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A walk through some of Washington’s apple boom history
I recently took a hike through some of Washington State’s apple boom history. One hundred years ago, the government in the area, decided to begin clearing a wagon trail to better access the apple orchards up in the grasslands of the Husum and White Salmon River area of Washington. Chief Jacob Hunt, or Titcamnashat, which means “Earth Thunderer”, was the local Klickitat Chief and shaman who ended up owning the land that this hike is on. The families of his tribe lived along the river, so they were given 400 acres in return for the trail, which came to be known as The Weldon Wagon Trail. The cemetery which Jacob was buried in, is also in the immediate area of this hike, and can be visited as I did, before you start the wagon trail. I absolutely loved this hike, and will probably go down as one of my favorites. I don’t know if it’s because I hadn’t been out in a while, or what, but it was just so relaxing and quiet out there. It helped that I did this in the December cold. I didn’t see another person until I got back to the car. All I could hear was a few horses neighing, the wind blowing, and birds chirping. I was certain that I would see a deer, but that didn’t happen. The fog really got heavy the higher I got, and it became very eerie out there all alone. All the old apple trees, with no leaves, and all the fog, really helped to make it a bit of a scary looking hike. Perfect setting to film a horror film. It was fantastic though. The book I have, says that it was a 3 mile hike, there and back, but it really seemed longer than that. I forgot to start my gps tracker, so I can’t confirm that. The book, and a sign along the way, said that I would eventually meet up with a road, which I think was called, Sanborn Road, but once I got to a certain point, I ran into a bunch of signs that said, “Private Property”. So I stopped there to rest and eat before heading back. I had a great time, and I highly recommend it! I plan to get back out that way eventually. There looks to be a lot of ground to explore out that way, including some of the non-restricted Mt Adams recreational area. On my way back out, I saw many people packing up their kayaks near the river. I guess the White Salmon River is heavily used by intermediate kayakers and rafters year around. Here are a few of my photos from the day. As always, you can click to view them in a larger size, and purchase prints!
Wisk Vector Art
Free vectors are always nice. I needed to make this a while ago for a project I was working on. I figured it might come in handy for some of you designers out there. It’s free, do what you would like with it! Your downloaded file will be in EPS format, 300 DPI, and 451 X 1261 pixels. Here is your free wisk vector file.
wisk vector preview
Camera Lens Vector – .AI – .SVG – .EPS
This camera lens vector comes in three file formats! AI, SVG, and EPS. All editable in Adobe Illustrator. The SVG and EPS formats will be editable in other vector software programs as well. The picture below is just a jpeg preview. Your purchased camera lens vector art-file will be 1432 X 1413 pixels, and 300 DPI. Your three files will be compressed in a zip file. Instant download after Paypal payment. Only $1.00usd!
camera lens vector
Pacific Coast – HDR Photos
Yes, more Pacific Coast photos! Yachats, Oregon to be exact. I wanted to post up a few of my HDR photos from my Yachats trip. What is HDR? Well it’s a process that can be done with a number of different software programs like, Photomatix, Adobe Photoshop, and HDR Efex Pro. There are more, but I think that those three are the main players right now. Personally, I have been using HDR Efex Pro a lot lately. In the future, I plan on doing a post on how to use, or at least how I use the program. Anyway, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and basically it lets you create images with darker darks and lighter lights. You take a good 3 to 7 shots of the same scene, but differ the exposure, over and under in all the shots. Let me be a little clearer. Unless you have the ability to use bracketing, here are some BASIC steps: 1) Find your desired scene to shoot. 2) Put your camera on a tripod. 3) Take your desired shot in normal exposure. 4) Take the same shot again, but under exposed two stops. 5) Take it again, but under exposed four stops. 6) Take it again, but over exposed two stops. 7) Again, but over exposed four stops. 
You now rush home, and break down the door to get to your computer. 9) Fire up your desired HDR program, and merge them together for that beautiful High Dynamic Range photo! Ok enough about that. I will post more on this in later posts, but let’s move on to the photos here in this post! These were taken on a recent weekend trip over to the Oregon coast. You might have scene other photos from this trip in the previous posts, Long Exposures on the Yachats Coast, and Yachats Oregon Coast Pt.1. These particular shots were taken at around five AM. I was up hoping for that spectacular morning sunrise, but there was no sunrise. Or at least the cloud cover would make you think that. I ran into a few guys that were also up early, but for a different reason. They were trying to fish in these wild waters! These were all taken with a HOYA 4-stop filter, tripod, and around 20 second exposures. I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. Please know that you can click on these to view larger, and to order prints, or download. All purchased items will be at FULL size, touched up and edited even further, and will NOT include my logo.
Rocks and Sand in Yachats-HDR
Early Morning Fishing in Yachats-HDR
Fisherman on the Yachats Coast-HDR
Water and Sky Collide-HDR
LYTRO Is Here! New Photography Technology.
The online world is abuzz this week about LYTRO, this new photo technology that let’s you change focus on your photos after they’re taken. Ok if you’re like me, you might be saying “I don’t get it, so what?”. That is until I got a chance to look into this. It’s pretty amazing stuff!
“The breakthrough is a different type of sensor that captures what are known as light fields — basically, all the light that is moving in all directions in the view of the camera. That offers several advantages over traditional photography, the most revolutionary of which is that photos no longer need to be focused before they are taken.”
You can post images all over the net, just like you can now, and supposedly they can be viewed on mobile phones too. The difference is you can play around with which part of the image is in focus. So basically you can have two or three types of images in one. Once you look at some of these, you will see exactly what I’m talking about.
“The technology also allows photos to be taken in very low-light conditions without a flash, as well as for some eye-popping three-dimensional images to be taken with just a single lens. To view photos in full 3-D, users still need some sort of 3-D display, such as a 3-D phone, PC or television. However, even without such a display, a certain amount of 3-D is visible.”
New Lytro Photography Tech
Very cool stuff, folks! You can head over to the Lytro website to see all the goodies. What a great website too!
The Great Oregon Slug!
I snapped a photo of this guy during my hike out in the Starvation Creek area. Yeah, they’re a dime a dozen out here in Oregon, but this guy was huge! Love how this picture came out.My favorite type of photo is getting close up on objects, and then blurring the surroundings with a wide open aperture. Since so many people garden out here in Oregon, these poor guys are very hated by many! But on the other hand, a few people have gotten meningitis from eating them raw! I guess they’re not hated by everyone then. This is a royalty free image. Feel free to do whatever you’d like with it. You can download your Oregon Slug Here.
Oregon Slug in Starvation Creek
Long Exposures on the Yachats Oregon Coast
Here is a few of my evening, long-exposure photos from Yachats, Oregon! This is the second installment of images from my recent trip over to the central Oregon Coast. You might care to read the first installment, Yachats Oregon Coast-Part One ? The night images were taken the first evening that we were there. It was around 9:30 or so when I could finally start upping the exposure times. Keep in mind, that a Hoya 3-stop, ND filter was used for these. My next purchase will be a 10 stop filter, so that I can experiment with these types of shots during the day. Please let me know what you think, and help me spread the word if you enjoy these! And as always, you will have the option to purchase prints once you click on an image. Purchased prints come in full size, cleaned and edited further, and minus my logo.
Yachats Oregon Long Exposure
Yachats Oregon Chasm
Yachats Evening Coastline
Yachats – Oregon Coast – Part One
My wife and I just got back from our little vacation in Yachats Oregon. And by the way, that’s pronounced, “YA-HOTS”, which I was not aware of until recently. We drove over there through the Tillamook State Forest, and then took Highway 101 south through Tillamook, Lincoln City, and Depoe Bay, which like to call themselves the “Worlds Smallest Harbor”, and the “Whale Watching Capital of the Oregon Coast”. There were a lot of people there looking out, trying to spot whales. They have a nice little area inside for you to go into, and use their binoculars to watch for whales. We kept on going down through Newport and Waldport, but not before we stopped in a little community called Otter Rock. There is a great beach and a cave here called, Devil’s Punchbowl. After we checked that out, we climbed back up and tasted some wine at The Flying Dutchman Winery. After that we were back on our way and finally reached Yachats a few hours later. We decided to stay at a little motel called, Fireside Inn, which is a nice little place right on the water. Once we were there, we really didn’t have to drive much more than that. There was so much to see right outside our door! During our stay we saw a whale, a few seals, and even a rabbit. We explored Cooks Chasm, Cape Perpetua, and Thor’s Well. Oregon Coast weather is just so unpredictable, but we got lucky and had mild temperatures and no rain! I hoped to catch either a sunrise or sunset photo while we were there, but it just wouldn’t happen because of cloud cover. It’s alright though, I got some real great shots without the sun anyway! This is part one. This post features some photos along the way to Yachats, and daytime shots of when we were there. Part two will feature my nighttime and early morning long exposure photos. I hope you enjoy! Remember! You can click on the images below to view them larger, and to buy downloads and prints. Your purchased photos will be full size and without my logo.
OtterRock Beach, Oregon
Otter Rock Beach Cave
Big Splash at Yachats Oregon
Pelicans in Yachats Oregon
Thor's Well in Yachats Oregon
Fleet Week Ships in Portland
It’s Fleet Week! Another one of the great events in Portland. One of the many things my wife and I love about Portland Oregon, is that there always seems to be something going on somewhere in the city. In addition to Fleet Week, there’s also the Portland Rose Festival, and a waterfront carnival going on as well! So getting to the photos: we were just heading downtown and were going to walk around the southwest area, since it was such a nice, sunny day. As we were driving over the Burnside bridge, we saw all kinds of police cars and people standing around, looking down at the water. We totally forgot that it was Fleet Week. We Ended up getting a great parking spot, and walked over to the waterfront. There were a ton of people out, plus a bunch of fences and barriers were up, so it wasn’t easy getting a great shot of the ships. Naval vessels from the United States Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Maritime Forces were on display. These were the best ones that I was able to get. Hope you enjoy! You can view them larger, download, and order prints, by clicking on the images below. Remember All images you buy will be in full size and resolution, without my logo.
Battleship at Portland's Tom McCall Waterfront
Canadian Maritime Ship in Portland
Coastguard fireboat and World War 2 PT boat
Portland's Steel Bridge lifted for Fleet Week
Washington State Forest Trees
Solitude in the Washington Forest. Gifford Pinchot National Forest to be exact. There’s really something great about being out in the woods. Sometimes, I love just getting away from civilization, road noise, and people. This was taken the same day that I took my, Lower Lewis River Falls, photo. We were just walking back to the car, and I decided to start taking photos of the trees. This was my favorite one. Click on the image below to view it larger, to order prints, and to download it for yourself! Remember, the your purchases photo will be full resolution and size, minus my logo. Thanks!
Gifford Pinchot National Forest