And what a week 4 it was!  All of these photos were taken January 28th.  I got through a whole roll in one long day and I was very proud of myself.

The original goal for this week was “Wildcard, photographer’s choice.”  I chose to try to get some nice landscape type photos out of Forest Grove.  This worked for a while, but it is hard to always see a good photo, especially 12 in one general location… So after a while I headed back into Portland.

Another thing I should mention is that this would have been done last Friday, but my favorite photo store’s printer broke, so I ended up buying a scanner.  So all of these photos are now painstakingly scanned by me (wow, it takes more effort than you would guess, like 10 minutes a photo).

f16 1/30

I like the reflections a lot,
The flooded road is interesting
But light isn’t incredible
Pretty dull, nothing really pops.
Passable photo.

f22 1/30

My friend Michael Cavanaugh  and his Northwest Topographics series continues to inspire me to take photos of buildings.
Especially this building.
I like the lines from the railroad track
I like the way the white cube sits on the green grass
Though I wish the green grass and that line was a little more prominant
Pretty happy with this one.

f16 1/125

The goal of this photo was to get an interesting tree silhouette
The tree shape is interesting
Though the photo is less exciting than I thought it might be
This is a good tree though, it inspired me to try the photo from a different angle.

f11 1/125

I sure am glad I tried this from a different angle
So far, favorite of the series.
Love the strong yellow line and straightness of the road
Tree frames the barn and only other prominent item in photo well
Pretty pleased with this one
Though these road landscapes are kinda cliché… This road landscape is mine.

f8 1/60

This is my first self portrait.  You can tell if you look real close.
I like the colors
I like doors
I like that it says “Lust Dinner”
This photo is okay, though, again, photos of doors seem not super exciting,
it is interesting enough, and the sharpness of the photo pleases me.

f8 1/60

Another photo taken for the writing on the wall
I love the bacon art
Also the dumpster text is interesting.
When taking the photo I was waiting for the little kid in the bottom of the bus to look at me
I think composition in this photo is pretty strong.  There is a lot to draw eye around photo, but I think there is a bit too much sky.
Though I do remember moving my body to include a bit of the barrel and wall on the left.
Interesting enough, though light is kinda drab.

f/16 1/8

I felt so fortunate to come upon this
I had the photo all set,
Then I apparently got distracted by a guy who wanted to talk about how cool my camera is.
I remember waiting for a few minutes for people to clear the shot… I don’t have any idea how I got this person with the backpack in the frame.
It is a glaring error on my part.
They are also wearing a bright teal jacket which I de-saturated just because it makes me so angry… ughh… this photo… so much potential…
It is still pretty good, but it could be better.

f5.6 1/60

This car was interesting enough for a second photo.
This is solid and timeless and is in a no parking zone, so that is nice
It is just okay though.  Nothing incredible.

f22 1/4

I was losing light, but this cool sculpture came with its own lighting
Behind it is a tattoo place that used to be home to Portland’s Most Nobel Prize winningest scientist, Linus Pauling.
It’s the Alpha-helix
Oh yeah and there is a mermaid behind it
And I waited for them to open the door to get a photo of someone going/coming
Turns out… it was too dark, though it is nice to get a chandelier in there.
pretty ok/interesting photo.

f4 1/60

Well, when I took this photo, I wrote “three amigos”
Not a good sign.  I only see 2.5 out of focus amigos.
Street photography is going to be hard.
Moving objects are tricky, especially if they are not moving on a parallel plane.
I need to remember to be careful as I open up the aperture.
f4 leaves a pretty shallow depth of field.
Another question to ask, is would this photo be good if it was in focus?
Probably not, but it would be better.
Also, I don’t really mind the out of focus telephone pole on the right… This was purposeful, I’m reasonably happy with framing and composition actually, it just feels bad to feature a Mc-Minimums so prominently without receiving any compensation for it.

f2.8 1/30, forgot bulb mode, oops

Ooooops.
I installed my cable release for this photo,
But then I neglected to change my camera settings to bulb mode
And I shot this night photo at f2.8 at 1/30th of a second.
The bottom, much better, photo was shot at f11 for 34 seconds.

WOW!  I love this photo!
I am very pleased to have such a good result come out of this.
Really pleased.

Good week 4 all things considered.  I think the main thing I learned from week 4, is if you find a good subject, feel free to work it a bit.  Don’t just take one photo and move on to the next thing.  See if you can frame it differently or compose your shot in a more interesting way, look at it from as many angles as possible to have a better chance of getting a good photo.

Week 5 I took two rolls of photos in San Jose for my long weekend trip.
These are coming soon!