waldo sunset (nos. 1 and 2)

630-pm-waldo-lakeSusan and I went back to Waldo Lake this past weekend with the travel trailer; she in need of a connection to one of her sacred places, and I in search of foliage, woods and water. (We also wanted a good shakedown cruise with the trailer before winter sets in.) It was beautiful most of the time we were there, and with evening temperatures in the low 30s, we were glad for the heat and comfort of our new little house.

Photographically, I didn’t find much: we were at 5,500 feet, and most of the trees were evergreens, although there were stretches of vividly colored scrub brush sprinkled around the lake. In addition, the wind also kept the lake fairly choppy, which was disappointing, given how calm it was when I was there in late August.

I lucked out the last day we were there, as the winds died down and the late-afternoon skies had the promise of a spectacular sunset. Ultimately, however, the infamous “Kloskowski effect” wiped most of the clouds from the skies at about 6 pm. (“Damn you, Matt!”) Not long before the sun dropped below the horizon, I thought about returning to camp, but I told myself that it was worth the exercise of composing and exposing. It was also a beautiful night, regardless of the photo op, and when I did go back to the trailer, I came away with two images that I liked, taken about 30 minutes apart.

The first one was taken at 6:30, and there were some gorgeous pinks and blues in a small group of wispy clouds that had remained on the horizon (to the left of the setting sun). With the calm lake in the foreground, I underexposed a stop, to get some deeper color, and I ended up with what you see above.

I liked what I saw on the screen of my camera, and I kept shooting, but the best shots were still those first ones, so I started packing things up a little bit before 7 pm. The clouds had dispersed and there was only a fairly generic yellow glow where the sun had gone down, but the lake was still calm, and the blues of the skies were starting to contrast quite beautifully with the greens (and colorful scrub brush) of the pines along the shore. I ended up taking this shot (below) at 7:03, overexposing slightly to pick up some of the color in the trees.

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It always amazes me how much the skies can change in hue in the space of an hour (or less) at sunset, and it was good that I kept at it. I’m not sure which photo I like better, but I am glad I at least stuck to my guns: I walked out of the woods with something.

sunset, south waterfront

south-waterfront-sunset-panoramaI’m just now getting around to processing some of the images I’ve shot in the past year (things have been really busy), and this morning, I came across this one, a two-image panorama taken in February from the balcony in our old place. I loved (and still miss) the Richard-Scarry-esque views we had from the apartment; it truly was like watching the city pass by every day.

I did some lens correction on this inside Photoshop, to take the bend off the shed at the bottom of the frame. (I had to be careful, though; it’s easy to overdo the distortion correction.) I also worked with a few crop variations here–the original images had the OHSU building looming at the left of the frame–and this one seems like the best fit overall.

dawn, new mexico

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A few weeks ago, I drove down to New Mexico to pick up a trailer that Susan and I were buying. It was a long, crazy, two-and-a-half-day drive to get there, and I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about photos. On my last stretch, I left very early and was driving down the interstate when I noticed the beautiful dawn sky in the east. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I finally pulled over, got the tripod out and took a few shots before the light got too strong.

I loved the little wisp of haze, the deep blue of the sky, and the beginnings of bright sunlight on the horizon. Would have been nice to see a cloud or two (or the rising crescent moon), but I’ll take it.

(Click the image to see it bigger.)

clearing mist, waldo lake

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Recently, Sue and I spent some time camping at one of her favorite places, Waldo Lake. It’s a lovely part of Oregon, and we had a few beautiful days roaming around the lake. On this morning, the lake was beautiful and calm, with a gorgeous sky, albeit one with many contrails from the planes overhead–we can’t seem to miss that.

This two-image panorama was stitched in Lightroom CC and processed in black and white in the new ON1 Photo 10 app, which is coming soon. (Click on the images to see them larger.)

The color version is below. The panorama was exported at 6,000 pixels wide, but the iPhone shots are the originals. What’s interesting to me when I look at them is how painterly the leaves on the trees are. from a distance, the image looks very sharp. Close up, however, the leaves aren’t that at all. I don’t think this makes the image any less good; it’s just an interesting perspective.

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blue hour, chambers lake

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Susan and I went camping in the Goat Rocks Wilderness in central Washington this past weekend; we were planning to do a 12-mile hike on Saturday with some friends and wanted to spend some time camping as well. It felt great to get out of town, although with the spread of wildfires in the Pacific Northwest right now, it felt as if we were surrounded by smoke, especially for the last two days we were there.

Our camp was on Chambers Lake–more a small puddle than a lake–a few miles from the Goat Rocks trailhead. When we arrived Friday night, the winds had kept the skies clear, so I went down to the lake to set up the tripod and grab a few sunset and dusk shots. It was too early for the Milky Way, but I was able to find some stars in that beautiful blue hour.

When we woke up Saturday morning, the winds had shifted: the skies were brown, and you could smell the smoke. The 12-mile hike was difficult (lots of ‘up, up, up,’ with what didn’t seem like comparable ‘down, down, down’) and quite beautiful. We need to go back when it’s clear, because some of the vistas were stunning, and you knew you would be able to see for miles across the Cascades.

sunset, mykonos

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I didn’t exactly know what to expect when we went to Mykonos; I knew there would be beautiful blue water, beaches, and a quaint old village somewhere with white-washed exteriors and blue doors. I didn’t expect gorgeous rolling, arid hills with rock walls coralling sheep, goats, and the occasional cow or horse.

Our lodgings were an old windmill high up on a hill overlooking a gorgeous bay (stocked with expensive yachts and sailboats, no less), and we didn’t have to go far to find photo opportunities. The previous shot, at sunrise, was a short hike away from our windmill. This one was on the ridge opposite ours. We were hoping that we would get a beautiful full moon rising over the island, but it was too hazy on the horizon for that, so I changed my view, back along the stone wall in front of me. I snapped a few shots, and then, Hudson and I high-tailed it to the other side of the ridge to see if we could get a shot of the setting sun. I don’t think I really got anything post-worthy there, but I think Hudson did. I’ll post a link when he does, but, in the meantime, please check out his slideshow of photos taken so far on his European adventure — he is an unbelievably creative photographer, and I learn something every time I go out into the field with him.

sunrise on mykonos

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I had a slight tumble this morning, as Hudson and I went off in our backyard wilderness to shoot the sunrise. I got a bit banged up, and quite embarrassed, but I dusted myself off and gamely went on. I’m glad I did, even though I thought I didn’t get a single decent shot.

There will be more from this trip, but I wanted to get something up while I had a decent connection.

the shot that was

hood-sunset-2015Sometimes, the shot you see in your head doesn’t show up until after you’ve packed up and headed back down the mountain. Last Sunday, at sunset, I shot the crazy clouds around Mount Hood for about an hour, before turning my attention to the actual sun setting in the west (see the previous entry). It was getting cold, and the light was draining from the sky, so I carefully packed my gear back into my bag and started walking down the stairs to the car. As I turned towards Hood one last time, I saw this scene and snapped a few quick shots with my phone, which I had in my hand.

Of course, once I got to the car and looked at what I had, I cursed quite loudly to myself. Why I didn’t take the time to set up the shot with my “real” camera, carefully on the tripod? Then, I certainly would have gotten the photo that was in my head.

Clearly, I’m not the photographer I think I am. Well, here’s the reality of that moment: it was dark; I was tired from the day’s 200-mile drive through the Gorge; my shoulder was screaming at me; I was chatting with a photographer I had just met; I wasn’t sure there was even a picture there; et cetera et cetera. So I clicked a few frames and moved on.

All of that angst was for naught, however: this is a good shot. And who cares that it was taken with an iPhone? Would another 12 megapixels made it that much better of a shot? No, because I would have lost the rapidly dwindling light of the blue hour, and would have taken too long to figure out which lens to use and set up the scene. And, the painterly quality of this photo gives it a glow that might have been lost with a 24-megapixel camera and fine Zeiss glass. (Plus, I got to put a version of this shot up on Instagram right away.)

I’ve been going up to Larch Mountain for more than 10 years, and what’s really funny is that I can’t find a single image in my photo library taken from this vantage point. It is probably the stairs, which are quite busy at sunset, but you’d think, after all the times that “Use the foreground!” has been pounded into my consciousness by photographers better than me, that I would have tried it once or twice. It took a cameraphone to help me think a bit differently about a place I’ve been shooting for years.

Now, of course, I’ll be checking this viewpoint every time I go to Larch. I’ll mark the photo in my library with the ‘revisit’ tag, but, like many of those images, the best ones are always the original.

larch sunset (2015)

larch-sunset-2015Sunday was my first time up Larch Mountain this year. It’s always a lovely thing to do, that 14-mile ride through the forest, followed by the short, slightly steep walk up to the top of the mountain. A lot of nights, it’s like a party, especially with a beautiful sunset like this one.

Of course, as much as I love the silhouette shots, it really makes me nervous to see the kids scampering up on the rocks, especially when they appear to have been imbibing (or smoking) something. One of the days, I fully expect to hear about a mishap up on Larch.

Click the image to see it full-size. And don’t forget about this guy, who I met first atop Larch back in 2012.

sauvie fog study, no. 3

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Recently, Susan and I went to see “Mr. Turner,” a movie that I have been dying to see, about the great 19th-century British painter, J.M.W. Turner. The movie was odd–with occasionally impenetrable dialogue and almost no exposition whatsoever–yet I found it compelling and thought-provoking in the end.[1. In a nutshell: if you could figure what was being said, riddle out out who was who (and who was really important to the story), and not be driven crazy by the random dissonance of the soundtrack, you very well might be fascinated by the lengthy character study of an eccentric, seemingly misogynistic man who also happened to be a genius painter. Not a qualified rave, but I am glad that I saw it.]

Thinking about the movie brought me back to a series of images I made early last year on Sauvie Island with Hudson (I’ve posted two photos: cormorants, sauvie island and love and fearlessness). I love the fog and the diffuse light that it often brings with it, and I had tried to work up a few landscapes that incorporated the river, the distant bank, and the clearing fog. I never really did anything with those shots, but last week, thinking about the light on that day, I decided to go back and view the series with a fresh set of eyes. Here’s one view…[2. I’m not equating myself with Turner; it’s more that I have always loved the way he dealt with light, detail and the vastness of a landscape, and he’s one of the artists that has inspired me. And, thinking about painting when looking at a scene with a camera is never a bad thing, in my opinion. I wasn’t channeling him when I was in the field here, but I do have a vision of creating photos in the fog that have both painterly and photographic qualities.]

see it bigger, | where is this?