City Skyline At Sunset

Last Friday, on the way to the play, I was on the bus at sunset zooming across the Ross Island Bridge. I've tried taking this photo from the brigde many times before in the car, however, in the car I sit too low and all I get is a view of the guardrail.

This is one good shot I got of the City of Portland downtown at sunset. The double decker Marquam Bridge is in the foreground. It appears to me that the buildings in the shot look rather squat and stretched out somehow. I think it may be a visual effect created by the rapid speed I was moving at the time I pressed the shutter.

Sellwood Boulevard

This is a subtle one... I took this the other day on a walk on Sellwood Boulevard. It's a curiosity to me that the old street markers in the concrete here only say, "Boulevard." It would be fun to find an old map to see if that, indeed, is its old street name, prior to the joining with Portland City and the street renaming.
I love how the moss has grown into the name impression. I tried several ways in PSE to accent it or bring it out with not much success. I opted instead to just accent it a little using the tile filter.

Haircut

Haha!! Got my haircut yesterday! Well, some of it. Here's what we swept up at the end.

Justin's Stairs

Our friend, Justin, the guy who handled the remodel on our house, held an open house in his redone Sellwood house on Sunday to attract a buyer. He's done a great job cleaning this old place up--it looks to be about 1910 Crafstman style. It's a smallish house with two bedrooms upstairs and an office off the living room plus a full basement. I loved the look of natural light on his fir stairs.

Portland Downtown At Dawn

This view is endlessly fascinating to me. Probably because it changes with the weather and the light. Once again, a view of downtown Portland looking across Oaks Bottom. I love how the early morning sky reflects in the water.

Herald Of Spring

From my walk this morning. I loved how the daffodil greens make a fresh looking background for the crocuses.

Last Light On St. John's Bridge

Still sick today and don't feel like shooting. Took this two weeks ago on our little outing to St. Johns. Fortunately, we had interesting skies that day and arrived in enough time to photograph the bridge from several vantage points before the light faded. St. John's Bridge is called the "symbolic gateway to [Portland]" by Sharon Wood, author of The Portland Bridge Book. I think it is one of the most beautiful of the Portland Bridges.

Henry's Old Place

Met friends tonight for a play at Portland Center Stage at the Armory. When we decided on Henry's as the dinner spot, I could hardly wait! I've been wanting to photograph this building again since I happened upon it a couple of years ago. This is the old Henry Weinhard Brewery. Now, it's a mixed use building, including Henry's 12th Street Tavern, a pretty cool bar/restaurant with 100 beers on tap and this great old stack in the courtyard.

Weinhard bought an existing brewery on this site in 1864. His brewing business, doing extremely well, was producing 100,000 barrels of beer annually by 1890. He had this complex built in 1908 as he began expanding his trade into the Pacific Northwest, China, and the Philippines. You can read more about Weinhard's brewing history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinhard_Brewery_Complex

Tree In Fog

Been sick this week so except for the lunar eclipse, I've not been shooting. I took this photo last week on a walk in the fog. I just love how fog simplifies shapes by taking away the background.

Lunar Eclipse, Feb 20, 2008, 7:01 p.m.

Hoo Hah!! I was able to get a great shot of the lunar eclipse tonight!!

Sidewalk Chalk Heart

How fun is this!?! I found it on a walk a few days ago.

Yellow House On The Bluff

We had another beautiful sunset last night. Hugh and I walked over to the bluff to take it in. I took photos of it then turned around and saw yellow house behind was postively glowing.

Portland Memorial Funeral Home and Mausoleum

This is the mausoleum, started in 1901, that is five blocks from our house. It shows up in several of my photos from time to time because it's close and just too big to ignore. Plus, the architechture of the place tickles my fancy to photograph it in some way. Our recent foggy day seemed appropos to the subject. This is one of the entrances to the funeral office; doorways to the mausoleum are in the back.

My daughter, Carolina, and I took an explore here when she was visiting a few weeks ago. We tiptoed through several of the 8 floors of crypts. It's not as spooky inside as I'd expected and is generally well lit, though chilly. It has many floor to ceiling windows looking out over Oaks Bottom, lots of statuary with fountains, faux skylights, some stained glass. Here's some info I found on Yelp* :

The Portland Memorial is a funeral home and mausoleum. And the
mausoleum is huge: 3.5 acres. It houses more than 58,000 bodies and has room for another 120,000.

The mausoleum was started in 1901, melds a variety of
architectural styles (Victorian, art deco, etc.) and contains floor after floor
and wing after wing of strange, spiraling architecture, Portland history (many
pioneer families are entombed here). It's a fine place to marvel at history, at
the variety of ways in which people choose to memorialize their lost loved ones, or just to chill-- literally. (posted by Christen M, Portland, OR)

Red Sky At Night. . .

This was our sky last night! One amazing thing about the weather in Portland is the enchanting and changing beauty of the skies (as compared to basically sun, sun sun, in LA.) A few days ago we had rainbows; last night, glowing red skies. I had to take two different shots and layer them in order to offer up the most true rendition of the color of the sky last night. The range between the darks and the lights was just too great to correctly capture in only one shot. Gotta LOVE Photoshop Elements for letting me do this!

Little White Church

Took this on my walk the other morning just as the sun was poking through the fog a bit and warming up the whiteness. This little building, Oaks Pioneer Church, is owned by S.M.I.L.E., the Sellwood-Moreland Improvement League. It sits near the end of Tacoma Street a few hundred yards from the Willamette River in a lovely, park-like setting.

The church was built in 1851 in Milwaukie, OR, a few miles south of here. However, when it fell into disuse and disrepair in the 1960s and was scheduled for demolition, SMILE bought it and had it barged to its current site. The neighborhood associaton restored it and rents it for weddings or funerals.

Rainbow Day

Yesterday we had rain showers alternating with dazzling sunshine. Since it was still raining in other parts of the valley when we had sun, I took the opportunity to find and photograph rainbows. This is not a great shot but of the rainbow shots I got I liked this best since I was able to position the rainbow partially over our roof. (Note to self: find a place nearby to drive to quickly when the rainbow making rain-sun-rain-sun weather happens!)

Fog Walk

Took this on a foggy morning walk looking over Oaks Bottom. I love how the mausoleum peeks out of the mist and behind the trees.

Looking Through The Arches

Looking through the St. John's bridge piers on the east end. The city has made the east end of the bridge into lovely greenspace named Cathedral Park.

St John's Bridge Looking East

Another shot of the St. John's Bridge, this time looking east toward St. John's neighborhood.

St John's Bridge from Cathedral Park

Today, Hugh and I drove out to photograph the St. John's Bridge. It is a two-tower cable suspension bridge built during the Great Depression and opened in 1931. It was designed and supervised by engineers Holton D. Robinson and David B. Steinman of New York City. The suspension cables were spun by John A. Roebling's Sons Co., at it's Trenton, NJ plant and shipped by steamer to Portland.

Bridge statistics: Willamette River mile, 6.0; opened, June 13, 1931; cost, $3.9 million; center height to water, 205 feet; main span length, 1207 feet; pedestrians and bicycles allowed. (Statistics from The Portland Bridge Book ©1989, Sharon Wood, Oregon Historical Society Press.)

Wm R Johnson Clock

This is the big jeweler's clock in our little, Westmoreland neighborhood downtown. I took this on our way to dinner at Springwater Grill.

Wine With Dinner

What to do while waiting for your dinner in a restaurant--take photos of your wine with a candle behind it!

Mausoleum Gate Post

I've been walking past this post every week since I moved to Portland. When it 's sunny, the shadows make the post and railing look confusing and unappealing. I love the curve of the gate, however. Yesterday when it was rainy the shot called to me. An overcast day really brings out the pink/green contrast between the moss and the stucco.

Hawthorne Bridge, West End

I've gotten a little bit behind posting photos. Mostly because what I've been shooting lately hasn't pleased me much. This photo I took a couple of weeks ago on a sunny winter day.

Hawthorne Vertical Lift Drawbridge: Opened December 19, 1910; cost, $500,000; Willamette River mile 13.1; vertical lift 110 feet; center height to water, 53 feet; main span length, 244 feet; horizontal clearance, 230 feet; outside width, 63 feet (four traffic lanes and two 5-foot sidewalks); pedestrians and bicycles allowed. Bridge stats from The Portland Bridge Book, Sharon Wood, Oregon Historical Society Press, 1989.

Convention Center Skylight

This subject will need revisiting, for sure. I love photographing what's up on the ceiling or what IS the ceiling, depending on the venue. When I was in the Convention Center for the auto show, I took just a few shots of the skylighted ceiling. It's pretty dramatic from the outside at night. Looks like it could be a P-town cousin of the So-Cal Crystal Cathedral! Only for conventions not religious broadcasts. I've tried to get shots of the place at night from outside while driving slowly, but have not wanted to be a woman alone in that neighborhood walking around with a camera after dark. So, this was kind of a grab shot as we were leaving the auto show from the inside. I played with the IR settings in PSE to see what I could get on this photo. Not sure I like it better than the original color version. Since it was a sunny day, all the windows are aqua and the ceilings look brown (which I'm pretty sure they're actually not).

Photographer At Work

It was a year ago, today, that I began my daily photo blog. A lot has changed since then, most importantly, I've started having fun with photography! I used to envy great photographers; Galen Rowell was a particular inspiration. I used to think Galen had some mysterious luck or that because he was an avid outdoorsman (which I'm not) he was just more prone to finding magical situations to photograph. Now, I understand--Galen went to extraordinary lengths to carry some kind of camera with him wherever he went. Big cameras, small cameras, whatever was suitable to the activity he was engaging in that would give him the chance to snap an amazing moment at any moment. Now that I've settled myself to carrying a camera with me at (nearly) all times I'm getting some memorable photos, too.

Here's a photo of a photographer whose work I admire. His name is Shawn St. Peter. He made our recent family pictures at our December reunion. Since I've been editing pictures from our family reunion in December, 2007, to put together a book I came across his photo among the family pics. I never would have been able to take this had I not had my P&S in my bag at the photo shoot.

This guy is a monster photographer! He did a great job with our family photos; check out his work at his website, linked above. I especially admire the work he does with musicians. It has a certain grunge quality that is very popular right now and which I enjoy.