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I’ve had my eye on this old barn right off Scholls Ferry Rd, and finally pulled over to snag a few shots ..

I’ve been messing around with creating HDR (high dynamic range) photos for quite some time. In the past, I did this with the “increase dynamic range” setting for Fred Miranda’s Velia Vision Plugin for Photoshop (not really HDR, I know). In the past few months, I’ve realized that there are MUCH better ways to accomplish this, which include shooting multiple exposures of the same scene, and then combining them into a single shot.

Here are some of my first “successful” attempts at getting the correct exposures. These were created by exposure bracketing on the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, and then combining / toning the exposures with Photomatix. My main goal here was to work on the correct exposure bracketing settings, as well as the correct toning in Photomatix. There are some big flaws with the image alignment of the three exposures (these were all shot hand-held – tripod highly recommended). The result is some funny looking halos around the clouds (and other stuff), but I was too lazy to go back in to Photoshop and fix all the issues.

Maybe I’ll find a really good “subject” for my shoot, and I’ll go through a full Photoshop treatment.

Big thanks to Don for my first trip on the water this season!

It seems like every so often a drive down the Columbia River Gorge sounds like a sure bet for good photos (and a nice hike!). No matter the weather, there are always beautiful scenes to shoot.

I have enough “classic” shots of the main falls, so here are some “off trail” shots that turned out great!

And what would Multnomah falls be without a ginormous hotdog?

The (almost?) full moon and partly cloudy skies teamed up last night for some pretty sweet landscapes.  The fisheye lens added a nice “bendy” effect too

Ester enjoys the sun setting at Seal Beach.