Flowers at Tom McCall Point

My last post was a landscape photograph from the hike at Rowena overlook hike on the Tom McCall preserve in Oregon. These photographs showcase flowers that I saw on the hike. I really enjoyed all of the purples and blues in the flowers that were blooming.

When I was there last I got to see all of the yellow flowers at their peek which was also magnificent. I hope you enjoy my shots and have a great week!

You can now buy prints and more featuring photographs from this post at http://emilia-brasier.pixels.com/shop?sort=featured I appreciate your support!

Burnt trees and flowers at Tom McCall Hike

For mothers day my mom and I took our cameras out to Tom McCall Point hike at Rowena overlook and spent the afternoon photographing the view and wild flowers of this beautiful Oregon hike.

Purchase this photograph at 

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/burnt-trees-emilia-brasier.html

It looks like there was a fire since I had been there last and there was this beautiful view of these burnt trees surrounded by the wildflowers of spring. These were my favorite photographs from the day.

Rock Garden at Lewis & Clark College

Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon is a campus full of beauty, from the reflection pool with a view of Mt. Hood, to old stone carriage paths, and the beautiful manor house. Recently I was visiting my old alma mater while helping a friend photograph an engagement session and noticed they revamped an area with a beautiful rock garden. I of course had to return and photograph the flowers there.

Purchase photographs from this series at http://emilia-brasier.pixels.com/products/pink-flower-and-greenery-emilia-brasier-pouch.html

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.

Photographs of Family Trip to Smith Rock

Two weeks ago I shared a couple of my favorite photographs from the short trip my family took to Smith Rock in September and I have a few more photographs that show more what it was like to be visiting that magnificent Oregon State park. We ended up doing quite a long loop that was a bit much for my kids. I ended up giving each of them turns on my back for the last mile or two.

It was really neat to see the climbers in action, especially the ones on Monkey Face which is almost unfathomable to me. We got to watch three people come down off the top of it. The next most facinating thing was watching someone tight rope walk across a giant cliff to another cliff, it really made me worry that person would fall, so much so that I did not even want to photograph it.

The blue sky was quite vibrant this day which was way in my initial post I was hesitant to make the photographs black and whiye, even though I really like the end result.

Mt Hood and Downtown Portland

I cannot believe it took me this many years to find this spot in Portland, Oregon! A friend and I decided we are going to try and hike all of Wildwood trail in Forest Park this year and set out this last Sunday to start. We began our hike at the Audobon Society of Portland and walked up to Pittock Mansion where we were able to view downtown Portland and Mount Hood at the same time, it was a beautiful site!

Close Up at Mt. Rainier National Park

I have been really lucky that most years an Aunt and Uncle of mine come from New York out to Oregon to go to the Oregon Country Fair and arrive in time for my birthday most times. We almost always take their visit as an opportunity to head out and go camping in either Oregon or Washington for a few days. This years was no different, except that I was graced with the presence of another one my aunts which was wonderful! This year we drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington.

We found a great camp site at the White River Camp grounds in Mt. Rainier National Park and then took off to do a short hike before dark. This was a trip where I had my kids along and hiking was enjoyable, but required a bit of, let’s say encouragement from all of the adults to make it past the parking lot. However, I did manage to get a few photographs of various things while on the trip and so for this weeks photography challenge of close up, I am sharing from these photographs.

It was beautiful and there were quite a few wildflowers still hanging around, although in comparison to most other years they were actually very early, we had apparently missed the huge show of flowers by at least a week.

The flowers of course bring out the pollinators and so we got to see several different butterflies however this was the only on I captured staying still.

Of course there is nothing quite like being up close to a beautiful mountain, although they tend to photograph better from a bit further back in my opinion. This was taken at Sunrise on the hike up to frozen lake, which was in no way frozen this trip.

Black and White Photography Challenge: Week 7

A few weeks ago I was scoping out a location for a portrait photography shoot in Portland and was taking photographs along the way to help more create a map of where I would be able to place people that would have a nice back drop.

Of course I ended up finding a patch of Butter Cups (anyone else think of the Princess Bride everyone you see Butter Cups) to photograph. 🙂 I don’t often turn my flower photographs black and white because a lot off what I love about flowers is the color they have, but since I am trying to do more black and white I decided to just try it out. I used my Samsung phone to photograph this time and used the app Snapseed to edit it.

This park, Gabriel Park, in Portland was lovely and has lots of opportunity for great photographs as well as tennis, baseball, skate boarding, and a short hike. I had no idea Portland had this park, but it is really quite lovely. Of course Portland is wonderful for all of the rally great packets of wilderness and parks that it has.

Check out my week 6 black and white photography challenge while you are here and feel free to join along and post a black and white photograph a week for 8 weeks. I only have one more week to go, but I would enjoy seeing what others post. 🙂