I’m working on a website re-design.  I had planned to sort of move everything into my blog, but I’ve decided against that.  The blog will just be the blog and my website will be my portfolio and also my photoshop mat & frame actions.  The new format for the website is coming along pretty well, but I don’t get to work on it every day.  I do bits and pieces here and there, but everything is coming together very nicely.

Yes, I’m iching to get out for some photo ops, but life happens.  As I’ve said before, photograph is not my full time gig, so my responsibilities to my family and my full time job, and the veterinary business I co-own with my wife come first.

As for photography, I can at least take solace that I’ve done considerably more work this year than last, which was my goal.

The year isn’t over yet, and I know some good light is headed my way.

I visited Lavender Valley, which is a lavender farm in Hood River, Oregon.  It’s a great location with a nice view of Mt. Hood to the south.  Although the morning sky was cloudless, the light on the lavender field turned out to be very nice.  I minimized the sky and put the focus on the field.  Mt. Hood in the background is just a little icing on the cake.

The field itself is not particularly large, but with the right perspective, it looks a lot bigger than it really is.  This was taken with my 28-75mm lens set at 66mm, so it wasn’t a dramatic wide angle.  Although with a wider lens the field would have looked even more expansive, it also would have made the mountain look too small for what I was trying to accomplish.

I did break out the 10-22 wid angle though for another perspective.  There is a nice gazebo in the middle of the lavender field, and this seemed to be a good place to use the wider angle.  Again, I felt the sky was a little bland, but as a friend pointed out, it does provide a nice contrast for the rest of the scene.  The gazebo pops out against it where it might have been secondary to a dramatic sky.  This was a little later in the morning, but not too long after the Mt. Hood shot.  As I mentioned, I used my 10-22 mm for this. 

I should also mention for both photographs I used a method of “stacking” within Photoshop to achieve maximum depth of field.  I took three photographs each with different focal points (near, mid-point and infinity) and then blended them together to achieve an overall sharpness.  That level of sharpness is hard to achieve with a normal lens.  A tilt/shift lens could most likely produce an equally sharp image with that kind of depth, but I don’t have a T/S lens, and using a wider aperture limits some distortion and allows for faster shutter speeds.  It’s a technique and method of processing I really like.

So as it was, there was a nice morning where the sweet smell of fresh lavender did turn out to be a sweet smell of success.

Well, the sun did show itself that morning, and quite well too.  It was a wonderful morning.  Lucky, you say?  I beg to differ.  Sure, there are photos taken where luck is involved.  There’s no doubt about that, but good consistent photograph is about making your own “luck.”  Of course, when you do that, it’s not really luck at all, it’s intentional.

It would have been really easy to call it off and go back to bed that morning.  It had been raining off and on over night, and there was heavy cloud cover at my house when Jack picked me up.  However, we knew there was a chance, and we ran with it.

I’m not sure when I’ll be getting out again.  For the time being, I’m working on a new web site design.  Although the current design isn’t a year old yet, I’ve decided I don’t really care for it.  I’m not sure I ever did.  It was just one of those things.

I think you’ll enjoy the new site format once it is up.

I’m afraid I don’t have much else to write about today.  It has been and intense summer.  I’m hopeful that a trip to Colorado this fall will materialize and I’ll have the opportunity to capture some great fall color in that area.

I promise it won’t be as long until I write again.  Oh, there will also be some changes coming to this blog…a look to match the new website and the ability for readers to leave comments if they so desire.

But one evening, the clouds broke and there was a nice sunset.  I had some ideas of locations that might be nice for the sunset, but I had another priority that evening: get my 3 year old daughter on the beach.  So, she and I went out on Agate Beach and I set up my tripod and she started digging in the sand.  We played together until the sun started to set and I then took a few minutes to fire off a couple shots of Yaquina Head Lighthouse.  I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that spectacular, but it didn’t really matter as my daughter chased me around my tripod in a game of “catch me if you can/tag your it.”  No sunset compares to that.  That’s what is important.  Luckily, I was able to combine two loves (one vastly more than the other, and it’s not photography).

Speaking of Yaquina Head, it’s a wonderful natural area.  Many different birds and other creatures to photograph in addition to one of the coast’s nicest lighthouses.  It is a little more spending to park there compared to some of the other state areas, but it’s worth it, in my opinion.

All in all, it was a great opportunity to get some new photographs and spend time with my family, even if I did have to attend some meetings during the day.  It was a great break from the normal home routine for my family, and it turned that I came away with some photographs that I really liked too.

You can’t beat that.

We’ve been operating the practice part time since 2008, but now that our wonderful daughter is starting school, we are ratcheting up the business toward full time.  It’s very exciting!

If you follow my blog or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve seen quite a few images from Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.  I keep going back over and over because it’s such a great place, and it has a car route, so my 3 year old can come along easily and enjoy the sights too.

On the right, you’ll see a tree swallow taken at Ridgefield.  The photograph was taken on a day where I just went out for a couple of hours with my daughter.  We drove to the refuge before a business meeting I had scheduled for later in the morning.  These kinds of outings go along with my belief that you can always find time to take a few photographs, and in this case, enjoy some quality time with my 3 year old daughter and continue to introduce her into the beauty of nature and animals.

We hit a couple trails that are now open for summer, and we had a wonderful time on a wonderfully sunny morning.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

Back to At Home Veterinary Services for a moment.  I’ll probably be a little scarce on my blog and online because we have a lot to do and prepare for the practice.  I’ll still find time to photograph, but I probably won’t be writing very often for the next few weeks.

I know that I’ll find some time though, so for all of my millions of fans…er, whoever might come across my ramblings, fear not, there is more to come!

Luckily, we saw some birds yesterday.  My favorite photograph is the one show here of a Common Yellowthroat Warbler which I photographed while we were walking a nice trail in the refuge.

We could have very easily have stayed home, but we didn’t.  Maybe we should have stayed home.  But it was sunny and inching toward 70 degrees, and everyone had been inside for so long.  It was time to get out.

I don’t recommend everyone heading out when your sick.   I know I wasn’t paying attention to my settings as I should have been, so I had some photographs that weren’t looking all that good when I imported them into Photoshop.  Ah, well.  It really wasn’t a day about photography, and I think having some of those days isn’t a bad thing.  Just have some fun and don’t worry about the rest of it.

My road trips to scout and look for photographs were around the St. John’s area and other parts of the Avalon peninsula.  Given the weather, I was pretty happy with the images I came away with.

The first decent day I when scene hunting I found my way to a shipwreck in Conception Harbour.  It is an often photographed subject in the area, and I can understand why: It stands out.  The day I was there was cloudy, but there was a nice texture in the sky.  I converted the photograph to black & white, which I think worked well here.

There are certainly scenes that I come across that I’m thinking in terms of black & white, and this was one of them.  The color photograph was interesting, but in black and white, there is a feeling of going back in time, or at least age.  This ship is actually thought to be one of the last whaling ships that used to be docked here, which gives it an even more ominous history.

As the days in Newfoundland went on, I continued looking for subjects to photograph regardless of the weather.  One of the subjects I found over and over were birds.  While spring really had not come to the island yet (at least spring as we know it here in western Oregon) there were some birds at local ponds.  My daughter had a great time when she was with me looking at all the birds.  They are very acclimated to humans, so getting close to them was very easy for me and my daughter, which she absolutely loved.

Mallards, black ducks and northern pintails were the most common birds, along with pigeons in the city parks.  While it wasn’t much of a challenge to get close to these birds, it was enjoyable and I came away with some nice photographs of the very nice looking birds.

The weather showed promise on April 23rd, so I was out before sunrise to see what I could catch.  The theme my photography seemed to take on this trip was coastal and marine living: fishing villages, boats, harbours and similar subjects.  This morning would be no exception as I headed for Petty Harbour, Newfoundland near St. John’s.  Although I had hoped for a few more clouds in the sky, the sunrise was lovely, and it was the first morning without rain since we had been there.  In fact, just two days before several inches of snow fell in a honest-to-God blizzard that swept through.  The snow was gone by the end of the next day, but it was still quite cold, especially on this morning with no cloud cover.

Some of the other photographs I took during my visit continued to follow this theme.  The photograph you see with the blue building built along a cliff over the water was taking at Quidi Vidi village, but the day I enjoyed the most occurred on the last full day I was in Newfoundland.  All the weather reports pointed to another morning where the sunrise might be a good one, so I headed out in the dark again to hopefully find some new images.

The day before I had taken a drive to Pouch Cove, Newfoundland, north of St. John’s.  Using a great took called The Photographers Ephemeris I was able to determine along what line the sun would be rising.  It appeared that Pouch Cove’s location along the coast would be a pretty good area for the sunrise.

I wasn’t disappointed.  The light was wonderful and there were some nice clouds in the sky.  It is an area I will certainly visit again on subsequent trips to this very interesting island and province.

I’m not sure words can adequately describe some of the feelings I have when I visit Newfoundland.  Not only is it the home of my wife, but the history here is truly amazing.  Vikings were here in at L’Anse aux Meadows in 1002 AD, more than 400 years before Columbus arrived and met the indigenous peoples.  The earliest explorers after Columbus were here.  As far as North America is concerned, St. John’s is considered the oldest European founded city having been considered to be established in 1497, a mere 5 years after Columbus had sailed.

Every time I visit I get wrapped up in the history.

If my pre-order information is correct…Photoshop CS5 will be available for download tomorrow 4/29…but you never know, they make it clear that the release date may change. I hope not. I’m looking forward to the many new features.

I’m going to be writing a much longer blog about my experience in Newfoundland and how I have developed a very inspired love for that island.

I’ll also be sharing some of my thoughts in Photoshop CS5 after I get my grubby hands on it.

Until then….

Yesterday it was raining most of the day, and then it stopped, the wind died down an I saw sun streaming through the windows of my in-law’s home while I played with my daughter.  I told my wife I had to go chase the sun and I picked up my camera back and jumped in the car…in a flash the sun was replaced by some of the densest fog that we’ve seen since our arrival.

I drove around a bit and decided to head out to one of my favorite areas: Cape Spear.  Cape Spear is home to one of my favorite lighthouses.   There are actually two lighthouses at this location, the new one, which you see to the left and an old one which I didn’t photograph this time out.  Both are photogenic.

I now have a photograph of this lighthouse in spring, fall and winter, which are the seasons when I’ve been in Newfoundland.  I haven’t made a trip here in the summer yet, so I’m sure when I’m here some summer, I’ll take the familiar drive to Cape Spear and capture the scene again.  I can’t help myself, not only am I a sucker for lighthouses, I’m a sucker for this one.