Fall in Salt Lake City - The Courthouse, The Capitol, the Temple and The Skyline

I just returned from a photo and video shoot in Salt Lake City. I flew in and arrived late on Tuesday afternoon and made a beeline for downtown to beat the sunset. I made it just in time to capture some shots in that perfect golden hour.

My first stop was the old courthouse which is in the center of town. I walked around the perimeter of the building and took a fair number of images, but none of them stood out as truly original. But, as I was heading back to my rental car, I noticed this cool reflection of the old courthouse in the windows of the new courthouse. Bingo -This is what I was looking for!

After shooting images around the courthouse and the Temple Square area, I drove up to the Capitol Building to grab some shots of this beautiful structure surrounded by trees with their fall colors. As I was shooting images from the front lawn, I noticed my long shadow (since it was getting close to sunset) and thought that this would make for an interesting element in the photo.

To help show the season, I got down in the grass to accentuate the fall leaves in this photo. (Photo tip: Some photographers out there might be wondering how I was able to meter the foreground and the background correctly. even though they are very different in lighting. I actually processed the leaves and front lawn separately from the rest of the image, using Adobe Camera RAW, by adding half a stop of light. Also, getting down low to the leaves helped make them a larger piece of the composition.)

As the sun set, I drove around searching for a good spot to shoot night shots of Salt Lake City. I found a couple of nice spots in the hills behind the Capitol. While I was mostly shooting images of the city skyline, I also turned the camera around and took shots of the setting sun over the great salt lakes. (Photo tip: Always look around you when you are shooting. Even though there are certain subjects which might grab your attention, many times there are interesting shots behind you, above you, at your feet...)

This is a tight shot of the Capitol Building and one of the major streets in Salt Lake City. I took this from a vantage point a little lower on the hillside with a 400mm lens.

Two nights later, I found a spot on a freeway overpass which gave me a different vantage point. 

A night view of the Mormon Temple and some of the other buildings downtown. My goal was to shoot the skyline while it was still light enough to see some of the snow capped mountains in the background.

This is McKell, our new friend turned model. We were shooting a video segment for Lexar and needed a "customer" for a couple of scenes. I met her at the Marriott hotel and thought that she would be perfect for the part. She agreed to help us out and in trade I taught her some new photography tricks. She was awesome.