Clark County Kids Portraits

Every year it is ha been a tradition to take my kids to a park on Clark County to take their yearly portraits for their birthday. This year was no different, and while there are many beautiful places to take kids portraits in Clark County, I almost always end up at the same park with this little one.

There used to be a great wooden fence here that we included in our photographs and helped show a progression of her growth as well. Unfortunately it seems to have fallen down over the last year so we had to improvise a bit. I actually really liked the natural arches of these bushes and the brighter light that hit her from behind.

I spent a little time getting her to give me a more natural smile and love this grouping of that process:

We also tried out a few other spots to photograph her. There are some tall grasses that light up from behind at sunset.

Every year these portrait sessions take a different form and it is fun to see if they are more like a lifestyle photography session or a mini portrait session. It is also fun to see how her personality comes out each year. I always take each session as a bit of a quest to get genuine personality.

 

Seattle Space Needle In Fall

The Seattle Space Needle surrounded by fall trees

In keeping with the past few posts I am again posting from the fall. This photograph was taken when my family and I taveled to Seattle, Washington for the day. We went to try and see an Arctic Fox at the zoo as a part of my son’s school project, but it was quite elusive.

We spent the morning at the zoo and the afternoon at the Space Needle and other places around the Space Needle. We discovered that the science museum there is free if you are a member of Portland, Oregon’s OMSI so we took in live butterflies, moving dinosaurs, a tide pool, and more before moving on to my son’s biggest interest the Space Needle.

I did not take a lot of photographs, but I did really like this one of the Space Needle surrounded by a couple fall colored trees. There are a few more a ways back in my Instagram feed as well (those are from my phone) if you care to go check those out, my name is Livelovecreatebehappy.

I found that these day trips can be really fun for our family, finially! I hope to travel somewhat locally like this a bit more since it was so fun. Do you like day trips? What are you favorites? Do have any recommendations for Oregon or Washington?

Fall Japanese Maple Photographs

At some point last spring I noticed the Japanese Maple tree in Camas, Washington by the library and grabbed my camera to go photograph it. When it came around to fall I figured it was time to take my camera back and take some more photographs of this same tree.

I often find I don’t have the time to sit down and look through my photographs,  but I have finally gotten to the photos I took of this maple tree in  downtown Camas, Washington in the fall.

I have seen photographs of the maple tree in the Japanese Garden in Portland, Oregon that are stunning and I thought I was finally going to get there this fall to go photograph it, but the Garden was closed for the fall! Next year I hope! This tree is probably equally as beautiful, but it is difficult to photograph it without getting cars, street, or buildings in the background. Still I enjoyed taking the time to take these photographs.

Photography of Multnomah Falls

This fall I had the pleasure of having the opportunity to show my cousin around the Portland, Oregon area for a day.

My cousin is from New York, which has its fair share of beautiful hikes, landscapes, and waterfalls to be sure. If you only think of New York as the Big Apple you should really check out one of my posts from trips I have taken out there.

In any case I wanted to show her a little of the many things I love about the greater Portland area and the Columbia Gorge and Multnomah Falls was high on my list. I had never in my 30 years of living in the Pacific Northwest hiked all the way to the top of the falls so I decided to take this opportunity to share that experience with my cousin.

It turns out, it is really steep at parts, but it seems at the spot everyone stops to take a rest or give up, you are basically there. So if you go and feel like you have hit your limit, take a breather and plug on, you are probably really, really close!

The top has a beautiful view of the gorge and you can see the falls as they drop over the cliff. I will say that from the top, that is about all you can see of the large falls, but there is a small falls just before the drop off, and the view of the gorge plus the acompishment were worth the rather short trek.

After we looked over the edge we back tracked a bit to this little bridge which is where Larch Mountain Trail splits off of the Multnomah Falls Trail. I loved how lush and green it was in this spot.

Portraits of a Nine Year Old in Portland

It has take a while for me to finally get around to taking my son’s nine year portrait photographs, but we finally did it despite is very clear protest. I really wanted a nice fall tree background so we headed down to Portland, Oregon near the airport to where I had seen a nice area of colorful trees recently.

Although my son did not want to cooperate we were able to catch a few portraits that will do. He tried hiding, climbing, making faces, and moving too much to get a clear photograph, but finally cooperated enough to satisfy this mamma and I am claiming victory and including this as my post for the weekly photography challenge!