ocean beach vista {south}

ocean-beach-south

Another shot from my recent jaunt to SF…

The Sony RX1 rarely disappoints me. I might wish I had different lenses for it, but it’s an unbelievably wonderful lens/sensor combination. This was handheld, in the wind, and it still came out extremely sharp. Granted, it was at 1/2000th of a second, but I’ve got a bunch of shots taken at that shutter speed in similar conditions that exhibit shake.

ocean beach

ocean-beach-1

Made a quick overnight trip down to SF to spend time with my best friend Ben, who I haven’t seen since Lee died. We didn’t do much riding or shooting, but we did have one lovely transit of the city, through the park and along the ocean all the way around to the Embarcadero, where I used to live. Here’s my shot from the day.

[where is this?]

west lake, towards hollywood

west-lake-towards-hollywood

I have had a camera with me constantly for the past few months, but it’s not going to surprise anyone that I haven’t felt a creative spark at all. I look through the few shots that I’ve taken, and there’s absolutely nothing there.

This is the first shot in a long time where I actually looked at the scene as I drove by; made myself stop and backtrack to the location; and actually took the time set up a shot. It might not be great art, but it sure felt good.

[where is this?]

rain in the valley

rain-in-the-valley-ret

Went out into the Gorge yesterday with Duncan. As has been the case lately, we spent a good amount of the day dodging rain. That said, there’s a lot of green out there — spring will be here in full force any week now — and we found a few interesting places to shoot, both new and old.

This one is from an old standby: Cape Horn, on Route 14 in Washington. It’s a beautiful overlook, and we spent about 45 minutes hanging around, watching and waiting for something to happen.

In the end, there wasn’t a lot, but I did love the overwhelming amount of green floating up from the valley floor below.

where is this?

Shot with the Sony RX1, blended from a three-exposure set with HDR Efex Pro, then finished in Perfect Effects 4.

morning on the Columbia

morning-on-the-columbia2

Went for a long drive into the Gorge yesterday with Dan, one of my buddies from onOne. The weather had been beautiful here in Oregon over the previous few days, and we had hoped it might hold. There was no agenda; we were just out for a day of shooting, and I thought we might get some decent shots of Mount Adams or Mount St. Helens in all their snow-topped glory. Unfortunately, the beginnings of a classic winter Pacific Northwest storm front moved in, and we were socked in most of the day with crappy skies.

Regardless of the weather though, there’s always plenty to shoot in the Gorge. I was also looking to test the off-road capabilities of my latest camera accessory, which we were able to do, although the mythical Trout Lake was nowhere to be found on the roads we traveled. (A lot of my summer motorcycle roads a currently snowmobile trails, so there wasn’t a lot of off-road opportunity either…)

It was a good day; we drove about 250 miles along both the Washington and Oregon sides of the river, and I got to explore a few new places that will get the ‘revisit’ tag. We shot quite a bit, but true to form, the things I liked the most were the first ones I took, early in the day, before the clouds blew in completely. I owe this shot to Dan, who saw something in the channel as we were driving in this area. I parked to let him hike down for his shot (under the railraod trestle in the distance), and then clambered up over the railroad embankment to steal a few shots of the Columbia. The river was magically calm as daylight arrived; by noon, the usual Gorge choppiness had returned. I’m not completely satisfied with anything I shot yesterday, but this is one take in the right direction. I’ll head back here on a day with the promise of a better sunrise.

where is this?