And the results are...

It was a cool dark night in the city of College Place. A new moon gave an opportunity for the faintest of stars to shine through the veil of night. The air still held the heat of the day, a warm dry taste. And I come back from a walk with several good images to edit and upload.

The strong orange glow from the sodium vapor street lights gave the images a very dated look. However it was fun, shooting at ISO 3200 with my 50mm f/1.2 lens. All hand held.

Impulse...

For the last couple hours I have been catching up on the blogs I follow, looking at images that have been posted and the like. I guess in a word I have been inspired to be impulsive. Well the last straw that broke this camels back was Diana asking me if I want to go for a walk. Its 2330 at night... but sure... as long as I get to bring out the camera. Lets see what images I can make. Be back in an hour or so....

What's been going on...

Its been a few days since I have had the time to post here. This is not because I have not had anything to post, more so because I have been very busy this week that I have not had the time to post. And while one might say... it only takes but a few minuets to put something up I must confess that the posting of blogs has become an activity that requires time to think and relax. 

Well having the disclaimer out there... over the past several days I have been quite active at the college in both personal projects as well as those related to classes. One activity, the photo shoot of last weekend, has to a small extent extended into the week worming its way into my time with minor clamor for attention. I have been able to edit a couple images and fine tune them and have posted them on my Deviant Art site. 

In addition to this I would also like to share with you a web-casted presentation that is of interest to me and possibly might catch your attention as well. This presentation which deals with the topic of Environmental Stewardship from a Christian perspective.

Finally something to post

Well I guess I have been somewhat lax in posting... and so here I am again. Yesterday with was sunday I had the opportunity to go out and do some shooting. Being as it is cold this was a bit of a stretch for me as I have mentioned in past posts I like it not so frigid. Anyway shoot I did and on my walk I noticed that in the black and white world of snow and everything else there still seemed to be subtle shades of color peaking though. I was captured by the shades of brown leaves which in contrast to the rest of the scene which was blanketed in white almost had a red or rust colored look to it. Well having worked with the images of the trees I decided that by them selves they did not adequately tell the entire story so I turned them into a triptych, Enjoy.

Beating the dead week blues by getting spontaneous

I have been wanting to do some shooting for some time using some lighting equipment. Being as the end of the quarter has been drawing near and all the other commitments piling on it has had to be on the back burner. Last night almost in a spur of the moment... well I actually thought about it two mights ago... but none the less I drug out the soft box, grabbed my camera and was off to do some shooting. 

Last night we had a very cool concert by Aaron Roche, setting up the soft box at first outside on the grass and later moving it into one of the side rooms of the village hall I literally snagged people as they walked by and had a mini photo-shoot. For those of you who stopped by a huge thank you and we should do it again because you are beautiful people!!!

I have also been intrigued with a very specific style of portraits and the images attached are my experimentation and exploration of this style. Out of the shoot I think these three images best suited the style. Enjoy, and next time you see a goofy looking dude with a crazy setup looking for volunteers... well come on by and say hello.

Thanksgiving in Seattle

Well its been a while since I have had the time to update this and much has transpired since. Going back and retrieving memories in a chronological fashion what comes to mind first is the trip to Seattle. Having the couple days of break from tests, homework and other misc. studies it was good to get out an visit with friends. During this visit I decided to play with the idea of creating some images with my point and shoot which I have got into the habit of carrying with me. I have been looking into the concept of the decisive moment that Henri Cartier-Bresson so eloquently often spoke and more correctly captures in photographs. Well only being a student of the subject and my no means a master of the technique and also because I have a perverted nature that forces me to create "homework" assignments for myself even when I am on holiday... Well I played with the idea. The technique of zooming through the exposure was something I had seen and tried in the past and when the off chance of that synapse crossed with another in my brain I spent most of that evening sitting in the passenger seat of my buddies car as we drove on errands snapping away and reveling in the interesting images that I got.

The trip was fun and I think that I will have to keep this style in mind and feel more free to experiment and capture other decisive moments of my own life as I go through them.

Frost and fishing

Another weekend has come and gone, and with each passing day the air gets colder as the march of winter comes close. Determined to get a few more days of fishing in before I must hang up my waders for the winter I set out to once again ply the waters of the Walla Walla river and discover what bounties of aquatic delights awaited me. 

Arriving at the parking lot to the area I spent a few minuets chatting with some of the locals who had bagged themselves a couple birds. We chatted about our fortune of having such an ideal accessible area so close to where we lived and the fortune it provided through the seasons. 

A few minuets later donning my gear I sally forth into the thicket that encompasses the river. I have on previous occasions traveled down stream so today I decided to explore upstream. During the last couple weeks heavy rains, well heavy for this end of the state, caused a rise in the river level and with it caused the bed of the river to be scoured in some places and the substrate to be deposited in others. But as this was relatively new area to me while I could see the effect of the rushing water the holes and lies of the trout were yet to be explored. 

I did not find the monster that broke me off when I was last here but my day was not a complete bust. One thing that I enjoy about the trout in these small streams are that they fight like they have something to prove and that no lure is a match for them. It may also be the case that being a smaller stream they need to be more opportunistic in their diet and feed on whatever may come their way.

After catching and releasing a couple my eye was drawn to the frosty leaves along the high water mark. Though clumped together, cottonwood and aspen leaves formed a intricate pattern with the crystals of ice heralding the end of Fall and the near arrival of winter.

Sitting at home feeling mellow

The weekend is here and for the most part well looked forward to. Its been a busy week and while there are many things that got accomplished there are a number that didn't. I guess this is true of all weeks. But, now the weekend is here. Do I stay active all weekend working on projects, exploring interesting places, catching up on all the fun things that I had to put off during the week or is this the weekend for relaxing, sleeping and the general veg-out? 

At this point though I am leaning more to the side of the latter I feel the need to be doing the former. For the last hour I have been reading the general blogs and sites that I try to follow and there have been a couple things that have caught my eye.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?site_no=14018500&PARAmeter_cd=00060,00065

Looking at the most recent results the Walla Walla river might be in good shape tomorrow... Low and clear, however the wether report points it out to be a windy day with sunday being similar with less wind... I might have to put it off for a day or so. 

On the blog Canon Rumors the latest post talks about Canon holding off coming up with a new body till late 2009 while Nikon is planing on a body to be shown in a couple weeks or so... I don't know if I really believe that Canon will sit that long. While I believe the turn the economy has taken makes it harder for new equipment to be sold as everyone is penny-pinching, will the camera giant be allowed to be shown up for too long without coming back with a one up of their own. 

Looking back at the recent scuffle with video on a still body, Nikon was first to market, but Canon one-upped them with more impressive features. At the same time Canon did this to the mid range cameras which means it is either going to one-up them selves with even more features in the flagship model or not have this feature in the flagship model and really concentrate on making it a studio/ high image quality camera. Also with the latest breakthrough (now a couple weeks old) in reducing the space between the micro-lenses and developments of new forms of substrate such as black silicone the future looks interesting. Going back to the post that got me thinking about this, in the winter/spring (March) the photographic industry will be converging on Vegas for PMA 09, an ideal location me thinks for a one upping... 

Well we are going to have to be patient about it... but being as I am in a vegetative mood... I guess I can wait.

Back at home

Well the adventure over I am back at home. It was not exactly what I had planned but not all things happen as we expect. Anyway I did get to go fishing today and saw the sun so overall it was a good day. As an added bonus I got to see Dalls Sheep in the Yakima canyon.  Pictures from this weekend.

Fun Weekend

I had the opportunity to visit a friend up in Pullman this weekend and had a blast over there. She had invited several of her friends over, and being the night of halloween, came in dress and disguise. 

Pirate, Witch and Jester among others rounded up the more traditional costumes but we also had the unique and the voluptuous and the nitrogen fixing bacteria that came attached to quite a nice legume. The night wore on with conversation, laughter and puppets that terrorized. 

More pictures of the night.

Dunes and dust

A few more images that I was able to work on from the Juniper Dunes shoot. The almost sunset like atmospheric conditions were courtesy of the ATV's that were zooming about.

Juniper Dunes with Matt

I spent the afternoon with a old friend hiking in the Juniper Dunes wilderness. Both Matt and myself had unwittingly decided that this would be a place to explore so when I met up with him and the topic of where we should go came up it didn't take much time to decide. 

The Juniper Dunes area is ringed by privately owned farmland and access is very limited. However I had read online prior to meeting up with Matt that there was an easement agreement that the landowners had agreed to so that the public could access this area. Heading out we followed the directions and came to the area. Parking the car in the area designated for such we decided to hike in. After we had walked in about 200 meters up to the top of the first rise we were overtaken by a gentleman who was taking his brand new ATV for a spin. He offered to give us a ride in and being as we could increase our time in the area this way we accepted.

The ride in brought back memories for both Matt and I, who had spent a year on the island of Pohnpei many years ago. Riding in the back of the ATV with our legs dangling off the back and holding on to the side made for some fun times. Our travel benefactor mentioned an area that few other ATV's traveled so that we would have a more peaceful stay and agreed to give us a ride out to it. As we had turned off the main path the trail got more rugged and this gave us the need to hold on for dear life. The worst/best/you gotta be crazy for doing this, instance came when the ATV was gunned down a 40 degree back to pick up speed and then proceeded to climb up the other side which was even steeper. 

One must remember that we were sitting in the back of an open bed with the tailgate down and being as this was only a ATV our legs from the knees down were sticking straight out of the back. Well when that puppy hit the uphill slope and the driver gunned the engine to get it to the top a couple things happened all at once. The first bump gave both Matt and I some air... our butts were probably a good two or three inches off the bed of the ATV. Having gunned the ATV it picked up speed and decided to go up the hill. Well this would all have been good except for the fact that since our butts were not in contact with the vehicle was in danger of getting left behind. For a fraction of a second both Matt and I went into survival mode scrambling to grab on to each other and also anything else solid we could get a grip on to keep each other attached to the now speeding ATV as it finished its climb out of the gully.

After dropping us off at a spot not far from this spot we bid our new friends goodbye and proceeded to hike about enjoying being both alive and still in one piece. I must say that this is a area that I plan on going back to real soon as I only had about three hours in the area and could see that to fully appreciate the possibilities I would have to spend much more time here.

Weekend on the coast

This last weekend I had the opportunity to spend some time on the Oregon coast. The initial excuse was to take pictures of the surfers on the surf trip but it turned out to be more of a photo exploration for my self.