Guest post.

A good friend of mine, Matt Mortensen, a both a fantastic chemist and photographer, has asked me to guest post on his photo blog.

You can find it here.

http://doctormortensen.blogspot.com/2010/05/guest-post-iceland.html

A Goal

A goal for me, starting now, is to take portraits of as many of my friends who are willing.

They will be as creative or traditional as you like -- and of course the images will be available to you free of cost.

Let me know if you're interested.

My Favorite Photographers.

Many, many of your have expressed to me your appreciation for my photography. Your compliments are appreciated just as much, and I will pay you one further. I give you MY favorite photographers.

I will not guarantee that all links are safe for work.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir-- Rebekka is the biggest name on Flickr, hands down. She's responsible for inspiring an enormous new wave of digital photographers. Don't miss her legendary Icelandic horse set.

Trey Ratcliff -- A.K.A Stuck in Customs, Trey is an HDR pioneer and his work is inspiring legions of HDR fanatics. He also publishes online tutorials to get anyone in on the action that wants it..

Soffia Gisladóttir -- Soffia is another top photographer who publishes her methods into tutorials online. These have really opened my eyes into the power of photoshop.

G.Hjöll -- Incredible portraits, all with a very unique style & look.

Julia Fullerton-Batten -- Incredible portraits, some of famous people. Very much fine art, her photos are everywhere.

Andrea Giacobbe -- Surreality in portraits & fashion. Wild.

Helga Kvam -- top notch Icelandic landscape photographer.

Laura Travels -- A great photographer who travels a fair amount. Fantastic landscape photography.

Zena Holloway -- Underwater photography in a completely different direction.

Hamad Darwish -- Another world class photographer. Some of his photos are included with Windows Vista.

Jeff Sullivan -- A huge cache of incredible landscapes. Great talent.

Of course, there's plenty more that I could mention, but simply don't have time. You can find many of them in my Flickr contacts.

RIP Ollie

Current mood: nothin's gonna breaka my stride

My Olympus c-765 ultrazoom, Ollie, is dead.

He took a last gasp downloading photos to my computer before he died. His lens was permanently extended and wouldn't retract, respond to any buttons, or power off.

I took him in to the camera doctors at National Camera Exchange, who told me it would cost a minimum of $180, and 8 weeks turnaround from the factory. I purchased Ollie for about $230.

I took him home and did emergency screwdriver surgery. "Shit, I'm a mechanical engineer, and this appears to be a mechanical malfunction." Surgery did not have a postive outcome.

Ollie lived well. He took about 3500 photos, travelled to Michigan's UP, North Dakota's Badlands, the Boundary waters, the tops of mountains in Utah, Colorado, and British Colombia, Whidbey Island in Puget sound, the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Miami, and the desert of Arizona. He might've even taken naked pictures of girls...

No way I'm going without a camera. I was thinking about buyin a nice canon 20D, but I can't afford it with that Norway trip coming up, so minutes ago I bought Ollie's successor, SP-510 at Buydig.com. About the same price with more features. Buydig.com is also one of the highest rated online electronic stores according to consumer reports. Free Shipping!

Seriously. This year is getting expensive.....

Things I've learned

Picking wildflowers and transporting them over 220 miles to a girl scores big points.

Photo Diary + Trip Synopsis

I posted some photos from my trip on my flickr account HERE.

I'll try to give everyone a detailed recap here at some point in the near future, but I've got a ton of things to do around my apartment. AND catch up on sleep.

For the time being...

Tuesday: Sightsee around Denver. Drank some Fat Tires.
Wednesday: Copper Mountain. Sunny day, hard snow.
Thursday: Vail. 12" of snow. We skipped lunch to ski all day, and hit alot of the acclaimed backside bowls & basin, but missed at least half of the mountain without skiing the same run twice.
Friday: Winterpark. Some overnight powder, nice day, some wild tree skiing.
Saturday: Rest. Coors brewery, Red Rocks, Gentleman's Club.
Sunday: Breckenridge. 12" blizzard. Cold, but perfect snow. Nail biting 5 hour drive to the airport to catch my flight. Got home around 1:30am.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back, I had a great trip.

More to come, I'm tired.

Fotos

So I bought a camera a few months ago. I'm still learning how it works, but
here are a few I've been happy with.

If you've got a flickr account as well, show me your genius.