LRH and I attended a photography workshop in Portland focusing on using wireless flash for creative lighting. We had a fun and learned a ton. Here are some results.
Catherine Creek Photography
I had another adventurous weekend, starting with my flight to Goldendale Saturday morning. I was at the airfield by 10AM for preflight and departed by 10:45 with the intention of beating the gusty winds that were forecast for the afternoon. I made it out to Goldendale and was busy practicing some ground reference maneuvers when the Gorge winds finally started to kick up. The flight home was bumpy, to say the least, and it culminated in my first solo crosswind landing with 16 knot gusts.
Sunday, LRH and I decided to take our little Fuss Nugget to Catherine Creek since the wildflowers are in full bloom. This is a incredible place for photography and portraits. The park itself is set on a plateau overlooking the Columbia River with a paved trail that forms a one mile loop. Siena had a blast with the wildflowers and foot bridges. She would excitedly proclaim “weeee!” whenever an airplane flew by, which happened several times since the Columbia River is a highway for air traffic. In fact, I had flown over this park the day before.
We arrived just a few hours before sunset, so the light was soft and filtered. Here are a few landscape shots I came up with.
Air-to-Air Photoshoot, UFOs and Stomach Flu
This last weekend was interesting, to say the least. I originally planned a two hour solo flight for Saturday – a quick trip to Goldendale for some practice landings on their narrow strip and maybe some VOR tracking en route. However, upon arriving at the airport, they asked me to grab my camera and instead photograph the new addition to the FBO’s flight school, a beautiful Cessna 182: N34SR. I returned home in a hurry, ignoring Siena’s enthusiastic “Daddy!!!” as I walked in the door and grabbed my Nikon D700 with portrait lens and my Canon Digital Rebel with a 300mm zoom. Batteries? Check. Memory Cards? Check. Memory Cards and Batteries installed in camera? Check! After that it was back to the airport.
We departed as a flight of two and flew formation across the Cascades, passing Mt. Hood, Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Adams for a total of one hour. I sat in the left seat of the lead plane (a Cessna 172) and shot N34SR while my flight instructor had the controls. The windows of the Cessna open to the outside and when released will swing all the way open and stay there due to the force of the slipstream, making this particular airplane ideal for aerial photography. With one hand on the shutter button and one on the comm I verbally guided N34SR in the frame of my camera and shot away. The FBO needed photos of their new airplane to promote their scenic flights and flight school – I’m hoping they’ll be happily impressed with these:
After returning from the air-to-air shoot, I took the Cessna up for a solo flight around Mt. Hood. Pleasant, calm and uneventful described my one hour flight, that is, until I decided to land. I was at 3000 feet MSL, inbound for a 45 degree entry to the left downwind leg of the pattern for runway 25 when I noticed a shiny metallic object in an ascending trajectory directly in front of me. At first I thought it was a helicopter that had just departed from the airport, but I didn’t hear any radio calls announcing the departure prior to seeing this thing. As I approached it, I couldn’t see wings or rotors so it definitely wasn’t a manned craft. The sun was glinting off its metallic surface, which further obscured it from view. I immediately rolled to the left and the object passed by me. Whatever it was, it was fast, circular and almost hit me. I have a feeling that it was a large balloon of some kind – definitely not a party balloon. Either way, I couldn’t identify this flying object, so I can safely say that I’ve seen my first UFO.
While I was flying, one of my coworkers was entertaining guests at her housewarming party. They have a beautiful custom home right next to the runway, so I landed in front of my entire company, their spouses and significants others, and a bunch of people I didn’t know. Of course my landing was graded, as everyone knew I was the pilot of the Cessna that just touched down. I made the mistake of grabbing a beer before telling people about the UFO I spotted above the valley. After one glance at my drink, the conversation quickly transitioned into, “So, you fly drunk, huh?” or “How many beers is this for you tonight?”. Hey, at least I wasn’t trying to convince them it was a spaceship!
While my Saturday was fun, my Sunday was miserable, for myself, my wife and nugget. We all came down with the stomach flu, putting an abrupt end to our plans for post processing the pictures from the air-to-air shoot. I had forgotten what stomach flu was like, having last experienced it in Venice ten years ago. It was intense but fortunately short lived. I am finally starting to feel better and can’t wait to get up there again, maybe with a tin foil hat this time.
Happy 4th
Here are some photos from our 4th of July. As you can see, we started the evening with one very excited baby and returned home with one exhausted baby. Before the show began, four piper cubs from the local flight school and aviation museum flew low over the park while people cheered and Siena stared in amazement. This is the same flight school where I’m currently learning to fly.
Fireworks are fun to photograph! By varying the shutter speed or even using bulb exposures the results can be quite different.
Sunset Views of Seattle from Mercer Island
Living on Mercer Island provided a great opportunity to take photographs of Lake Washington and Seattle. My west deck looked out over the lake with Seattle and the Olympic Mountains in the distance. My east deck also looked out over the lake with Bellevue in the distance. Following are some photographs taken from my two decks.
Saturday Night Out
Hawk in Winter and I have spent many of our waking hours lately working on a website for our photography business. Siena has other ideas for how she’d like us to spend her waking hours, however, so it’s been difficult to find a block of time when we’re both available.
Our friend Jillian had kindly offered to watch Siena for a few hours this weekend if we wanted to get away for an evening alone. In the past, Siena has slept through her trips to restaurants so we hardly noticed we had her along. We chose to take Jillian up on her offer, but to use our time without Siena to work on the website, then take Siena with us to Mass and dinner out. Things didn’t go quite as planned, however! (I seem to be using that phrase quite a bit since becoming a Momma…)
We picked her up from Jillian’s and learned that she was hungry and fussy, but had refused the bottle. Jillian suspects she’s starting to teethe, so we’re bracing ourselves for that adventure. I fed and burped her in the back during Mass. Not ideal, but she was quiet and alert after that. Previously, she’d slept through most Masses. She still earned her usual praise from those in the pews around us once Mass had ended.
On our way out of the church, the parish priest asked if we could help him with something. When we first met with him about Siena’s baptism, he was delighted to discover HiW’s technical abilities and has asked for help with a few projects. He is interested in the latest technology, but not quite proficient. A few months ago, for example, he asked HiW to teach him how to check the voicemail on his iPhone. He had a couple hundred unheard messages, but instructed HiW just to delete them so he “could get caught up.” (!)
Saturday night’s impromptu project was setting up Father’s new computer, which then evolved into securing the WiFi network for the parish and connecting the printer. This time, I had an assignment too. Once I mentioned our aspiring photography business, he ran to a back room and emerged with another new purchase – a Nikon D60 camera, two lenses, and a flash. Siena was mostly content on a blanket while I took things out of their boxes, put them together, and tried not to drool over it all as I jotted down some instructions for him. After about an hour, he had to go meet with some other parishioners. Once we finished, we locked up as instructed, and headed off to the second part of our evening – dinner out – almost two hours after we’d planned. Here are some blurry cell phone pictures of our adventure:
We have become accustomed to two things when we bring Siena to a restaurant.
1) Waitresses and other customers come up to us and gush over Siena.
2) We are offered a high chair, turned upside down, so her carseat can rest on the wooden dowels that make up the base.
Both things happened this time. Even a couple of truckers came over to adore our daughter! What made me laugh out loud, though, was reading the sign attached to the underside of the highchair’s seat, visible only when the whole thing was turned upside down. Click the picture to see it bigger:
HIGHCHAIRS SHOULD ONLY BE USED IN UPRIGHT POSITION. SERIOUS INJURY MAY OCCUR IF CHAIR IS USED IMPROPERLY. DO NOT USE THIS CHAIR IN THE UPSIDE DOWN POSITION FOR ANY PURPOSE.
That’s okay. Siena didn’t sleep anyway, and didn’t want to be in her carseat. She wanted to be held, preferably in either a sitting or standing position, thankyouverymuch. It looks like her days of extreme portability are over. Which means we’ll be having far fewer Saturday Nights Out.
Posted by on 10 February 2009 at 2:22 AM
Filed Under: Catholicism, Fuss Nuggets (My Kids), Photography
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A Hawk in Winter
LRH’s uncle is an incredibly talented Montana photographer. Today he captured this image of a hawk sitting on a fence in the snow. Take a look at his online gallery for more great shots: http://bconnor.smugmug.com
Christmas Critters
LRH, Siena and I went to Portland this year for Christmas. We made the journey before the snow storms hit and made it safely. Her parents’ deck was host to a bunch of little critters this morning as they were scurrying about looking for food. Instead, they found my camera. Here are two shots I snapped earlier:
We hope you have a merry Christmas this year. Be safe out there.
Maternity Photos
Now that we’ve brought Siena home from the hospital, it’s time to show some of the maternity photos we took the week prior to delivery. We set up a simple home studio. For a backdrop, we hung a bedspread from a closet clothing rod placed between a cabinet and a tall lamp. We opened our French doors so that natural light was bathing the photo space, and then shot all of the pictures using the overcast-filtered sunlight and a tripod when necessary. I absolutely love photographing my gorgeous wife!
Our Trip to the Olympic Peninsula
My wife and I have been exploring the Pacific Northwest since the day we started dating. We’ve seen much of Washington and Oregon and will probably drive to Idaho and Montana this summer. This particular weekend, we spontaneously decided to explore the Olympic Peninsula and venture into the Olympic National Forest in an effort to photograph some of regions immense beauty. My friend Adam suggested we also spend some time in Port Townsend, a little artsy community on the northeastern tip of the peninsula. I spent Friday planning the trip with Google Maps and the Washington State Parks and Olympic National Forest homepages. We also bought a pair of coolers, important gear missing from our camping supplies. I grabbed my old boy scout dome tent, packed the jeep and headed west. [Read more…]
Posted by on 3 April 2008 at 12:09 PM
Filed Under: Camping, Hiking, Photography, Road Trips
4 Comments