View full gallery and purchase / license prints here…

Early morning light over landscape of myriad silhouetted karst towers, Yangshuo, Guilin, China (Dan Morris)

Sun rises over landscape of myriad silhouetted karst towers, Yangshuo, Guilin, China (Dan Morris)

Sun rises over landscape of myriad silhouetted karst towers, Yangshuo, Guilin, China (Dan Morris)

Early morning light over landscape of Yangshuo and myriad karst towers, Yangshuo, Guilin, China (Dan Morris)

Early morning light over landscape of rice paddies and myriad silhouetted karst towers, Yangshuo, Guilin, China (Dan Morris)

A British friend held a party Friday night in honor of the day’s wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton. All in attendance (of the party, that is) dressed as well-known Brits, past and present. I had so much fun shooting with my iPhone’s Hipstamatic app, I thought I would post the images here…

Thailand is well known as the land of smiles, beautiful beaches and incredible climbing on “Salvador Daliesque” limestone. What many do not know, however, is that the same conditions that create the endless climbable yellow and orange karst towers also create a fantastic network of underground caves. On arrival in Thailand, many adventurers head south to climb in the idyllic locations of Rai Leh (above left photo) and Koh Phi Phi. But those looking for something a little different should look to the northern hub of Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is the old capital of Siam (around 700 years ago).  It is world renowned for it’s myriad Buddhist temples and delicious Thai food. Just outside of this ancient city is an incredible limestone crag called Crazy Horse Buttress, developed by Josh Morris (full disclosure: my younger brother).  There, climbers will find a slew of climbs ranging from beginner to advanced (5 – 8a+).  But its inside the crag that the fun begins.

The Anxiety State Crisis Cave (Tham Wiung Fah) is a massive cavern, more than 70m deep, inside the limestone formation that makes up Crazy Horse Buttress.  Perhaps the most incredible climb I’ve ever done can be found here.  Anxiety State Crisis (7a, see bottom photo) takes a line up a featured pillar in the center of the cave. Alternatively, for those looking to go down, just left of the climb’s start is a hole leading even explorers even deeper.  Proper caving rigs are required to descend into and ascend out of this pit (see below photo).

The staff at Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures (CMRCA) adventures offer a wealth of information on adventuring in the areas surrounding Chiang Mai.  Whether you are a newcomer wanting to try caving / climbing, or a veteran, they offer courses, gear rental and valuable advice.  Check out their website to get the latest info on caving expeditions.

Here’s a short video showing a few of CMRCA’s latest caving exploits:

I recently partnered up with photographer Chris Noble on a shoot for Norweigian magazine, Fri Flyt. Magnus Midtbo, currently ranked fifth in the world of sport climbing, was flown in for a portrait session in my studio.

For more about the shoot, see the post here.

On 23 January 2011, The Westboro Baptist Church paid a visit to Salt Lake City in order to picket Jews, Episcopals, Mormons, the Sundance Film Festival & a high school. While photographing and filming the picket party at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Salt Lake, I had a moment to speak with Fred Phelp’s daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper.  She agreed to bring her group to my photo studio for a quick 20 minute portrait session.

The image below is of Pastor Fred Phelps’ granddaughter Jael Phelps. The images in this gallery speak to the ability of religions to convince otherwise normal people to do strange and, in this case, hateful things.

View the entire gallery and / or license images here.

To see my earlier post on their protest which features a musical mini-documentary on the WBC, click here.

On February 28, 2011 I photographed a protest in support of Tim DeChristopher, also known as Bidder # 70.  Among the dignitaries in attendance, were Peter Yarrow, of Peter Paul and Mary, and celebrity Darryl Hannah.  The protest was held in downtown Salt Lake City outside the Federal Courthouse.  This trial has attracted an international audience, and numerous federal police officers as well as bomb-sniffing dogs were on hand to keep the peace.

Tim DeChristopher is facing ten years in prison on two felony charges for derailing an illegal sale of public land from the outgoing Bush administration to private oil and gas developers. The government is embarrassed by this very public trial, but Tim has refused any kind of plea bargain as he thinks “a jury of his peers should decide if he was justified in defying an unjust system that is dooming us to an unliveable future.”

For more information about his trial and how you can help, please visit www.peacefuluprising.org.

View the entire gallery and/or license images here.

View the entire photo gallery and / or  license images here.

Ever since they made headlines in 1998 with their controversial picket of Matthew Shepard’s funeral, I have followed the Westboro Baptist Church with near-morbid fascination. Originally infamous for their website godhatesfags.com, in the last decade, they have expanded their online presence to include the many other subjects of God’s hate, including: American Soldiers, Jews, President Obama, Catholics, the media to name a few.  With an annual travel budget of over $200,000, they have the opportunity to picket as many as 6 to 15 locations per day in all 50 states, often targeting funerals of homosexuals and fallen soldiers. With all of this controversy, questions naturally arise regarding excessive free time, and the tax free status of religious organizations.

Perhaps the strangest site in their online quiver is godhatestheworld.com.  On this website, the user can select a country on an interactive map of the world and see a detailed explanation of why God hates said country. The reason for god’s hatred usually takes some form of homosexually permissive argument ad infinitum.  Take Italy, for example.  According to godhatestheworld.com, “There are no sodomy laws in Italy. There are no laws against fags in the military and the age of ‘consent’ is 14. Or, better stated, the expected age to which you can fornicate your brains out is 14…”  Or Papua New Guinea, a seemingly harmless country struggling to shed it’s 3rd world staganation, “PNG is a HOT MESS! With the protection of little to no police, civilians are left to fend for themselves. Citizens are not covered with adequate health care and diseases roam the land. Of course, you can’t ignore the many natural disasters that occur on frequent intervals in the land. God has brought His wrath down on these people and they are too blind to see it past all their voodoo nonsense. PNG is doomed!” It seems hard to argue with that logic (?). Strangely, their map currently has every country covered except for Suriname, Iceland, Latvia, Sierra Leone, Western Sahara, Kyrgystan and last, but least only in size, Lesotho. Each of these countries is labeled, “coming soon.” Apparently the jury is still out.

I was surprised when a friend mentioned to me that the WBC would be picketing not only in my hometown of Salt Lake City, but that they would be starting their picket early Sunday morning at the synagogue where I was Bar Mitzvahed. Although I have long since left religion behind, I couldn’t resist this opportunity to see them in action, this time at a location with which I was very familiar.  Not surprisingly for a Sunday morning at a synagogue, there was no one there, save 6 members of the WBC, one videographer and one photographer (yours truly).  I then followed them to St. Mark’s Cathedral for their next protest.  There, I was able to speak with WBC member Shirley Phelps-Roper (Pastor Fred Phelps daughter). She was surprisingly cordial once I approached her.  We had a brief conversation about the music they were playing at the protest, some of which I later used in the mini-documentary featured above. After our chat, I was able to convince her to trek her picket party the few blocks over to my photography studio, where we had a short, 20 minute portrait session (stay tuned for this blog post – coming soon…).

Clearly this church considers any publicity to be good publicity.  But I am more interested in the driving force behind their desire for any such publicity.  What is it that drives the rage behind Pastor Fred Phelps’ sermons?  Why such a strong focus on homosexuality? What will be the future of this church when the storied leader passes? And lastly, are we really going to eat our babies?

View the entire photo gallery and / or  license images here.

I’ve done a number of shoots for Go Magazine.  This shoot of top saleswoman Liz Salinas took me to the bustling metropolis of Mexico City last August.  What a great city!  Great food and great locations for photos!  Kudos to the design team at Xango for the gorgeous layout!

Last summer I was sent on a shoot to Mexico City by a client.  After 3 days of shooting some high-profile salespeople, Dainon (my accompanying writer) and I  finally had some time to check out the sights and sounds of this amazing metropolis.

Once we had stuffed our bellies with Gringas (a kind of taco el pastor with cheese and pineapple), Dainon suggested that we see if there was a luchador match in town that night.  Our hotel concierge was kind enough to point out the main arena on a map and off we went.  We arrived an hour before the gates opened and purchased tickets from a dodgy looking lady who assured us that the tickets were legitimate.  With nothing to do for an hour, we popped across the street to a quaint little bar where we sipped margaritas as a one man band serenaded us with music that was trite, at best.

A slightly tipsy hour later, the gates to the match opened.  Out front, we were immediately accosted by security who wouldn’t allow us to bring in our camera gear. I told them we were there with an American magazine and asked to speak to the head of their PR department.  This turned out to be quite fortuitous, as she promptly came out and escorted us to stellar press seats, giving us back-stage passes as well. It was an interesting experience to say the least.  Meeting the superstar luchadors backstage was a great experience. But I think the highlight of the evening had to be when the midget dressed in a blue and yellow gorilla-suit joined in the fracas – true story…

View the image archive, purchase prints or license the above images here.