It's been a while since I posted here; I've tried to post at least once a month beginning in 2016, but I let April slip by. That doesn't mean I haven't gone out photographing since my last post. I've been to the Bird Refuge west of Brigham City a few times, to Grace, Idaho twice, and around Cache Valley quite a bit. Here are some of my favorites:

I've been trying to get out along the Bear River and some of its tributaries as much as possible. The rivers have all been running really high in the Bear River watershed from the rain that melted the snow off so quickly here in the valley, as well as the natural spring run-off. And this last week has brought warmer than usual weather which has really made the rivers run high.

Just after the rain that melted all the snow, Gina and I took a drive out to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. We were really out on a date on the 2nd anniversary of our first date, and we figured we'd go take a look. We ended up not being able to go very far, since the high water had flooded a lot of the roads there, and the main gate to the refuge was closed. A few weeks later, I headed out to see what things were like with so much water flowing through.

All through the refuge were piles of logs and other debris that had been pulled out of the river and canals to prevent damage to the head gates and prevent further flooding.

Seeing all the water flowing through the lower reaches of the Bear River made me want to get further upstream to photograph what was happening there, so I headed up to Grace as soon as I could fit it in to my schedule. On April 1 I got up early enough to be in Grace before sunrise. The dam just north of town had more water flowing over it than I'd ever seen.

Lately I've been playing around with in-camera multiple exposures, and walking past, or around an object in the landscape. This one is 10 exposures, walking 5 paces between each exposure.

A few weeks ago I went back up to Grace. I searched out the location of the Cove Dam on the Bear River that was removed in 2006. I feel like there's a budding project on the Bear River watershed.

My work with the collages continues on. Earlier this year, I made a collage of the tree in the winter (Thirty Five Minutes in Amalga) with what I've been calling "bubbles" in my head—photographs made long after the initial establishment of a scene. When I first made the photograph, I felt pretty excited about it, but after spending some time with the image, and a subsequent critique, the piece isn't as successful as I first thought. Part of it has to do with the time frame in which each frame and bubble in the photograph was made. Only thirty five minutes had elapsed, and in that time there was no change in the lighting conditions at all, despite some movement in the clouds that made me think the sun might break through.

Despite that unsuccessful attempt, the idea of these bubbles of time kept swimming in my head. Then I ended up out on the Cutler Marsh at Benson Marina in front of a large tree. There was a slight breeze, with an occasional strongish gust that really stirred the branches and disturbed the surface of the water behind the tree. Clouds moved in the sky, lighting the tree up for a few seconds before covering the sun again for another short period of time. That's when I started making my bubbles after I'd made an initial photograph. The resulting photograph is below. After I got home, I made one print to provide a base, and context to the bubbles, which were made over the course of an hour. I then printed each bubble and cut them out, then placed them on the print with a pin. They each stand off the print about an inch. I'm really excited about this new direction my work has taken. There are so many possibilities and directions I can go from here...