SALT LAKE CITY POTPOURRI

Despite its conservative reputation, Salt Lake City is a vibrant community with a growing economy, an increased emphasis on technology, and a good deal of new construction.  Following our recent visit there, I thought I would include a post of some general (though certainly not representative) scenes of the city.

First up, a shot of the LDS temple, a dominating feature of the downtown area.

This is an "end view" of the building, which I found more interesting than a broader side view.  I would love to see--and photograph--the temple's interior, but, since admission is generally limited to LDS members in good (and perhaps high) standing, that is not going to happen.  Still the temple has an exterior that is more than normally interesting for a religious venue, despite its lack of representational sculpture (other than the golden sculpture of the angel Maroni at the top of the highest pinnacle).

And here is one of a series of specially trimmed trees on the grounds of the LDS temple area.

What caught my eye was not so much the way the branches had been trimmed but the corresponding pattern of their shadows on the lawn.

As I mentioned, Salt Lake City has experienced a significant amount of new commercial construction.  Here are a couple examples of that.  The first is really more of an abstract, reflecting a neighboring structure.

The second is intended not to feature the building in the background (not the same building that appears in the photo above) but the shoes in the foreground that had been tossed over utility lines.

This was shot at a wide-open aperture of f/4 which blurred the background.  My only disappointment with this shot was that I wish the shoes had been facing into the image rather than out.

Whoops.  I guess the above is not exactly new construction, but I liked it for its decrepitude.  It also includes those same shoes featured in the prior shot.

As a sort of interlude, here is a set of soda crates outside of secondhand shop that caught my eye.

I think these were actually for sale.

Salt Lake City appears to have a vibrant graffiti/public art community.  There are pockets in the downtown area where so-called public artists appear to have been given nearly free rein.  Here are some examples.  These are too stylized and studied to be considered graffiti.

I especially liked these final two photos.  The last particularly came out well, despite the presence of the car in the lower right that I would have preferred not be there.  The building in the background actually looks fake, in part, I think, because it is essentially the color of the sky but is separated from the sky by a bank of white clouds.

John