The Willamette River is certainly showing signs of melting snow pack and recent Northwest winter rain storms.  Typically you have to strain to track  the current, but this was not the case Saturday night. With a long exposure the quicker than usual current offered up a great base for a shot of downtown. In my opinion when the river is still it reflects too much light. Both of the shots were taken of the Hawthorn Bridge from floating docks on the North and South side.

The “Made in Oregon” sign is on Burnside street. I’ve wanted to get a photo of it for a while now, but its kind of a pain to get to.  The sign itself is on the West side of the river,  just off the bridge, but to park on that side would require me walking through China Town with $4,000 worth of camera gear strapped to my back. Need-less-to-say this doesn’t thrill me. So, I parked on the East side and hoofed it across the bridge to take the photo. I processed the shot in both color and black and white, but I like this one better because the green street sign stood out too much in color.

It’s been requested that I post a photo of something warm since most of us are experiencing winter in some fashion this week.  Sounds good to me. This is from our recent trip to Mexico. In fact, its the same tree as the sunset shot I posted a few weeks ago. For the most part the grass on the plantation looked like crab crass from a Dr Seuss book. I liked this one palm tree though because for some reason it was surrounded by a patch of  soft green grass. I shot at a low angle to get the horizon in the middle 3rd of the frame as well as to create a siloette of the tree in front of the sun.  The key to the shot though is the meter reading and subsequent exposure. If taken on the grass or tree the sky would have been blown out and if it was taken on the sun the detail of the grass would have been lost. I spot metered the shot just above the sun and brought out just a touch more highlights from the grass in post processing. I like the shot because your eye follows the shadow through the grass, to the tree, and then the palms point you across the fame.    

f22 1/160th sec @ 24mm

Ashley and I went to a wedding this past Sunday at the Historic Overlook House in North Portland. I work with Donna and had the pleasure of meeting Tim a couple of weeks ago at the Blues Festival. I’m always trying to get shots for my portfolio.  The problem is I don’t want to get in the photographers way. So, I’m usually stuck using my 100-300mm since it is less intrusive. That-being-said, you can get some decent shots as long as you have good light since it only stops down to 4.5. The lens has its limitations though. Zoomed in at anything past 200mm you really need a tripod to stabilize your shot. I look forward to my 75-200 2.8 L that I plan to get soon. With the extra 2 stops I can bump up my shutter speed to help with the hand held vs. tripod problem