Bowl Win!

I made this photo today after watching Oregon defeat South Florida today in the El Paso Sun Bowl, 56-21. I used my UO football helmet Christmas ornament, my Rebel xT with macro lens and a sun pendant for the background. It's corny I know, but it's the first photo creation I've made in this predetermined, set-up way for probably more than a year!
Thanks go to the Ducks for inspiration as well as to my friends on Carol Leigh's photo alumni group for encouragement, stimulation, and for providing great examples to follow and new techniques to try.

Walking In Winter

We had snow on Christmas Day! First time for a white Christmas in Portland in about 70 years, according to the news.

My husband, Hugh, rarely poses for me but he allowed this photo while we were walking in the snow that day.

Elegance

My daughter-in-law, Yukie, watches the photographer set up.

Wintertime

Found an outdoor Christmas tree decorated with apples and pinecones while walking in the neighborhood near the yarn store.

Happiness

My son, Andy (left), and his partner, Ivan, wait for the photographer.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas tree is a gift to the Westmoreland-Sellwood community from local merchants and the neighborhood civic group.

Cool, Dad!

My son-in-law, Erik, and my grandson, Zack, exchange technical information while the photographer sets up for the family photo shoot.

Hardy Souls

From my walk this morning. It was raining quite a bit, but I must have seen 25 runners this morning in the hour I was stamping around and trying to keep my camera (mostly) dry. I wish the woman at the far right didn't have her foot cut off. I was panning on the lead woman and the group just came along with her. I experimented with cropping out the runners behind but I like the shot, as it goes along with my photo concept when I saw the runners, with all three than only one.

Discovering

I love this photo. The quality of the light, the pale pink walls, the soft window light, the relaxed and happy faces.
This is another candid I took at our family photo shoot. My granddaughter, Abbi, and her grandpa (my husband), Hugh, share some fun together.

Leftovers

Found this on my walk and couldn't resist making art out of it. My guess is it's what's left of a corner street lamp. Now it's mossy, spattered with street grime, and sprouting tiny blades of grass.

Girl Talk

My oldest daughter, Joanna, and my youngest daughter, Carolina, share a quiet moment while getting ready for our family photo shoot. We got the five kids and their partners/families together between Thanksgiving and Christmas to talk, eat, play, and hang out. While the photographer was setting up I took candids of everyone but me.

Collect Calls Dial *11

From my walk this morning. Every photog in the world has shot this subject. I really liked the yellow handset on a grey, cloudy day. I added a chalk filter with PSE6. Makes it look a little different.

Zoolights Fantasy

What kind of photos do you get when you're in the dark without a tripod and a P&S camera that will only rev up to 400ISO? Blurred photos. So blurring more to make abstracts was about my only choice. (Except for bracing my camera which I did for the Trust In Me image.) So, ta da!! Presenting Zoolights Fantasy! Or Zoolights Overwhelm, whichever way this strikes you. Note to Self: Next year at Zoolights bring the Rebel XT.

Utility Cover

From my walk yesterday. I decided to liven this up a bit in Photoshop Elements. I just upgraded to Elements 6 so I was trying to see what new things there were to play with.

Trust In Me

For our family, between-Thanksgiving-before-Christmas, get together, we went to Zoolights at the Portland Zoo. This was a total hoot! So what if the animals were all asleep--the place was packed with people and colored lights. I took this shot near the snake exhibit. It reminded me of a scene in The Jungle Book, a great animated Disney feature from 1967, with Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, and Sterling Holloway as Kaa, the Snake.

One Foot, Two Foot

I got my cast off my right foot yesterday! This was my first walk without the boot. The going is slow, but at least I am walking.

Professor Harold Hill

This is a good shot I took last night at my grandson's school performance. Titled, The Music Man Junior, the half hour presentation of the combined 5th Grade classes was staged with a few sketches and songs from the legendary musical. It's purpose was to give the students an experience with stagecraft and to acquaint them with the historical time period and music. The handsome and clever boy in the center leading the music, Professor Harold Hill, is my grandson, Zack.

I was inside with flourescent gym lighting. I had to shoot at 400ISO to get good shutter speeds. Still the color was off a bit and it had a very grainy look. It took quite a bit of work in PSE4 to make this more presentable. This is the first shot I used the Smart Blur filter following a long email discussion in my online photo group. I've never known how to get more of the "pro" look before. It does seem to knock down the edges a bit. Don't know if I achieved the pro look as other photogs do it, but the finished photo looks better to me than the one I started with.

Spingwater Trail

Been trying to get a good drive by shot of Oaks Bottom in this spot for about a month. This drive-by technique is mostly luck. This one I finally got the look I've been trying to get.

Road Shot

Another drive-by with not much blur. I have actually been trying for some time to capture this road shot on SE Milwaukie Blvd. I've been trying to capture the tunnel look these big maple trees create over this section of roadway.

Abbi

Another photo from before Abbi's ceremony.

Abbi's Baptism

My granddaughter was baptized in her church last night. I got to take photos before the occasion and there was a perfect location for sidelight on the back stairway of the building. I'm not very good with Photoshop so the skin tones look a little dark to me but I did the best I could to tone down the highlights given everyone was dressed in white.

Skylight

We went to a play at Portland Center For The Performing Arts. This is the skylight in the entry. Cool! Lucky I had my P&S wrapped up in my purse.

Artichoke Heart

From dinner prep. I've never cut the top off artichokes previous to cooking them before today. When I saw this, I had to make a pic!

Happy Halloween!

Our lighted Jack-o-lanterns await Trick-or-Treaters.

Marching By

More from the Monster March. Shooting candids of strangers is not easy for me. However, it's a good chance to practice various photography skills. Here I tried to pan with this dad and daughter to keep them in focus and suggest motion in the background. Best I got was soft focus in the background. Sigh. I do love how the pastel colors in the man's shirt, beads and mask are also present in the background.

Melts In Your Mouth

From the Moreland Monster March.

Ghost In The Street

Moreland Monster March's ghost!

Monster March

Sellwood-Westmoreland held their annual Monster March on Sunday afternoon. It was quiet the big deal! I'm guessing maybe 500 people gathered in costume to parade through the streets of our Portland neighborhood.

Sunset Over The Willamette

Caught the last of the amazing sunset last night. You can see a bit of the reflection in the Willamette River right around the southern tip of Ross Island. What a gorgeous place we live in! I hope we can still be able to look for beauty in our new spot come February!

Leccinum Scabrum

Leccinum Scabrum, or Birch Bolete, popped up in our yard after the first heavy leaf and rain fall. These are edible mushrooms, though no one we talked to at Oregon Mycological Society was wild enough about them to inspire us to cook and eat them. We have maple trees in our parking strip which are not mycorrhizal. Near as we can figure, these mushrooms are associated with the root structure of the old birch trees in the parking strip down the street from us.

House on 14th Street With Fall Color

Our house with the maple tree out front turned to yellow flame.

Maple Leaf

I separated out one brightly colored leaf from the rest to photograph on the sidewalk. I used one enhancing filter from PSE4 but I have no idea which one. The filter mostly smoothed the shadow out the blue/black background and perked up the leaf color a little bit.

New House, New Paint

A little video of our new house. We just had it repainted outside and have had many compliments on the color scheme. The maple tree in our parking strip is gorgeous in its fall color and dropping leaves faster than we can rake. The rocking motion of the video comes from me trying to walk with my boot cast.

Lintel Detail-Bagdad Theater

Lintel detail from McMenamin's Bagdad Theater and Pub. This is from the ticket seller's area. I love finding suns to photograph.

CasBar

Neon sign at McMenemin's Bagdad Theater pointing to where you can buy beer to go with your pizza. I love how the red light illuminates the painted art detail on the wall. Also, the reflections of the light on the plastic surround/mount for the sign excites me!

Capt. Neon

Sign from MeMenamins Bagdad Theater at the restroom doors.

Bagdad Theater-Leading to Balcony

Another composition in the Bagdad theater of the archways leading to the balcony. I think the lobby and hallways of the Bagdad are more interesting and more grand than the inside of the theater itself. So that's all I took photos of. I was bracing my camera against a wall at extrememly slow shutter speeds to get this photo. Lucky for me it came out sharp.

Historic Bagdad Theater Lobby

The Bagdad Theater Lobby. Very cool place. We were there at lunchtime which explains the absence of any people in my shots.

Bagdad Handbill

We had lunch at McMenamins Bagdad Theater and Pub yesterday. Universal Pictures built the Bagdad in SE Portland in the late 1920s for $100,000. It is now saved from demolition by the McMenamins and converted in 1991 into a movie house serving pizza and beer. They've actually added tables in front of each row of theater seats so you can eat and watch the movies simultaneously!

More info here about the theater and the famous acts and movie premieres that have been held here: http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=9&id=500

Your Basic Cat In A Box

Malibu showing her irresitable cuteness by snuggling up in a little shipping box.

Drive By-Yukon Tavern

This drive by has an interesting, minimalist look; kind of dreamy and vague, that I like.

Zoom!

This red 70's Toyota Corona was passing us on the way back from lunch. Its candy red blur made a great complimentary statement against the green of the South Park Blocks. I moved the camera just slightly against the car's direction of travel to increase the motion blur.

Potstickers Blur

I'm continuing to play with blurring images due to my moving the camera in some way. This is the neon sign over the Potstickers Restaurant we ate dinner at last night. I moved the camera very slightly but the effect was to turn a very ordinary neon sign into this wide, swooping glow of color. cool!

Cherub Blur

I was trying more motion blur shots at the restaurant tonight.

Tree Blur

Took this shot in the afternoon during a break in a rainstorm. It's a reflection of our maple tree in the parking strip all blurred by the ripples from the raindrop.

Sparkly Pencils

Sparkly pencils I found on my walk around the house.

Slipper Lamp

Architechtural detail from the our fireplace. These two slipper lamps sold the house to us! When we moved in they were dull and so not working our electrician told us they were junk! Fortunately, we found a guy who repairs lamps and electroplates the metal. These gleaming fixtures now give us joy each day we're in the house!

Cozy Cat

I took a walk, (okay, a limp) around my house today looking for new ways to photograph familiar subjects. Here's Malibu framed nicely sleeping in the red chair. She's a scardy cat and resists photo ops like this; she zoomed away soon as she heard the focus mechanism on the camera working. But I caught her at least in one cozy pose for my blog.

Storm Trooper Boot

Today I met with the orthopedist for an evaluation of my broken ankle bone. Good news is the foot's not broken in the usual places for this kind of injury. Instead I broke a piece, a corner, if you will, off the outside ankle bone, the lateral maleolus. I need support while the bone heals but I am cleared to walk if I want while using this storm trooper boot. After sitting around making a little nest around one end of the couch recliner for the past week, it's a joy to be able to move about again! I feel let out of broken foot prison! That said, it's still slow going. For now I am still needing one crutch to help stabilize myself. And the boot is nothing if not clunky and inflexible. My ankle does hurt a lot and is very swollen. I'll be four weeks in this cast then we'll see what's up after that. I wonder if I can get a refund on my dance lessons I was to start next week?

How It Looks Today

My daughter took this photo of my broken ankle with the bruising in the ankle and lower leg and the swelling. It looks both better and worse today than it did right after the accident.

Oh Foot!

I took a goofy fall today and broke my outside ankle bone. I stepped off a curb funny and slammed to the ground without any notice. Irritating and embarrassing. My daughter helped me to the intermediate care facility and to amuse ourselves while waiting for the doc (when I wasn't groaning with pain), we posed my injury for the camera I always carry in my purse.