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).

Quick Break

Anymore it is far too easy to get my mind off track. I’m supposed to be working on a project I have due tomorrow, and it will likely take most of the day. So it makes total sense that I would get up in the middle of it all just to go outside and take a photo, for no other reason than to alleviate an urge that suddenly overwhelmed me.

And it wasn’t anything special, either. Just a panoramic down the road:

 
Click to view larger.

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.

Finally: Portland’s Best View

Ever since moving here, I’ve wanted nothing more than to find a spot where I can take a picture of Portland as a whole. And since I live in the western hills, that should have been easy, right? Wrong.

However, if only I had taken a trail just off the road we drive seemingly every day, I would have found this:

Getting Mt. Hood in the background was more of a bonus than I could have imagined. I forgot how prominent the major peak was even from Portland. So, my new favorite viewpoint is behind the Pittock Mansion.

It’s been so clear oustside lately (not to mention so cold!), I imagine this must be one of the best views of the entire region at this time of the year. Here’s the picturesque scene just as I arrived before sunset:

John’s Portland Trip

I forgot to post this when I put photos up a couple weeks ago, but something pretty sweet happened during John’s inaugural Portland visit: We won free tickets to a Blazers game at a bar raffle, just two hours before tipoff. Even better, the tickets were located in the Lexus Room, the level where people get all-you-can-eat free food and (sadly) non-alcoholic drinks.

Nevertheless, it was an awesome time. John had never been to an NBA game while I had only seen one, yet amidst everything we still left at halftime (the Blazers sucked that night, anyway).

Here are some of the shots I got from our corner seats, including an obvious indoor panoramic (As always, click to view larger):

 

Portland at Night

My buddy John flew into Portland today from Coeur d’Alene. He’s one of my groomsmen, not to mention a great photographer with a nice camera. So, I felt it painstakingly obvious that we should spend the afternoon at the waterfront by a city he’s never seen.

And, it was great.

His photos turned out amazing, especially when leaving the shutter open and using his zoom. There was a nice, very old gentleman by the water who informed us of the trick, one that we spend quite a while experimenting with.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist the temptation to churn out another panoramic of the Portland skyline, especially since this was a new vantage along the river I had yet to view.

As always, click to view it larger.

 
Cars on the Steel Bridge.

Moon over the Steel Bridge.

University of Texas

One thing I looked forward to more than most things in Austin was the University of Texas, home of the Longhorns. Their football team is currently ranked second in the country, and I was begging the BCS Gods they might be playing at home last weekend.

Alas, they were at Oklahoma State.

Nevertheless, Nils and I still wanted to see if we might get inside the stadium. So, with Loren, Mike and Paul, we trekked toward the 102,000-seat football cathedral on our last day in town.

Surprisingly, the front doors to the main office at the stadium were open. We went through every door that was open once inside, up every flight of stairs until we realized Nils was gone. Five minutes later, he returned, and motioned for us to follow him.

Apparently he fell into the PR office and weaseled one of the PR guys to give us a tour of the press box. And just like that, we were in.

Here’s the panorama I got from inside the stadium:

 
As always, click to view it larger.

Inside the Capital

The Sentinel News Editor and I moseyed on over to the Capital Building this afternoon to take some photos. Here is a panoramic I made from 11 photos I took on the 4th story inside the dome.

Panoramic

Here is the photo I wanted to take the last time I was in Chicago. Phil and I spent over an hour looking for Garret’s famous popcorn, and after three failed attempts we asked for directions. However, the final destination brought us by this spot along the river, and even though it was mid-afternoon, I figured a decent night shot was to be had.

Anyway, I would like to discover a way in which I merged the photos together without bending the tops of buildings. But for now, I’m happy with this (as always, click the photo for a larger view).

Portland Panoramic

Even though I’ve been sick the past two days, I had an urge to go downtown tonight. Since I finally found a perfect spot to snap a photo of Portland’s downtown skyline, I wanted to take another shot.

Here is what I got last time when I found a dock next to OMSI (after a pretty big edit, of course) when my sister and her boyfriend came to visit last week:

Here is tonight’s shot:

Next time I hope to get to this spot earlier and stay longer. Of course, it will help to have a tripod and leave the shutter open longer when it’s dark, as that is the one photo I really want: Portland at night.

The only problem with this time of day is the large groups of people in row boats – apparently crew is quite large on the river. They ruined most of my photos today (not the one above, thankfully), so maybe next time I will try to make them look good in the frame.

We’ll see.

Cannon Beach

I had the privilege of showing the Portland area to a fellow Poynter alum this weekend, and although I still consider myself a tourist in this city, I’m pretty sure yesterday was the perfect cap off to popping someone’s Oregon cherry.
After sleeping in, watching NFL all morning and early afternoon, we bounced over to Cannon Beach to see Haystack Rock and clam chowder at Mo’s.
The sun was far from shining, but since nobody was on the beach I finally was able to get the panoramic of Haystack I’ve wanted to for quite some time. It’s nothing special (if anything, I oversaturated another photo!), but I tried a technique I’ve heard of before: The name avoids me at this time, but I took three series of photos at separate settings and merged them into one photo.
And, voila:
 
Click on the photo to view it larger

Chi-town

It took us three hours to drive from Indy to Chicago, and another two getting from the suburbs to downtown. Our hotel was insanely nice, and our guide, David (a colleague of Nils’), was an excellent guide – he also arranged for the killer deal at our hotel.

I ate Armenian food for the first time, got some sweet shots of skyscrapers and fulfilled a childhood dream: visiting Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. (Those photos soon)

Here are the best photos from my camera during our trip, but Eli also took some nice pictures (see his blog here).

Willis Tower (formerly Sears), right, with the sun peeking through.

Main Lobby of the Willis Tower. All the flags represent Olympic teams that would come if Chicago wins their bid for the 2016 summer games.

This reminded me of Coeur d’Alene’s “Moose on the Loose” program.

This time it was posed. This time…

Three-photo vertical panoramic shot of the Willis Tower. It cost $24 to go to the observation deck, but the line wrapped around the block and we were told the Hancock Building next to our hotel offered the city’s best views – especially the women’s restroom, which we were unable to attain entry – and they were right.

Best Chicago Photo

OK, here is my favorite Chicago photo before I wait to upload the rest. Nils, Eli and I climbed up 96 floors (well, we rode the elevator) to The Signature Lounge of the John Hancock Building.

Long story short (I will explain the entire trip later), we looked at the best view Chicago has to offer from a bar:

PS: Click on the photo to view it much larger

Chicago

Here are just a couple of the photos I’ve taken while in Chicago. I will throw some more up when I get back in town. Anyway, I’m really getting obsessed with panoramic shots (obviously…).

What’s more, I’ll be back in Chi Town in almost a month. But more to come on this trip in a day or so.

This is a pano from below a bunch of tall buildings.

One of the elevated trains… They filmed “Batman: The Dark Night” in Chicago and one of the scenes was near this corner.

Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field!! Such an awesome game!

There will be lots more photos to come, as well as a synopsis as the point of our entire trip and why I went from Portland to Coeur d’Alene to Spokane to Indianapolis to Chicago.

Coeur d’Alene mountains

Yesterday my cousin Gene told me about a 70-foot tall ranger station way out past Fernan Mountain. So, he took off from work early and we spent two hours driving up to the rickety old station, which hasn’t been used since the ‘70s. They’re going to tear the thing down in the near future because of the liability it poses (it’s old as hell and ready to break – but I still felt safe … for the most part).
Anyway, we got some cool photos of it, not to mention a moose sighting right off the bat. We chased it in the truck for about a quarter mile trying to get alongside it for a cool photo, but a truck came barreling in the opposite direction and spooked it up the hill.




And lastly, but definitely not least, this little Idaho-shaped rock:

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!