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.