Pussy Willow

moon rise

This was taken several days ago when the moon was not quite full. It made me think of trying to figure out when the moon would be rising over Mt. Hood to try to get a night shot from one of the highpoints in the city of the moon illumninating Mt. Hood. Unfortunately, this month it appears that it is late afternoon 3:30PM or so. Too bad Portland's weather is mostly bad, otherwise I could just mark the calandar for next month's moonrise!

fine branches

I liked the delicate appearance of these green branches down under the cedars and redwoods in the arboretum. I don't know what they were. I used a very large aperture because of the low light, and gave a very limited depth of field, but I like the effect it has in highlighting the etherial appearance of this plant in the forest. I probably could have done a better job of framing/composition, but I just wasn't quite tall enough to get the perspective that would have been ideal!

trunk

The high contrast caused by the late afternoon light on this trunk at the arboretum caught my eye. I didn't take much time to try playing with the contrast and exposure controls to see what kind of variations I might make, but I'd like to go back and try at some point.

b&w redwoods

Another redwood grove photo rendered in black and white.

Portland Redwoods

This version was processed with a unsharp mask tool in Adobe Elements.


This version was processed with Adobe Lightroom developing tool.

Well, I've had a dry spell for photos lately, and I can't completely blame the weather. Today was near 50 and sunny and I managed to get out for a walk in Hoyt Arboretum. This was my first walk there and little did I know that I would run into some redwoods! It was so dark in the grove that a passing hiker quiped "What did you set it at? 2.8?" Referring to the f stop at the maximum that many lenses go to for aperture. This has been a long time puzzle for me. The human eye and brain seem to have no problem adapting back and forth to the dark dark shadows of a forest grove and the very bright sunlight seen filtering through the same grove. I need to take some time looking at Ansel Adams to see if I can figure out how he handled the problem.

Dusty Old Photo

I wanted to start the new year with something really cool, but the weather has been rainy, and dark and circumstances have not obliged for taking photographs. Then I found this dusty old photo, of dusty glasses on a dusty window sill and decided I'd scan it in. I believe it dates back to 1991. Happy New Year!

Red Fringe

Funky Reflection

Moon Mesh

Ok, here is the story behind this one. I saw the half moon rising (sounds like a poem dosen't it?) and it was almost right in the middle of these two contrails seen in the picture. Well by the time I got outside and set up the camera and tripod I realized that the Moon was moving too fast! But I thought it could still be a neat picture and didn't want to take the time to run out into the back yard to get a clear shot - so I shot it through the branches. Well it turns out I liked the effect of the branches even more than the contrails. I hope you do too.

Afterthought - in processing this file it seems I somehow diminished the clarity of the contrails - I'd like to go back and re-process so they stand out more.

Holiday Light

I was captivated by the distortion of our tree lights by a clear ornament that really can't be seen except for its effect on the light in this photo. Happy Holidays!

Leaf and Vines

Back to a typical plant photo. I tend to be drawn to scenes like this where there is perhaps too much going on.

Three Day Post

FSBO


Oak Leaves


Tarped

To save time I'm posting photos for the next three days. Let me know if you think there is a common theme:

Holes

The peeling paint on this old playground slide brought back pleasant memories of childhood.

Meow

This light colored cat was enjoying the sun break almost as much as I was. I liked the color of this photo and the sense of depth given by the stairs.

happenstance

This was a strange coincidence. While stopped in traffic I took photos of this famous Portland bridge hoping no cars would obscure the landscape; but the one car I that happens to come by is a Citroen. I had no idea until viewing the photo later with Regan when she exclaimed "That's a Citroen!"

Slings and Arrows

I believe this is my 100th posting! And I think I have kept to my promise to avoid close up photos of plants for at least a week. Ok, actually I've still be taking pictures of plants, just not posting them! I liked this photo more after seeing it on the computer. The depth of field is narrow with foreground out of focus, as is background, but I liked the effect, and they way it highlighted the staples and their texture.

Crack the Window

Star Struck

This display was in a window to showcase a local interior decorator. It was nice of him/her to offer up such a nice subject to photograph during a Portland sunbreak.

Fractures

Another close up photo of a garage window that had been painted or treated somehow to prevent people from looking in. The patterns in this photo reminded me of ice flows breaking up.