My 9th week of photos. I shot my 10th and 11th roll of film in the Hasselblad 500c in a matter of hours.  A new record for me in pumping out film content.

We went to the Oregon coast on a beautiful day, stayed in a yurt, watched an incredible sunset, frolicked on the beach, and had a really wonderful time.

I also ended up creating quite a large job for myself.  Scanning and editing 2 rolls of photos made writing this blog seem like quite the daunting task.  But I thought, you know, I will just half-ass it and try to catch up so I can do a better one some day (hopefully).

Sun directly over Haystack Rock

I took this photo for the symmetry of the sun directly over the most interesting thing at this beach.  Although this also provides quite the juxtaposition of light and dark.
That rock is really dark.

I like that I got the wave crashing over the rock on the bottom, I don’t really like how I edited it/color corrected it.  I may come back to it again later.  I do love re-visiting old photos to see if I can improve them.

Tiny Dancer on the Beach.

One thing that may never end is my love of taking photos directly into the sun to get some sort of cool sun flare effect.
It pleases me.
I also really like all the cool things the clouds are doing in the photo.
As far as getting tiny dots doing interesting poses, I think my subjects are doing as good of a job as I could ask of them.  Their reflections look great.

Beach Raven

When walking on the beach I pointed out how cool this tree was to Jenny.
I also remember remembering how dumb most of my photos of trees look so far… But I don’t want to give up on trees.  So as I approached the tree a raven flew onto it.  He sat there for a while, and I was able to get close enough to it, that when it was ready to fly off, I was ready to capture it.  Luckily, it is slightly larger than a spec, which for a camera without a telephoto zoom is all you can really ask of a bird photo.

Jenny contemplates  vastness

This is my favorite photo of the roll.  Probably because it features my favorite model, but there are some other things I will point out too:
I love Jenny framing that big ol’ rock.
I like the band-aid on her thumb, I love the shadow of the earring on her neck.  Her purse perfectly matches her earring, and lends continuity to the photo (and outfit, what a fashionable lady).
The pattern on her shirt is great and the blue of the sky and pink of the shirt complement each other in a nice way.

I like it a lot.

Sunny Beach

Well, this photo proves that just taking a photo into the sun isn’t quite enough.  This is pretty boring.  I think the clouds were doing something cool, and they are pretty, but the photo isn’t that exciting.

Haystack Rock Jr. 

I like the cool sun rays emanating from the top left.
The cool hazy rocks make me happy.
The surf at the very bottom edge gives a nice dramatic feeling to the photo, like my toes are going to be wet in about one second.

Haystack Rock Jr. Part 2.

I was enjoying the reflection on the sand and tried my hardest to capture it here.
It is cool to see the clouds and sun in the sand, as well as my favorite little Haystack Rock Jr.
I think having the rocks at the top of the photo makes them feel larger than they actually are.  It’s an okay photo.

CONFINED SPACE – DO NOT ENTER

I love the absurdity of this sign.  I tried to lift up the box to see if I could open it, and also to prove that the sign was referring to the grate and not the box.  Better watch out guys, that sewer grate leads to a confined space.  And the only reason we shouldn’t go in there, is… because it is confined…
I wonder how many people had to go in there in order for this sign to be put up.

Lil pup Cerberus

My other favorite photo from the from this roll.
Jenny and I went to a different beach after Haystack Rock, to watch the sunset.  I saw this woman walking 4 enormous dogs on leashes and ran down the beach to get in front of her.  It was worth it though.  I was far enough ahead of her that I had about 5 seconds to set up the shot before she was in my frame.  For that fact alone I am happy it turned out,.
But… man, this is a pretty cool photo.
This photo is one where I do wish I was closer to the subject… though I do really like the reflection.    I am mostly just relieved that it turned out.

1. Sunset

Okay, Okay, Okay, now we are into sunset territory.  I was so enthralled with the beauty of this sunset that I ended up finishing this roll, and taking an entire second roll of photos in the following 20 minutes.
Now here is where I think I made my mistake.
I am supposed to show you guys photos and why I like and don’t like them.  What I think works and doesn’t work… Well… They all look the same.
These photos are all the same.
So I am just going to tell you a bit about my process and the problems I encountered processing them instead.

2. A bird makes this sunset different

Okay, so… All of the sunsets are functionally the same color.  But… I kind of just played with Adobe Lightroom to see what I could get away with as far as color combinations, luminence and saturation goes.  I don’t like all of them, but this is where most of my experimentation energy went.

These photos all have little captions if you click through them.   If you don’t I get it.

3. My favorite sunset. As far as composition goes. I like the birds and coloring seems fairly realistic as well.

4. Wow, this sunset sure is orange. Color seems exotic and pleasing, though sun shining directly in the middle isn’t that interesting to me.

5. uhhh… the blacks on this one are really crushed.

6. Purple/Yellow on this guy is nice. This is one of the better color combos, in my opinion.

7. Delicate pink top, dark moody bottom, this is vague enough to describe a lot of things that aren’t this photo.

8. There is a dark band going down pretty much every photo. This also definitely hindered me in editing, and made me not want to post these as much. I have no idea why it is here, but it hasn’t been a problem on any other roll, before or after.

9. Yeah, why not a purple sunset too. I don’t really feel the need for photos to look realistic, as long as they look good. As long as the color editing isn’t distracting, I think it is fine. I think this one hits that mark.

10. I like the pink and blues on this one. This Tetris color scheme is what I instinctively went for with almost every photo.

11. Now for a blue one! I had a soccer jersey when I was 14 that was this blue and yellow color themed.

12, I loved how beautiful the subtle pink and blues where in real life. I was unable to accurately capture them here. Also that damned line makes this photo an eyesore to me.

13. I love the bottom of these clouds.

Well, another week in the books.  I am obviously late on this one, so I already have the other roll scanned and almost edited.  See you soon.  Also, I am curious which color scheme you think looks the best on the sunset if you care to give me your opinion.  I numbered them for convenience.

February is over.  Week 8 is complete, and I feel pretty good about it.  This week’s photo prompt was “forsaken,” so I headed down to my favorite dilapidated building in Linton only to find that it was recently demolished.  Forsaken indeed.  Backup plan was just go to one of the most photographed places in all of Portland and try to take some semblance of an original photo there.

f16 1/30

The first photo I took this roll is one of my favorites.
I love how much it has going on.  So many layers.
The tree frames the scene well,
and the St.Johns bridge makes  a nice cameo in the background.
Also, this Airstream van is one of the most “foresaken” things I saw all day.

f22 1//60

Another thing I have been interested in is taking photos with the sun as a subject.
I really enjoy sun-rays filtering through trees, as well as the shadows of the trees.
having a small aperture, something slightly filtering the sun, and a fast aperture seems to help the photo not be too blown out.
I looked at a lot of photos of the bridge and didn’t find too many that looked exactly like this, so the sun-rays also help set it apart from the millions of other photos taken here.

f16 1/30

Another pleasing photo!
I love the green/blue cool color combo, also I am pleased with the color pallete.
The bridge really is a lovely piece of infrastructure
The clouds do a great job of framing the bridge,
The lines from the bottom left to top right lead the eye through the photo nicely.

f22 1/125

Another photo of the sun.
Again, I am pleased with the sun-rays and the way the sun hits the camera.
This photo was a bit tricky to color-correct due to extremes of light and dark
It’s very high contrast may be better for black and white,
Though I do think it is an interesting photo, and I love how forgiving color film is compared to digital photos.
If I took this photo on my digital camera, I think there is no way I would capture any detail of the bridge across the water, or the subtlety in the two rows of trees or the buildings across the river.

f8 1/125

I saw this couple sitting on the bench and I walked right up to them from pretty far off.
They are very small in the photo, but I like their symmetry and the sense of scale they provide.
The exposure is perfect, the light is good, but it is lacking something…
Maybe it feels like this image or something like it has been made too many times.
Maybe it is too busy, or the trees are missing something.
I’m not sure, there is just something about this photo that doesn’t really excite me.
B-

f11 1/500

Hey!  Another photo taken directly into the sun.
This may be the least interesting of them all.
Though this boat did appear to be pretty forsaken, I don’t think I captured that.
I was obviously more interested in the little golden Roman dude.
The photo itself, kinda interesting, sun is cool, has sun-rays.
Subject: boat/hood ornament… Is it worth taking a photo of?  Maybe.
Is it my favorite photo ever: nah.
Would I choose this photo to show to friends outside of this blog?  mmmaybe.

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I wish I was closer to this Love sign
Also, this boat is way more interesting than the last.
I wish I was closer to that boat.
The dock is private and it belongs to this place called Green Anchors.
I need to go visit this place some time, I think there are a lot of good photo opportunities there.
Water/sky/clouds/reflection and exposure/color are all pretty okay though.
This one is a tossup if it would make it to my Instagram feed.

f16 1/8

Another outsider view of the Green Anchors compound.
There are other businesses there too.
And this photo definitely gives off a forsaken vibe.
I like the sign, a lot, and the barbwire is pretty nice too.
However; everything else seems pretty busy/jumbled.
I think this photo would be better if it was less busy.

f11 1/15

I hate this photo.
I think the shutter speed being so slow did something
Also, the light is weird.  I failed to make it look good.
It kind of falls flat.
One thing worth noting, is there are about 10 people at different places in this photo, I think most of them were photographers.

I am glad to have ticked it off my list of places to photograph, I am happy with some of the first photos I took there.
Though there are many opportunities to take cliche photos like the one above, these well photographed locations have some muse-like qualities to them that inspire and challenge me to create interesting photos.  Just knowing that millions of photos are snapped in one location creates a sense of competition – I feel like I have to work harder in these places to make my photo stand out in some way.  I obviously failed with this garbage photo, but I think my photo with the Airstream is notable and unique. This feels nice.

f8 1/60

O wow.
This is also the best photo of the roll.
Really happy with the exposure, model, creepy eye-holes.
Many of us in the pizza world have taken pizza-as-mask photos.
I think the one that sets this apart is that it was taken outside in the real world,
Not in the safety of a pizza restaurant.

f8 1/60

Another photo of what appeared to be something in the forsaken category.
Car on blocks with busted window and no tires.
Though it probably just belongs to one of these people,
I like to imagine the wheels were stolen
The photo does tell some sort of story though
I was really happy with the light of the setting sun on these houses,
This photo would be way better if the car was lit as well.

f16 1/15

Last photo of the roll is across the street from the car with no wheels.
The sun looked really cool on these buildings.
There is a lot of empty space though.
The photo may have been better if I moved my tripod, not in the middle of the road, as I am wont to do, but off to the side of the road, and focused more on the way the sun hits the buildings and the sunset.
It feels like there is a lot of dead space in this photo, and not the cool minimalist kind.
Well, it was a fun and productive week overall.  I have really enjoyed scanning and editing these photos.  My techniques keep changing, and I like to think I am improving. Tomorrow I am going to the beach and I am hoping for some sort of beautiful Oregon Coast sunset photos.
I have no idea what my next week’s photo prompt is supposed to be, but I do know I will be taking a lot of photos this weekend.