Rory & Evie

In stark contrast to my niece Evelyn (see previous post), when Rory's photo shoot started we sat him down on the grass and he looked up at me, crossed his little legs, put his hands in his lap & smiled. I couldn't believe it.

Oh my goodness I just love photographing these two. They do so well & we have a good time.
I ended up with so many photos I'm happy with it was hard to pick which ones to share.





After playing in the playground for a little while it was time to get some cake in this boy's face.

 

 

Can't have a birthday without getting at least a little messy. It's only right.



Evie is one year old!

On the one hand it feels like my niece was just born and on the other it seems like so long ago.

We don't live in the same town so I only get to see her once every couple of months. She's very clingy right now with the people she's closest to like her parents and grandma. This combined with her being an early walker made getting some one year pictures a little tricky. When she wasn't attached to my mom she was running around all over the place. But with a little patience I had some success.

We went out to the nature preserve where she got to check out the wild flowers.

I hear a lot of people say kids grow up too fast and even that they wish they'd stay little forever, but I find myself instead enjoying them growing up. I feel like I can't wait to see the girl she'll become.

Travis & Ashley's Wedding

Enjoy some photos from this wedding day I photographed a little earlier this summer. Everything was so beautiful it made my job easy. Best wishes to the happy couple! There's a lot of love here.

 

 

Keep it's memories

The other day I was walking my dog and came across a piece of trash on the ground that was unmistakably a wrapper of a dollar ice cream from an ice cream truck. This isn't my route, but as a fellow ice cream man I felt an obligation to clean it up.

When I picked it up I saw that it came with a message.

This is one of the reasons I love my other job.

This is such a nice sentiment that made my day feel a little brighter (even though it would seen little Eric needs to learn to use a trash can better). No other sales job has given me the warm fuzzies so often as this one.

Rainy Day

I've been pretty exhausted lately, but for some reason the other day I had a bunch of energy. I wanted to anything but sit on my butt. Even though it was raining I set up my camera in the cover of the garage and my dark tent ready in the basement. I thought for sure I could find something out there or in the house to photograph but nothing looked all that appealing. So what do I end up thinking is a good idea? Try to make some wet plate pictures of my black dog in the dark garage. Does it make it any better that I knew they wouldn't really turn out? I don't know. We had fun anyway.

After getting this one photo of her out of my system I knew I still wanted to try and make something better while I had everything out and the temperature was nice but I still had the issue as before with not being very inspired by any of my still life options.

What I decided to do was walk two houses up and knock on my neighbor Pam's door. Pam has been there in the same house for what sounds like as long as the house has been there from the way she talks about it. Occasionally we run into each other and have conversations and as I had brought up my interest in this process the last time we talked I felt that she might like to sit for me. Apparently she had been up late the night before texting with friends and at almost 1:00 in the afternoon had just recently woken up. I don't know why that amuses me. I have no idea how old Pam is, but I have a feeling it's more than how she acts and looks. Actually, it would seem that this process has aged her. It's ended up showing more wrinkles than what are apparent in real life.

So obviously she said yes, but asked to come by just a little later so she could wake up more and put herself together a bit.

Some of the funky stuff going on in these is due to experimentation. Some of it I understand and just want to push things & see it all in person, and some I'm still learning about. This was also my first time trying black stained glass. I either like it a lot or not very much. That all depends on if one of these things I'm still learning is related to it at all.

New things are happening

This picture may not look like much to you, but what it represents to me is overwhelming.

Several months ago I was taught how to make wet plates. This is a process that was used mainly in the 1850s and 60s. It's basically creating your own film on a surface, like glass for example (what I've used so far), and making it light sensitive to make a photograph. In the end it can be a negative or a positive.

When I learned the process I made a couple alright plates. Enough to get the idea. Over the next few months I gradually collected what I would need to do this on my own with a lot of help from xmas and a tax return. When everything came together and I started making photos they didn't come out quite great. I had a strange looking fog on every one. It's a tricky process and every little thing can cause issues or just variations. I spent several days troubleshooting all different aspects of the process to come up with a clean plate. For the most part I remained positive and still excited to be learning more about it. Eventually however, as my options began to dwindle I felt more discouraged and generally bummed out. I took a break and tried again. Things started to turn around and I had some success. I'm not sure I can express how that felt. Relief is probably the best word but it doesn't seem to capture the immensity. Sadness gave way to hopefulness and I could feel the bad juju fall away from me.

This photo is the first one I've made on my own with my darkroom and the chemicals that I mixed myself that turned out OK. It's by no means great, but it's not bad. It's a starting point for things to come. 

Taking a Walk

In general, I really like the sun. I like the way it feels when it shines on me and I miss it when it's gone for a while. On the other hand, aesthetically when photographing outdoors I prefer it to be overcast. I like the diffused, even and sometimes grayness of the look. This is something that's been on my mind a little more since spending some time in Portland over the winter. The sun has come out. The sky is clear right now as a matter of fact, but it hasn't been out as much as I'm used to and because I haven't taken many photos outside in the daytime while I've been here my feelings about it have been more on the side of missing it.

The other day I was inspired to get out and go for a hike. Take advantage of all this beautiful land just a short drive away. I picked a day that had a low chance of rain and drove out to the Columbia River Gorge area. I had a hike in mind but accidentally missed the exit to get there. When I took the next exit I was in the parking lot in front of the Multnomah Falls. I still planned to go back to the other hike but when I found out it was much more trouble than just going back to my missed exit I decided to stay and take this hike.

Here is where my earlier mention about the light comes back in. There seems to be, at least in some areas, a special quality to the light here that I haven't seen other places. It's somehow bright and dark at the same time. I noticed this the most on this walk and I think a lot of it had to do with the subjects and the way they react to the light. Almost everything up here is covered in moss and when the moss and the overcast light get together it seems to almost glow.

Getting to the top of the falls I followed a paved switchback path but once at the top there was another path that was unpaved and rocky that lead to a smaller falls. That was the part I enjoyed the most. Everything felt much more secluded and natural there.

The path ran along side the stream that connected the two falls to each other.

I have done almost nothing to these photos. I usually don't do much post work but I feel the need to emphasize that because looking at some of these I think they seem to have almost a painterly look to them and the subject didn't need any help from me to look like that.
(if you click on the photos you can view them larger)

Multnomah Falls itself was surely one of the largest waterfalls I've ever seen and I like the way you can get pretty close to it at the bottom via the bridge that sits between the upper and lower cascades.

I could really get a sense of it's powerfulness as it loudly crashed against the rocks behind it. I probably could have sat there and watched it for a while if I were dressed more appropriately for the wetness and had more time.