Portland's Peacock Lane

Last week I visited one of Portland's oldest holiday traditions, Peacock Lane. Since 1929 residents of this three block long street have decorated their homes and drawn people from all over town. I visited on opening night, when the street was closed off to cars, which made for much easier photography.









Luckily there was a steady rain falling for most of the evening, and I was able to get some nice reflections on the sidewalks and streets. The street was really crowded with people, but I did my best to take long enough exposures that none of them cluttered up the final pictures. You can see a few spots where someone stood in the same spot for the twenty or so seconds I shot (one in the above photo, and two in the below) but considering the crowds I was pretty happy with that.






Things came out really well for me, I was happy with how the pictures came out in the end. I hope you've enjoyed them, and as usual you can see more shots over on my flickr page, http://flickr.com/pdxsean. Thanks for taking the time to look!

Portland's Christmas Ship Parade

The Christmas Ship Parade is a long-standing holiday tradition in Portland, with two fleets of ships that ply the Willamette and Columbia rivers. Recently I took a walk down to the Willamette to catch the fleet as they passed under the Steel Bridge.







These ships were tricky to shoot properly. The zoom lens I own is not really appropriate for low-light conditions, with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 and at these moderate zoom levels it was usually around f/4.8. Add into that the ships were moving at a decent clip and it took a lot of patience and some luck to get reasonably clear shots.







I hope you've enjoyed these, thanks for taking the time to view them. As usual you can see more images from this shoot, and others, on my flickr page, http://flickr.com/pdxsean.

Early December Catch-Up

It's been a pretty good week for photography for me. I've gotten out a few times, made an effort to find some new industrial macro shots, and the clouds have cooperated for waterfront sunset shots. I hope you enjoy these best-of shots from the last week or so.












I hope you've enjoyed, and as usual there are more photos from these shoots available on my flickr page, http://flickr.com/pdxsean. This should be a good month for me and the camera, not only is winter one of my favorite times to shoot, I tend to look to bump up the annual shot count as the year comes to a close. Thanks for looking!

Riverfront Sunset, Downtown Rain, and Park Macros

It's been pretty cold here in Portland the last couple of weeks, and I've been pretty lazy about getting out and taking photos. We had a tease with some snowy weather in our forecast, but sadly it never materialized. As it is, I've managed to get out a couple of times to take some pictures when the conditions demanded it.





When I find myself stuck inside too long because the weather doesn't inspire me to get out, I'll occasionally take matters into my own hands and head out with my spray bottle and macro lens and take some creative shots. This was the case yesterday when I took a walk up to Washington Park and took some photos as I walked the peaceful grounds.





With any luck, I'll get out and take some great shots this month. December is usually wet, and with the added lights of the holiday season I should find plenty of opportunities. I've got my fingers crossed, anyway. I hope you've enjoyed looking, and as usual you can see more from these shoots on my flickr page, http://flickr.com/pdxsean.

Highlights of Several Recent Shoots

I've been out taking a lot of pictures lately.  The weather here has been great for photography, in that it has been raining modestly with little wind.  Over the last week, I've gone out several times to take some pictures, getting a pretty decent variety of shots, the highlights of which I am showing here.  As usual, there are additional pictures from these shoots on my flickr page.















Fall and winter are among my favorite times to take pictures, so with any luck I'll be a lot more active over the next few months.  We don't get a lot of snow and ice here in Portland, but there's often some to be seen a short drive away, so I'm expecting to catch some of it in the next few months.  Should be a good winter for photography.

Thanks for taking the time to look, I hope you've enjoyed.

More Long Exposures of Portland's Skyline at Dusk

We've had some great cloudy sunsets during the last week, and I've gone out to catch a couple of them with my camera.  The first time out, the clouds sort of cleared up as I was shooting, so the results weren't quite as dramatic as I would have liked.  The image above is the only one from that shoot that made the final cut, you can see that there are only a couple of clouds still in the sky.



The next day I went out and did the macro photography that I featured in my previous post, and the clouds were a lot heavier as the sun crept below the horizon.  I was able to catch some really great long exposures.  My goal was to take a lot of 90-120 second shots, and for the most part I was successful.  However a couple of the test shots I did at 20 or 30 seconds ended up looking great, so I've posted the best of those as well.






I hope you've enjoyed!  I've been pretty motivated to go out and shoot lately (it's this great fall weather) so you can expect plenty of more photos to come.  I have a whole set from last night, and more than likely I'll get out to do another couple of shoots this week.  Good times.

Industrial SE Portland

My absolute favorite type of photos to take are these industrial style images, with my 60mm macro lens. Although I don't necessarily get too many highly magnified "macro" style images, the clarity of the lens and ability to get in close to my subjects really makes the macro lens worth hooking up for these industrial area walks.



I'm always surprised that I don't see more of this sort of photography when I look around online. There are so many little hidden treasures to be found looking around manufacturing and industrial areas. I don't take a lot of risks for any of these shots, all of them are taken from public sidewalks and the like... I don't get why other people don't see the same sort of things all that much.




As it is, I'm happy to be able to express myself through the camera in this fashion. My love of this sort of photography is the basis for the name of this blog, as I view my tripod and spray bottle to be the most important tools in making these images work. Although I could shoot this stuff handheld, and without wetting it down first, I wouldn't be able to get the level of complexity I do were I to approach it in that manner.



Thank you for looking, I hope you've enjoyed! As always, you can see more images on my flickr page, and you may follow my infrequent remarks over on twitter @pdxsean. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Water - From the Beach to Downtown

After a reasonably slow month of October, I've had a pretty productive last week or photography. The first images are, actually, from October, and had sat forgotten on my hard drive until earlier this week when I remembered to post them on Flickr. I had taken a drive up to Washington's Long Beach peninsula with hopes of shooting Oysterville and their lovely state parks, but ended up at my second-fallback locations of Ilwaco and Cape Disappointment.









In the last week, we've had some good rain here in Portland, accompanied by little or no wind, which has meant some great night photography for me. I've taken a few walks around downtown with my camera and have been pretty fortunate to catch some nice images. Even better, the temperatures have been generally in the upper fifties in the evening, so it was much more comfortable than one would expect for spending hours walking around in the rain.









I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this winter, photo-wise. I hope that there will be plenty more great rainy nights, and with any luck I'll be able to shoot some fog and snow. Stranger things have happened... but either way, I'll try to stay happy with what I get.

I hope you've enjoyed, and thanks for taking the time to look at my work. You can, as always, see more of these images on my flickr account, and follow my infrequent tweets over on twitter @pdxsean.