Portland Sunset

After two very hot days clouds made their way into Portland last Tuesday. By around 6pm I knew it was going to be a great sunset so I headed down to the Portland waterfront with my friend Lauren. I love nights like these in Portland.

Adventure Day: Ecola Beach

It’s been awhile since Mike and I have gone on an adventure together. In typical adventure day fashion Mike asks me last-minute at 12pm if I want to go to the coast. I had planned on spending the day editing photos but a day at the coast sounded better. We get to the coast and it’s a torrential downpour and very windy. I kind of liked it though (despite my face below which was actually due to all the wind and rain hitting my face, haha). We ended up going on the short hike which takes you down to Ecola Beach. By the time we got down to the beach the storm had broken and clear sky began to peak through . . . just in time for the sunset.

To end our adventure we stopped at Pizza a’ fetta in Canon Beach for some amazing pizza and great conversations with the owner. He gave us a lot of great adventure locations for the future.

Amazing Sunday Dinner Parties

It’s been way to long since I’ve posted anything. It’s not that I haven’t been going on any adventures. I’ve actually been going on a lot. Just haven’t had time to post any photos or write about them. That’s going to change though. Expect more posts in the coming days.

A couple months ago my friends Lauren, Kevin and Josh started this awesome tradition of having friends over every Sunday for a potluck dinner. Last week the theme for the dinner was raw dishes so it was decided that this weeks theme would be the exact opposite; fried food. All delicious food.

The dinner is always followed by a game of Celebrity. For those who don’t know the game it basically consists of you putting 5 or so famous names in a bowl and then playing charades trying to guess the names. There are three rounds. The first round you can do charades and say any word that isn’t part of the name. The second round you can only say one word plus charades. And the last round you can only do charades. It ends up getting pretty funny by the last round.

Then we finish off the night by either going to Moon and Sixpence or the Ambassador for karaoke.

I believe this coming week we plan on having a murder mystery dinner party.

Sunrises: Fremont Bridge

Success . . . finally made it to sleep.

This past week I went down to the north waterfront twice to catch the sunrise. The first day I found a nice grassy patch to shoot that jetted out into the water a little bit. It was held up by a 30-40 foot retaining wall. I spent most of that morning sitting on the retaining wall thinking how great of a spot it would be to watch a sunrise . . . if there was one.

Not getting my fill of a sunrise I begrudgingly  forced myself out of bed the following morning to try again. When I got to the site I noticed a huge difference but due to my still groggy sleepy state I couldn’t figure out what was different. I got my tripod out and headed to the spot where I had shot before and that’s when it hit me. Where I was standing the previous day was now, in a huge landslide, 30-40 feet below in the water. It made me pretty thankful it didn’t happen while I was sitting on the retaining wall the previous day.

In the photo below you can see the landslide. See the remaining retaining wall jutting out as well as the corner of the retaining wall now in the water? Those used to be connected and that’s where I was sitting. I guess I ate too much that morning and was more than the retaining wall could handle.

 

Sleepless night in a city that does sleep

Can’t sleep for some reason tonight. I went to sleep at 11pm and slept for an hour and a half only to wake up feeling like it was already morning. The wheels in my mind just keep turning. Ideas bombarding me from all sides. Too many good things happening in your life can make it hard to sleep.

Below are photos from down on the waterfront under the Hawthorne Bridge. I wanted to capture a new vantage point of the skyline and this is what I came up with.

For the photo above I rocked the zoom lens back and forth for half the exposure and then let it sit still at the wider end for the rest of the exposure. All shots were exposed for 30 seconds at f/8 using the 17-40mm f/4 L lens.

The holiday season is upon us.

Ultimate Frisbee: Autumn Pickup

For the past three years Tuesdays have been Ultimate Frisbee pickup day for my team, The Natural 20s. After a very wet weekend, this past Tuesday was a beautiful clear and warm day to play frisbee.

Sky Ablaze

This evening was a reminder that the opportunity for a great photo can come at any moment.

I’ve been sitting at my computer all day editing photos when I glance out my window around 4:30PM and the sky is ablaze and the pavement is a reflection of purples, reds and oranges. I quickly grab my camera and race down to the waterfront with hopes of getting a photo of the skyline with the amazing sunset behind it.

I’m almost at the waterfront when I get stopped at a red light. Looking up at the sky I know that the amazing sunset is on its way out and I’m not going to make it down to the waterfront in time. Instead I pull into the adjacent parking lot, jump out and get as much shots off as I can before the colors faded to dark grays.

I love stormy days like this. It pours all day creating rivers and lakes on my street and then just as dusk comes the rain ceases and blue sky appears to provide an amazing sunset.

Last Thursday: Street Fair

At the end of every month “Last Thursday” is held on Alberta street in NE Portland. It is huge (and continually growing) year round street fair and art showing. In the winter it is much smaller and the focus is more on the art galleries. In the great weather of summer it erupts and ends up being a display of how weird and awesome Portland is. Crowds pack the streets to take in the street performers, artists, and people dressed up in various costumes. At one point we passed a person dressed up as a robot that had a atari video game built into the costume. In all, it’s one of the best places to be for the last Thursday of the month.

If you know one of the performers in the video or if one of the performers is you let me know and I’ll give you credit.

This guy won best spandex.

I ran into some old high school friends, Allie and Kelsea.

Tech. info:

The video and stills were shot with the 5D Mark II and the Canon 35mm f/1.4 L lens. Video edited in Final Cut Pro 6, converted to 24P, and then taken into Photoshop to adjust the color and contrast.

beach trip: escaping the heat

On Tuesday I was sitting around with my friends after an ultimate frisbee pickup game and we were trying to decide what we should do to escape the heat. David and Jill had made plans to go surfing at the beach so they invited the rest of us along. Leaving the 107 degree weather in Portland we cruised into Cannon Beach which was a cool 85 degrees (which still felt really hot for the Oregon coast which usually is in the 50s and 60s). We stopped in town for some delicious ice cream and then headed out to Short Sands Beach. We ended up spending most of the time at the beach throwing around a frisbee in somewhat warm water (at least compared to what temperature it usually is). It was warm enough that we were actually able to stay in it for a good 30 minutes without getting frozen and numb.

Backpacking: Eastern Oregon – South Sisters Mt.

Exactly a week ago I took off for Eastern Oregon to go backpacking in the Sisters area with my good friends Eric and Nathan. Nathan had just flown in a couple days earlier from NYC, where he’s currently living. Our adventure started with us just trying to find the trail. We ended up walking about a half mile up the road only to finally realize the trail had started right across the street from where we had parked.

The mosquitos were quite annoying on the trip. Stop for a minute and they’d be swarming you. Eric had just gotten an iphone which ended up being very handy for having GPS and showing exactly where we were. The first day we hiked in about 5 miles and set up camp.

The second day we took off to hike up to the top of South Sister Mountain.

We had trouble finding the trail so we decided to just forge our own trail and went straight up. The result was a very steep climb with loose rocks and lots of glaciers to cross.

Our journey was cut short about 50-100 feet below the summit. Since we hadn’t taken a trail we ended up coming upon a big cliff between us and the summit.

On our way down we ended up just sliding down the rocks and then glissading/foot skiing down the glaciers. We stopped at a glacier fed pond/lake and jumped in. Surprising the water wasn’t as cold as we expected and it was quite refreshing to get all the dust off.