I says, "Hey Ty, how's it going?" You know what he says to me? He says, "TAKE A HIKE, LENNIE." So I says, "Maybe I will." That's what I says.

Note: Some of the statements in this post may have been entirely made up.

April 6 - False alarm at OSH

2009-04-07T14:31:00.006-06:00

On my way to class yesterday, I had one of those moments where I just happened to be nearby when something newsworthy happened (newsworthy for a campus paper, at least). Students were evacuating OSH because of a fire alarm.

The SLC Fire Dept. arrived and Capt. Marty Peterson stepped out of the truck. Am I the only one who sees this as a video set to some bad-ass guitar riff?

I spoke with Capt. Peterson, who informed me it was a false alarm. We walked around the building looking for the pull station that had been set off. He said it was most likely a student who wanted to give everyone a break from class. "We usually get these during test weeks," he said.

This was my favorite shot. Capt. Peterson signaled a class that it was safe to enter the building, but the instructor continued to teach class outdoors. The weather was nice yesterday.

Safety Cow says...

2009-04-06T15:06:00.004-06:00

First to guess the location of safety cow gets a gold star!

Starting to get the hang of this video editing thing

2009-04-04T11:12:00.002-06:00

I did a couple more videos this week and I think this is one of my better videos so far:

The sound isn't great because my microphone is junk, but this should be remedied by next week.

On the road

2009-03-30T23:18:00.004-06:00

I shot this out the window of my car a week or so ago during the break. I mainly just liked the cloud formation but would sell out immediately if FedEx ever wanted to buy it.

Guess who?

2009-03-14T11:10:00.003-06:00

March 7 - Northwest Navy Competition

2009-03-08T11:09:00.007-06:00

The NROTC units from the University of Idaho and Washington State defeated units from Oregon State, Washington and Utah in the Northwest Navy Competition on Saturday, March 7, at the University of Utah campus. Chrony writer Kassidy Mather shot the video and I put it together in iMovie.

March 6 - Red Rocks vs. Arizona State

2009-03-08T10:26:00.005-06:00

I did a bunch of work with video this weekend. This right here is my very first video. It's of the gymnastics meet against Arizona State. I recorded the clips with the 5D Mark II. Nate Sorensen read the narrative and we both edited everything together on a confusing version of iMovie.

The Perfect Orange

2009-03-05T16:40:00.008-07:00

A couple of days ago I peeled the perfect orange. It is truly a thing of beauty.

These photos were taken the day I peeled it; today it is shriveled and ugly because nothing good in this world lasts.

Feb. 28 - Utah 50, BYU 63

2009-03-05T16:10:00.009-07:00

Last Saturday I shot the rivalry basketball game down in Provo. Covering the Utes in previous years I have gained some experience shooting post-game disappointment. The way the Utes had been playing this year, however, I thought I might get to shoot celebration for a change. After BYU shut down the Utah offense in the second half, that's not what happened.

I'm not sure if Tavernari was having a friendly chat here or taunting Nevill in the second half.

Near the end of the game, this failed and forced offensive play was pretty much the KO punch for the Utes.

I saw the Tribune ran with a shot similar to the above photo (Rick's moment was better than mine). One thing I liked about this shot though is how the the white basketball standard in the top-left corner makes it feel like the ball is jumping out of the photograph. I think it adds to the overall effect of the image, but some might just find it distracting. Let me know what you think.

Another thing I have been noticing is that despite the 5D Mk II's great high-ISO noise performance, everything I take with it seems a bit soft in comparison the 1D Mk II. The Cummard shot below, albeit grainy, seems to have such a greater level of detail than the shot above taken with the 5D.

My Backyard

2009-03-05T16:02:00.004-07:00

Often I will look out the window and see flocks of birds landing on the power lines in my backyard with the mountains in the background. I always think to myself, "I want to photograph that." So I did.

Next on my list is the squirrel that carries acorns across the line.

GO! Party

2009-02-25T19:29:00.007-07:00

Despite being a student journalist, I took photos for the GO! Party for the 2009 ASUU Elections. I know it could be perceived as a conflict of interest, but I haven't covered any ASUU election-related stories in the last year and figured I wouldn't this year either. Plus, it's impossible to not know at least a few people in each ASUU political party.

We took a lot of the standard mugs for candidate posters, but with the Pres. and VP candidates also tried some different personality portraits.

My favorite shot never made it onto their posters or web site:

Feb. 25 - Rail Jam

2009-02-25T17:57:00.008-07:00

The rail jam people came to campus again. Among the crowd were probably 5 Chrony photographers roaming and taking photos. I decided to take it somewhat easy this year, rather than moving all over the place and getting up in the grill like I did last year.

I took some standard shots but decided I should try for something different. I tried some slow shutter speeds which turned out nicely due to the trees in the background:

Okay, I got carried away.

Erik climbed a tree. I tried to use my wide angle to make it look a gazillion feet tall.

Ty wore a bonnet.

Feb. 21 - Campus longboarders

2009-02-25T17:44:00.006-07:00

I went Friday night with a Chrony writer, Kassidy, to take night photos of longboarders on campus. With no flash, this sounded like a job for the 5D Mark II.

These guys use boards on wheels to battle the pavement and laugh in the face of gravity.

Scars from previous rides. When fighting the pavement, sometimes the pavement wins.

One of the most popular routes starts on the upper levels of a parking garage near the medical center.

Boarders pick up speed for the route by riding down from the upper level.

The route crosses the Legacy Bridge, which can be difficult due to the fact that it's narrow.

Riders travel through the tunnel at South Campus Drive and University Avenue to end the route at the Stadium parking lot.

Feb. 9 - Red Rocks at Utah State

2009-02-25T17:30:00.005-07:00

I covered the women's gymnastification event with Ty on Feb. 9. It was unlike most of the other meets for me because I wrote the story and took photos at the same time. It was quite scary and it's not exactly my beat or anything, so basically I followed the writers from other newspapers around after the meet and leeched answers to the questions they asked. I spent much less time moving around for different angles on the photos, but interestingly left with shots that seemed different than most of my other gymnastics shots.

Also, I decided to show off the 8.5 fps of the 1D Mark II:

I basically held the button and let the magic happen. Actually, the "magic" happened in Photoshop. Since that shot is actually 8 different shots, I guess that means it all happened in less than one second. These were my other favorite from the night:

Feb. 4 - Press Conference

2009-02-04T21:49:00.007-07:00

I ducked out of class to take photos at a press conference concerning new football recruits. Jim Fisher allowed me to leave class early as long as I photographed something other than a speaker. This is what I left with.

My promise to Jim ended up being a lie when I took speaker shots anyway for safety, as any photog should.

Jan. 23 - So fresh, so clean clean

2009-01-24T17:11:00.005-07:00

I noticed this dense wave of fog on its way into the valley so I found a good vantage point. It was probably the thickest fog I have ever experienced.

Jan. 16 - Utes on Parade

2009-01-17T00:55:00.011-07:00

Assorted Basketball

2009-01-06T10:31:00.010-07:00

Dec. 31 - Utah 66, Gonzaga 65

Suspense on the bench during key free throws.

Jan. 3 - Utah 91, Wyoming 67

No foul here.

An update

2009-01-05T14:47:00.008-07:00

Nov. 17 - TRAXing to Stadium story

Nov. 15 - Prop 8 protests, counter-protests and vigil

Nov. 15 - Fat Flake Festival

Nov. 6 - Utah 13, TCU 10

2008-11-07T00:31:00.005-07:00

Oct. 12 - Lake Michigan Wee Planet

2008-10-13T14:57:00.005-06:00

Sept. 6 - Utah 42, UNLV 21

2008-10-04T18:52:00.001-06:00

April 5, 2008

2008-04-05T01:48:00.011-06:00

THIS WEEK EXCLUSIVELY ON LENNIE'S BLOG:

Lennie tries to put up some photos with more "personality!" You know, like, compositions that would never print and things that didn't necessarily pertain to his Chrony assignment:

All right so that's actually 3 merged images, but my weak 4.2 megapixels make it look like one severely cropped photo.

OK, so maybe that last one didn't have much "personality."

New season, new team,

2008-03-30T16:19:00.010-06:00

familiar results.

RSL settled for a 1-1 tie against Chicago when the Fire's Cuauhtemoc Blanco scored in stoppage time.

The game was phsyical and the officials (at least in the first half) were not making many calls, which made for some good photos.

The shadow cast over Rice-Eccles during afternoon games can really be atrocious.

Spring Break

2008-03-28T10:47:00.006-06:00

Cold. I brought a Canon SD1000 point & shoot. It fit snugly inside my pocket.

The elevators inside Sears Tower scale 108 stories in about 30 seconds. Standing in the elevator, you can feel the change in pressure and the need to pop your ears several times along the way.

There was this chameleon in the aquarium.

He is a pimp. And pimps don't commit suicide.

Railllllll Jammmmmm

2008-02-22T11:31:00.003-07:00

I took photos at a rail jam on campus. They are all linked from my photobucket, and it looks like blogspot cropped them all because blogspot blows.

Tried to do some longer exposures, found it difficult in the situation (looks like my glass was dirty, too):

Wipeouts ended up being some of my favorites:

FUHBAH!!!

2007-11-11T20:19:00.001-07:00

Just some speaker shot assignment.

2007-11-05T20:10:00.001-07:00

If you didn't hear about it yet, Bill Clinton delivered a speech in the Union Ballroom yesterday in support of Hillary's campaign. Excluding the part about how I arrived 3 hours early only for the event to be delayed another hour and a half, it was a very exciting assignment.

The press were limited to a small box behind all of the seating in the ballroom, which allowed for only straight-on speaker shots. Just as Clinton entered, security allowed photographers near the front. It didn't really work out so well. As Clinton walked to the podium and greeted the audience, the lighting was horrible and most of my photos came out blurry. By the time he had reached the podium, lighting was a little bit better but the moment was gone.

At least it gave all of us an angle other than straight on from the press box.

4:30. The speech begins. Every hand gesture Clinton makes brings about surges of clicking noises from the press box. Clinton gives a variety of different hand motions throughout the speech. I will now describe them in no particular order:

1. The Wave.

The Wave is the most common of Clinton's hand gestures and can add emphasis to just about anything. It is mostly used to give life to parts of the speech that draw the least amount of cheers from the audience. The gesture has no particular meaning, unless Clinton is giving his rare "Mime in a Box" performance. The Wave can also be done with the right hand, as seen here:

2. The Claw.

The Claw is used to build up to the more important parts of the speech, as a transition from The Wave.

3. Beached Squid.

Don't confuse The Claw with Beached Squid. They are two very different hand gestures, yet some choose to deny Beached Squid's existence. Its meaning is currenty unknown.

4. The Pointer.

The Pointer is used when speech focuses on a republican. It is used to help explain why said republican is wrong on a certain issue. The Pointer adjusts on three levels according to how wrong a republican has been about something. The above picture is an example of a Level 2, or "Rudy Giuliani" pointer. Below is an example of the Level 1: "Ron Paul" pointer:

The Level 3 pointer has no name, but is typically reserved for members of the Bush Administration.

This is a particularly severe Level 3. It could almost be classified as a Level 4, which has never been seen before by the likes of man.

5. Hadoken.

If too many pointers occur within a speech, Bill might reach "pointer overload." This is not good. This can lead to the Hadoken, which is the most deadly of hand gestures. During the Hadoken, Bill charges a ball of energy between his hands. The energy is then shot out into the audience, usually killing two or three and wounding several more. I could not take a picture of the Hadoken in action as it would have destroyed my camera. Luckily, I had recently picked up a Bubble Shield, which I deployed to protect myself from a potential Hadoken as other audience members fled in panic.

6. Cooldown.

Exactly how it sounds. Follows a Hadoken.

7. The ultra-rare "A-OK."

The A-OK is Clinton's rarest hand gesture. It was only given once during the entire speech, so it is a particular treat for photographers. If you look closely, you will see that the A-OK casts a shadow on Clinton's face. Rumor has it that if the circle created by his thumb and index finger fall perfectly over his eye, everything that humans know may cease to exist. This was certainly a close call, but we are all safe for now.

FIN

When the speech ended, crowds rushed in to shake hands with the Clinton. If you look closely, you might see that Ralph Becker is almost as excited as I am to take photos of Bill Clinton.

The security somehow expected all photographers to remain within the press box. Danny La from the Tribune, Michael Brandy from the Deseret News and I were all forced to operate like ninjas through the crowd. Security repeatedly hunted us down and told us to move back, or even tugged on our shoulders. But despite all of the shoulder-tugging, I held strong and managed to get some good handshake photos.

I wonder if he gets tired from shaking so many hands. Also, five bucks says the first thing he does after a speech is wash his hands. I know I would. I don't want 1200 people's germs on my hands.

This was my favorite of the bunch. I like the layers it contains and how its wideness shows the Union Ballroom and establishes a sense of place. I like the distortion of the handshake in the bottom left corner. I DON'T LIKE THE KID TAKING A PICTURE OF HIMSELF WITH A BIG RED CIRCLE ON HIS FOREHEAD. Stupid cameras.

This is what happens when you mix drinks...

2007-10-25T18:59:00.001-06:00

I was at this crazy party last weekend with a wasted clown. I had to take care of him when he got sick, so it was sort of lame. Didn't anybody ever teach him "Beer before liquor, you've never been sicker / liquor before beer, you're in the clear"? And I'll have to admit, the popcorn tasted like shit.

I'm mad at Tyler because there was no lead art for the front page Thursday and he passed up the opportunity to lead the paper with a vomiting clown.

Since we're on the subject of parties, here are some other shots from a few "KILLER" parties!!! (I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight for that pun):

Tyler Cobb hit by football players

2007-10-14T18:00:00.002-06:00

You heard it here first.

I decided this photo deserved its own post. More to come.

Football + Snow

2007-10-06T15:47:00.001-06:00

BREAKING OLDS: Lunar eclipse

2007-10-03T17:08:00.002-06:00

I used the 400mm with a 1.4x converter on my handy tripod (sorry tripod, I know you did not enjoy this). I had to get lucky and catch the moon between clouds.
The color on the fully eclipsed moon is a bit exaggerated because of the longer exposure.

I defy you to take a photo with a more distracting background.

2007-10-03T15:48:00.002-06:00

As if all the weight machines weren't enough, the guy bending over in the sleeveless shirt puts the icing on the cake.

If five people comment on this post, I will start blogging again.

2007-10-02T15:25:00.000-06:00

You heard it here first.

What? A new post? And HDR

2007-08-16T19:47:00.001-06:00

In my recent travels, I ventured as far away as Moab, Utah. That was a joke. I hiked around Arches National Park with a couple of friends and decided that since landscape photography is too boring by itself, I'd surely have to give high dynamic range imaging a try. So I handheld some bracketed shots with the D70 and made it all look pretty and fake with Photomatix, then made a pano with Photoshop. Here is the insane-looking product:

Six assignments that haven't made it to my blog this week because I've been too lazy.

2007-03-12T22:47:00.000-06:00

Well, I realized the the internets just move too fast and I can't keep up with them, so I'll probably be making weekly posts rather than posting after every assignment.
Friday night: I covered the Utes' gymnastics meet against 1st-ranked Florida Gators. Can anyone else figure out why Florida and Ohio State have #1 everything? It must be really exciting to shoot sports for their college papers.

The Utes, er, Red Rocks, performed well in the first three events and led going into the floor event. In between the beam and this event, the fans in the stadium were just going nuts. There was a group of nine guys from the swim team who painted "UTAH-UTES" on their chests because they owed the gymnastics team a favor. I feld bad for the guy with the "-" painted on his chest because he was unnecessary.

Yeah, this shot was actually taken just before the Red Rocks' beam routine but I ended up liking it better than the closer shots I took because it is given context with the gymnast warming up on the beam.

Originally, I assumed this guy was with the rest of the shirtless group who were going nuts before the last event. After I heard the story about the other nine being from the swim team, I realized he probably either lost a bet or just thought he deserved some attention. Nipple piercings - ouch. I could tell the fans around him were laughing but at the same time awkwardly trying to pretend like he wasn't there.

Twenty minutes and a couple of mistakes later, the Red Rocks fell behind the Gators for a disappointing loss in what could have been a big upset. The gymnasts all lined up after the meet to thank the fans for coming and showing support.

Here's something I observed after making this post: The more I shoot sport events, the more I realize that my favorite photos from them usually aren't action shots.

Friday morning: Winners of the ASUU primaries were announced. Each party and its supporters crammed onto the Union patio to celebrate if they won or bottle up their frustration if they lost. Here were my favorite shots:

Especially during campaigning, politicans really do a great job of acting too nice to try to gain your vote. I loved this shot of Rick Pehrson before the announcements crossing his fingers because I think it really sums up the way Rick truly felt at the moment. It also takes a look into how he felt about the campaign overall, not really being sure whether he'd make it past the primaries. His party made it into the final elections with 40 more votes than the More 4 U party.

The FUSE party was the first to be announced as finalists. They won overall by a large margin.

Joe Coccimiglio, presidential candidate for the More 4 U party congratulates Rick Pehrson after the announcements.

This is my favorite shot of Cameron Beech with the Activate Party. Out on the patio, he had been wearing sunglasses and really kept a smile on his face while congratulating the winning groups. When activity on the patio was winding down, I headed back into the Chrony to upload photos, but found that a crowd was gathering around the ASUU windows because they had posted the actual tallies from the voting. I hadn't put my camera away yet and decided to take a few more photos of everybody waiting their turn to look at the papers on the window. The Activate party placed last with notably less votes than any other party and I noticed Cameron without his sunglasses looking a bit more disappointed after having seen the tallies.

Remember how I said there were going to be six assignments in this post? Well, I lied. I realized I didn't have enough to say about the other assignments. But maybe I'll throw in a couple of photos from them anyway.

ASUU election grievance hearings. The More 4 U Party (Orange) was found guilty of breaking red book ten times out of the 14 grievances filed against them.

Ha, I bet you thought this was moving, huh? It's actually just from a press/publicity photo shoot of Pioneer Theatre Company's Lost In Yonkers.

Beta Theta Phi volunteer day at the Boys and Girls Club in Rose Park.

What I can't figure out about blogging.

2007-03-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the space we are given to work with on these blog pages is like 6-7" horizontal? If you have page items on the right side, those take up 2" alone, so really I'm trying to add images with wraparound text in a space of no more than 4-5 inches. I didn't buy 19" LCD monitors to use only a small fraction of that size with a bunch of wasted black space on the sides. There's no point to post any wide angle images either because all of the detail is lost when "Large" means 2" x 4".

Saturday Night Slaughter

2007-03-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently, this is a large image.

Saturday afternoon I met with Tyler and Cody at the Chronicle to drive to The Marriott Center in Provo and cover the BYU vs. Utah rivalry game. The Utes won the tip-off and got off to a quick 6-2 lead that would disapper even faster. The Utes' early adrenaline vanished by the half and their faces displayed only lost hope throughout the second. Unfortunately, the face for lost hope happens to be exactly the same as the face for waiting in line at the DMV. Meanwhile, at the other end of the court, Cougar excitement was building as players watched the clock count down the minutes until they were inevitably awarded the MWC trophy and the Utes walked away with their tails between their legs. It was really difficult to keep myself from walking over to the other end of the court and taking the better photos that will undoubtedly line the front pages of state dailies tomorrow morning. But when the Jazz travel to the big games out of state and lose, those papers don't recap the game by running the other teams' celebrations either. Ute fans and students who read The Chronicle don't want to dwell in the fact that their team lost. All this left me wondering: is it more important to report equally on an event like a state-wide paper would when covering two Utah teams, or to cover the part of the story that applies to our audience? Tonight I tried to place myself somewhere in-between and as a result missed a lot of good moments.

New Blahg

2007-03-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm joining the rest and starting a blog on which I can record experiences and share my ideas. Many will be from times I have working at The Daily Utah Chronicle, but some will also be from living The Daily Utah Life. Hopefully I can make it interesting enough to entertain at least the people I know, so they are like "lol i sorta liked dat. dis guy, he cool. mebbe once in a while i'ma b like 'click' and go 2 his blog and b like 'click' again. lol, onomatopoeia."