Self Exploration: A Self Portrait Photography Project

Near the beginning of last year I joined a group called #p52radness. The aim of the group is to take a self portrait once a week. So often, particularly as mothers, we take photographs of the people we are with and the places we are while leaving ourselves out of the frame.

If I were to go back and look at our photographs from the past ten years I make an occasional appearance, usually when my Mom has been with us. Someone looking might think I was missing from my family’s life most of the time. One aim of this project, for me (each person has their own goals) is to try and be in the frame with my family more, but not just in a “selfie” kind of way.

Over the course of the year in this group I was so inspired by people’s amazing self portraits that were just capturing the beauty of themselves. This year, while I still want to make appearances in the photographs of our family photo album, I also want to explore the more artistic side of self portraits. So here goes!

I think all of these also encompass the WordPress weekly photo challenge of silence.

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!

The Bee’s Dance, a Lavender Photograph

This is my last post to reveal my new photographs available for sale that are up in my newest spring collection of lavender centric photographs. I saved my photograph of this bee dancing around the lavender for last because it happens to be my favorite capture in this collection.

Purchase here at Fine Art America

I spent the majority of my time chasing this bee, and a few others, around the lavender bushes to try and get a photograph of it getting nectar. The bees dance around the lavender so quickly that they are difficult to get into focus, and this day was abnormally warm for sunset so they did not seem to be slowing down as they sometimes do as it gets colder.

I find this bee to be beautiful especially with the yellow and orange in contrast to the purple lavender plant. I hope that you will check out my prints available for sale and please share this with your bee and flower loving friends.

Here is a link to the first post and here is one to the second post, but you can see all my photographs for sale currently here.

Lavender Photograph: Part II Prints for Sale

These are the next three lavender photographs that are now available for purchase as prints in my spring collection. I particularly love these three photographs together as a set, but they  hold their own as well. These are a collection of photographs taken in southwest Washington state during spring last year.

I often wander my ne8ghborhood with my camera, especially in the spring when there are lots of new flowers out. On this particular  trip around my neighborhood I had the intention of heading to the local Camas Lily field to take photographs of the purple and blue flowers that were in bloom there, but along the way I got side tracked by the beautiful lavender with the bees working very hard to collect pollen. I ended up spending more time with the Lavender than the Camas flowers I had intended to photograph. 

If you care to see all of the photographs in this spring series now or to go purchase one you can find the link here. To see the first in the series, the lavender at sunset, the first post in the lavender collection here.

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.

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.

Photographs of Portland, Oregon Bernie Sanders Rally

Today in Portland, Oregon there was a rally in support of presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. The event took place in downtown Portland at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Despite the rain there were many in attendance and some really great speakers who were obviously passionate and optimistic about the cause. As I usually do I donned my camera and took photographs while enjoying the event.

As this weeks photography challenge is optimistic, I thought I would share some photos of this optimistic crowd.

 

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!

Photographs in Portland, Oregon of Greenpeace Protest: WPC Inspiration

This week the world was buzzing with news that Greenpeace activists had repelled themselves off of the St. John’s Bridge in Portland, Oregon to attempt to block the passage of an ice breaker from the Port in Portland, Oregon where is was getting repairs and scheduled to return to the Arctic to help an oil drill from Shell gain access to the area it needed to be to start work. I was able to take this evening and go to Cathedral park and see their inspired effort and take a few photographs of them hanging off the bridge.

I almost always head into Portland on Wednesday nights to run so for me the timing of the protest was perfect. I really wanted to go down and see the protest and I am glad that I did. It was a beautiful Portland night with the almost full moon and 80 degree night. Standing on the dock looking at the St. John’s Bridge seeing these activists with their flags was really beautiful and it really was an inspiration to see such a peaceful dedication to protesting and standing up for what they feel was right.

I think whether you agree with what they were doing or not it still creates a feeling of awe when you see something like this in action. Portlanders showed up to watch, photograph, and support both on the land and in the river. There were kayakers supporting on the water and someone had donated a bunch of kayaks and personal flotation devices so anyone that wanted to could join on the water. I thought that using the flags in Shell’s colors was great it made this a beautiful site seeing those giant flags blowing in the wind.

I was sad to hear the next day that two of the protesters were cut down and the coast guard pulled kayakers away, created a no boat zone, and the ice breaker made it through.

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.