My Photographic Evolution

I think it’s funny to look back at the “Edits” folder of my computer. That’s where I keep any photo I shot that I took a few extra minutes to make sure it looked good enough to share. Since it’s organized by date, it’s very easy to notice the trends I’ve gone through in just the past year.

You can tell just by stepping back and looking at the bunch as a whole where I first learned about Vibrance/Saturation in Photoshop CS4, as well as when I took the saturations to extremes. Then there was the heavy editing thanks to automated actions you could download from all over the web, followed by the heavy vignettes. There’s lots of panoramics and night shots, as well. Eventually came the HDRs followed by the use of Topaz Adjust to bring out single images into HDR-like fashions; not to mention long exposures, fast exposures and time-lapses.

Now, I’m into letterbox-style black borders. Why? I have no idea, aside from the fact that I’ve seen a few photographers (see here, here and here). Maybe it’s how they turn into a square. Perhaps it’s the contrast. Like I said before, I have no idea – I just like it.

…at least for now. We’ll see what happens next month.

Anyway, I’ve been busy playing with some older photos and taking some new ones this week and last. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

This little dandy was hiding deep in one of my Coeur d’Alene folders. Shots like this make me miss my drive to work in Idaho, all along Coeur d’Alene Lake Drive.

This was at sunset tonight. Holy friggin’ moly it was insane! I didn’t think I’d get it to look nice at all, and especially since I didn’t have my tripod handy. But I guess I was wrong…

I have wanted to shoot this photo since first moving to Portland, especially after seeing some awesome images of this same vantage all over flickr. Tonight was my night! This is actually an HDR of three separate 15-second exposures (+1, 0, –1).

From the same spot as above, overlooking downtown Portland from the top of OHSU. I had never been up here before until tonight, and I can’t wait to go back again! (Looks WAY better large!)

New edit of an old shot: This was from back when John came to visit. A little too dark for my taste, but I think that’s probably why I kind of like it, it’s not my normal edit.

And lastly, one of my favorite shots ever with an updated edit. This is probably my best “journalistic” shot, as I was on a police ride-a-long for a page design I thought might look nice. I borrowed a Canon from school and rode with a cop (who I actually went to middle school with, oddly enough).

Portland Clouds

I went to the Pittock Mansion this afternoon for one specific idea: A time lapse video of the clouds moving over downtown Portland. I took one photo every 15 seconds for 35 minutes.

Low and behold, it didn’t turn out so bad.

Crown Point

On Wednesday I was going to drive out to Cannon Beach for some photos and spend the afternoon with Holly. Well, unbeknownst to me, she already had plans – so, I was going to go alone. But after thinking about it, I really didn’t want to. Besides, the coast was supposed to get rainy in the evening and I wanted a sunset photo anyway.

Instead, I waited a few hours until close to twilight and drove up to the Crown Point Vista House, roughly a 30 minute drive from our house. Now, the only reason I even knew about this building and the subsequent stellar view was from this photo on Flickr, taken by one of my new favorite photographers, Andrew Curtis.

I wanted to capture something similar, but alas, the cloud cover would not allow it. Rather, I was able to capture these three little beauties:

I never thought I’d be able to get the clouds look so nice during a sunset. After seeing this guy’s shots of the sunset at Fenway Park in Boston, I really had the itch for it. So, obviously an HDR was the only way to go and I’m fairly happy with my results.

 
A nice little 15-second exposure of the building and moving clouds. The moon was peeking through at moments, but my favorite part of this photo is the red light on the security camera screen. It’s easier to see when viewed large. You can also see some stars poking through in the larger version.

 
This is actually three images merged together. Since I was so close to the building I couldn’t get the entire window set and moon in the frame. I really like the cloud movement in this, but I’m not so sure about the way the building is slightly rotated in the frame. I was on my hands and knees in a parking lot with cars driving close behind, so I didn’t have much safe time to experiment.

More Portland Photos

I keep seeing awesome photos on Flickr that were shot around Portland. This only inspires me. It’s gotten to the point that I think about taking pictures more than anything else. When I grab my baseball gear for Little League practice I contemplate bringing my camera “just in case.” Just in case of what? I have no idea.

Anyway, here is some of the stuff I’ve been up to lately:

Click here to view this larger (it looks much better big). I went down to the waterfront again last night after seeing some sweet shots online. It had been a while since I shot a pano, let alone a waterfront photo of Portland.

 
I had driven up to the Pittock Mansion to test out some new settings on my camera one night. When I walked back to the empty parking lot after a heavy fog rolled in, I was greeted with this. The back lights of the Jeep flashed a few times because I pressed the unlock button on my key.

 
This didn’t come out the way I wanted. I will go back soon.

 
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky this day! I’ve been meaning to get down to the waterfront so I can snap a nice evening photo with lots of clouds flying around, but this was a pleasant surprise. It was so incredibly blue and clear I was just as happy.

I shot this on the way back to my car after shooting the one just above it. It’s hard to see, but there are cars flying by the freeway bridges in the background (as well as the busy road to the left of me as I shot this).

 
Yet another waterfront photo. This huge yellow tree has always intrigued me, but this attempt didn’t come out as nice as I had hoped.

More Photos

With all that’s going on around me lately it seems that this blog has been at the very back of my mind (unlike this time last year, when it was indeed at the forefront of everything I did). However, I’ve been busy with work, trying to more work, bouncing between Coeur d’Alene and Portland to visit my grandpa, not to mention preparing for the upcoming Little League season (more on that later).

Nevertheless, I definitely have been taking photos.

With my newfound obsession inside the wide world of Flickr, I’ve been following other local photographers religiously. It’s especially intriguing to me how others shoot the same landmarks, as their perspective is often times quite different than my own. Long story short: I love my camera again.

As for my recent stuff, I’ve leaned pretty heavy on the HDR and processing in Photomatix and Photoshop CS4 with Topaz Adjust. I think I’m going to try and back off the Topaz Adjust a little bit, however, and maybe try the HDR a little less. I know it looks pretty sweet sometimes, but more often than not the photos just look fake. Even some of the amazing photographers I’ve seen sometimes overdo the HDR. But maybe I’m wrong. Who knows. I don’t really care, as long as the picture looks good.

Lately, though, I’ve finally started exploring parts of Portland I’ve only seen through Flickr. Photographers like Aaron Reed, Andrew Curtis and Zeb Andrews have chronicled some of the best Portland imagery, and it’s by following their Flickr Photostreams that I see where the best views can be attained. I’ve learned a great deal about my camera and how to use it better by attempting to imitate some of their shots before looking for my own.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to lately. Seems I’ve got a love affair with Portland-area bridges:

Underneath the on-ramps an off-ramps of the Fremont Bridge.

Mt. Hood behind downtown Portland.

Looking up from the ground at the bottom of the St. Johns Bridge.

  
Silhouette of the St. Johns Bridge at sunset.

 
From the hillside at the south end of the St. Johns Bridge. In case you can’t tell, I love this bridge!

 
Fremont Bridge just after sunset. I think it looks fake because the sky turned out so incredibly blue. Oh well, what can you do? Not a cloud in the sky…

Save the Date

Now that Holly and I have finally got things organized concerning all things wedding-related, our Save The Date cards should be in the mail any day. That being said, here is a sneak preview of the card I created for our STDs (I’m not too fond of that acronym). The people at the Crystal Ballroom let me sneak out on their balcony to shoot the photo, and then a few minutes in Photoshop let me change the reader board text to a more fitting sign.

I know Holly probably wanted everybody to wait until they got this in the mail, but I just couldn’t hold back any longer!

More Portland-Area Photos

Here are some more photos I’ve taken lately in and around the Portland area. After seeing so many great shots on Flickr, I’ve gotten the itch to get out as much as possible. I now have a huge list of photos I want to shoot thanks to seeing what others are doing in the same areas.

Here is what I’ve been up to lately:

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

There is a technique among photographers that turns high-contrasting scenes into seamless masterpieces. It’s called High Dynamic Range, or HDR for short. Here is a simple breakdown of what happens:

Let’s say that you want to take a picture of a cityscape next to the river. What’s more, you want to do this in very low light. You want the lights on the building to show perfect, the water to reflect perfect and the sky to come out perfect as well. Unfortunately, most cameras simply aren’t capable of creating such an image. Either the highlights get washed out when the shadows are perfect or vice versa.

That’s where HDR comes in handy.

If you are creating an HDR image, you are going to take separate photos at different exposures before merging them all together. One photo will be underexposed, one perfect while another may be overexposed. When you merge the three together in a program like Photoshop or Photomatix, the best parts of each photo show up in the end.

And that is what I did this morning. When I woke up at 6 a.m. for reasons unbeknownst to me, I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I decided to be productive. I had seen many phenomenal photos on Flickr taken from the same spot down on the river. I tried to mimic them the other night, but to no avail. (Here is my favorite photo on Flickr of this scene).

Instead, I got an overall dark image. Here is my first version from the other night:

I got down there a little later than I had planned, but still gave it a whack. You can’t even see the pilings in the dark, and I even tried using my flash. No dice.

So, this morning, as I laid awake in bed thinking of how to be productive at 6 a.m. in the morning (without waking Holly, of course!), I decided to get the same photo as the sun came up. That way I could get the best light possible.

I was stoked when I got down there just before it got real bright out. I figured an HDR would be the best way to get all the elements I wanted, so I took dozens of the same exact shot. When I loaded them up in Photoshop CS4 afterward, they just didn't impress me.

But then I remembered a friend who always talked up Photomatix, so I downloaded that to see what I could do.

Voila!

I think I am love. I went back and ran another image through Photomatix instead of Photoshop, and I loved the results! Here is the HDR image that I shot this morning. Without a doubt, I have to say this is probably the greatest photo I’ve ever made – and it’s all thanks to HDR:

 
View it larger on my Fickr page here.

Cougars All-Access

When it comes to recording television on my computer, I am completely inept. And thus, for my Fox Sports Northwest acting debut, I just filmed the tv with Holly’s camera. What’s more, since my computer has been so incredibly slow lately, I was forced to piece together the three clips with Windows Movie Maker

Jake on Cougars All-Access from Jake Donahue on Vimeo.

Who let the monkey out?

On Saturday the lowly Washington State Cougars faced off in Autzen Stadium in Eugene against the Oregon Ducks – and it was a friggin’ bloodbath. Knowing this, I decided to be as big a WSU fan as I could – after all, the Cougs needed all the support they could get.

So, I threw on my cougar shirt, some red shorts and tied a Wazzu blanket on my back as a cape. Not owning a Cougar mask, I did the next best thing: dawn a gorilla mask!

As you can tell from the photo, I wasn’t pretty. But I scared the hell out of Puddles (the Ducks’ mascot). Look at the left eye on his costume. Notice anything funny? I know it’s hard to tell from the photo it’s upside down. Yeah, I can’t prove it, but I like to think I scared him enough it popped off because of me.

But my crowning achievement may have come in front of a camera. The crew from Fox Sports Northwest’s weekly show “Cougars All-Access” taped me yelling, “Don’t go anywhere! Cougars All-Access will be right back!” The show is on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

What’s more, I must have posed in front of at least 20 separate cameras as people kept asking for my picture. Everywhere Ben, Jeff and I walked, we were stared at. Or, maybe, they were looking at my mask.

But I was a celebrity. Even if it was only for one afternoon!

Driving Me Crazy

No joke, every single bad maneuver I’ve seen on the roadways in the past week reared a similar license plate as the one above!

Now, I’ve always given people the benefit of the doubt. One Washingtonian nearly swerving into me out of nowhere? Just a fluke. Another Spokanite driving 25 in a 55? Coincidence.

But damn near 10 mishaps in just a week? It’s a trend, I say, a TREND!

And I’ve noticed it not just in the Coeur d’Alene area. Sure, we’ve always assumed the poor drivers and beach hogs swarmed from Spokane, but I’ve noticed these demented drivers all the way to Portland and the highways in between. Sure, Oregonians are no textbook travelers (of course, not everybody can drive like those in Idaho), but nobody is worse than Washington.

It now embarrasses me to admit Seattle as my birthplace.

Back in Oregon … for good

I finally finished my hellish U-haul trailer move back to the Hippy state today. After driving to Coeur d’Alene last Wednesday for what looked to be a three-day pack, clean and move, today I made it back to Holly and our new apartment a week late.

Yeah, a week.

It started with a snafu concerning my drivers license and an online fee I owed to Boise DMV (long story, more later). Throw in a botched paycheck followed by no U-haul trailers available in Coeur d’Alene, and my final move was failing miserably.

Finally, though, a trailer popped up at the last minute just 20 minutes north of Cd’A in Rathdrum. I had to wait 2 hours, and then another 30 minutes after showing up (the girl working had to call her dad from home to come load the trailer). After accidentally backing up too far and into the trailer, we spent another 20 minutes getting the hitch to lock – in the 95 degree heat.

Finally, I was ready; it was time to go load this bad boy. As I pulled away from the parking lot, I hopped out one last time to check the trailer and hitch. Then the only thing that could possibly cap off a day like this would be to lock my keys in the Jeep…

Holy God, I jinxed myself without even knowing it. As I shut the door to the RUNNING Jeep, it somehow automatically locked. Sweet. Perfect. But, of course.

Thankfully, Rathdrum Police fixed the scenario in under 20 minutes for free!

And thus, this morning I ventured southwest toward The Rose City and my fiancée:

Parked along the Columbia River to take a photo of the wind mills.


I’ve been meaning to stop and shoot these things for a long time. They’re friggin’ HUGE! Each spoke off the fan has to be hauled by an extra-long semi truck.


The viewpoint over the Columbia River.


Panoramic shot of the Columbia from the viewpoint above. Six shots merged together made this little beauty. (Click on it to see it larger)


It was insanely hot!

Coeur d’Alene or Bust

It was my final trip back to Coeur d’Alene while still a resident of North Idaho, so I took my time driving from Portland toward Canada. I stopped at Multnomah Falls again (see below, compared to last year), although I think I like the photo from last year better.

Driving the new Jeep was also pretty much awesome; it was so incredibly smooth and very nice to sit in for over six hours, I must admit that even with an average gas mileage of just under 18 miles-per-gallon, it was well worth the added comfort.

Here is Mt. Hood (I think…) from my side mirror as I drove along the Columbia River:

Following that, I was incredibly interested in how things looked through the side mirror (almost too interested, as I hit the rumble strip along the side of the freeway once or twice whilst gazing behind). I couldn’t believe how clear things were, but what caught me the most was looking at a picture-in-a-picture; I will definitely try more of these:

So, even though it was hot, and I turned the AC off while climbing up the hills, the warm breeze wasn’t all bad. I couldn’t open the sunroom since it was mid-day and I feared burning my ears and arms, but the trip overall was quite pleasant. I seem to like driving long distances alone much better than previous endeavors, except when I want to show someone a mini-tornado – I guess the next best thing is simply to snap a photo so people don’t think I’m a lunatic. Right behind a tractor, there swirled one of the biggest dirt twisters I’ve seen in a long time:

Almost time

Well, it's roughly one week until I move for the 20th time in my life. Here's a simple breakdown of where I've lived (and in what order):

1- Green Lake, WA (Seattle): East Green Lake Dr.
2- Lynwood, WA (Seattle): 67th Ave. West
3- Coeur d'Alene, ID: E. E. Sunnyside Rd.
4- Coeur d'Alene, ID: N. 7th Street
5- Coeur d'Alene, ID: N. 6th Street
6- Junction City, OR: Prairie Rd.
7- Corvallis, OR: 25th Street
9- Corvallis, OR: 26th Street
10- Eugene, OR: High Street
11- Coeur d'Alene, ID: E. Sunnyside Rd.
12- Coeur d'Alene, ID: 13th Street
13-Coeur d'Alene, ID: Wedgewood Loop
14- Coeur d'Alene, ID: E. Sunnyside Rd.
15- Junction City, OR: Hattie Ave.
16- Eugene, OR: 17th Street
17- Eugene, OR: Broadway Ave
18: Eugene, OR: Austin Way
19: Coeur d'Alene, ID: Hattie Ave
20: Coeur d'Alene, ID: E. Sunnyside Rd.

And starting July 13th, my new home will be here:

21: Portland, OR: Barnes Rd.



View Larger Map


Whew! At first I thought I had only lived in about 10 separate houses, but I'm blown away at the fact that I've lived in 20 different places! (Well, 16 actual houses, since I moved into my Grandparent's place in Cd'A a few times...). And the weird thing is I can name the address for almost every one of those residences!

It's bittersweet, to say the least. Moving away from Coeur d'Alene, that is. I've always considered this my home; no matter where I lived at the time, I told people, "I live in (BLANK), but I'm from Coeur d'Alene," -- even though I was born and raised in Seattle until I was nine. Nevertheless, I expected to spend my entire life in North Idaho: get married, pump out some Jakelings and coach Coeur d'Alene Little League until I was 90.

That all changed a few years ago when I started dating the woman I knew I would marry from Day 1. Hell, we joked about getting married all the way back in high school, so you could say I expected good things when I started dating one of my best friends. Thus, for the past three years I knew my life-long dream of a Coeur d'Alene existence was in jeopardy -- especially when I moved to Eugene, OR, to be with her.

But, Holly actually surprised me when she moved to Cd'A with me. I knew it wouldn't last, but she did give it a solid eight months before headed back to hippy land (i.e. Oregon). And so, once more, I'm moving to Oregon to be with her. This time, though, I know there's no coming back.

And I have no problem with that.

You see, I finally realized that I can have the greatest life ever as long as she's with me, and Coeur d'Alene is a place we can still come visit. In fact, after moving to Oregon early July, I'll be returning to North Idaho at least 4-5 times before January. So a life in Portland (the biggest city in a state I've boisterously denounced for years) looks to be the greatest accomplishment of my life. I'll be starting a family with my best friend (wedding is sometime in early 2010, more details on that later) and I'm actually looking forward to living in a big city again.

So, while Coeur d'Alene will always be where I'm from, Portland looks to reign on top from here. And I've never been more excited about anything in my life.