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It feels like I’m finally starting to get back into the picture-taking groove again.  I had a few great photo op’s during this weekend’s 4th of July celebration, out visiting Cam and Dave in St. Helen’s, OR.  The view from the hill at their house turned out to be spectacular!  At 20-30 miles from downtown Portland, I figured we’d be too far away to see much of the fireworks action around the city, but it turns out the distance allowed us to see over 100 shows!  I REALLY need to start bringing a tripod to these gigs! Check out the ridge in this photo, where you can see all the tiny explosions in the distance (click for larger):

A nearby field and cloudy sunset made for some great HDR opportunities:

Pitch black in between bursts, the picnic area become brightly lit for the brief moment of the mortar rounds exploding:

And a few obligatory 4th of July sparkler shots:

I was actually somewhat surprised when looking at the EXIF data for this image. It was taken with a Canon 40D, 70-200 f/2.8 with 1.4x @ 238mm and F/9.

Here’s one of MANY bees that happened to be buzzing around a patch of flowers outside.  This shot was complicated a little by the fact that I had to be about 3 inches away to get the proper zoom, and there were a BUNCH of bees buzzing around me at the time (no injuries sustained ).