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.

Oregon Beach Wedding: The Couple

Two weekends ago I went down to Yachats, Oregon to photograph the wedding of this great couple. They were absolutely a breeze to work with and the Oregon beach setting was a great backdrop for these wedding photographs.

Spring Photograph Collection: Lavender Photograph

I have just created a new collection of photographs for spring that are available for purchase through Fine Art America. The theme this time is lavender flowers and the collection includes a very busy bumble bee eating from a lavender plant, a sunset, and close ups of lavender plants in bloom. Through out the next couple weeks I will be revealing the photographs included for sale on on this site, or you can go to see them now by clicking this link. I hope you enjoy the photographs and share them with anyone you think would like them, thank you and happy Friday!

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.

 

Smith Rock Photographs in Black and White

In September I traveled to the Bend area with my kids and my Mom. We had the opportunity to stay at Eagle Crest Resort for the weekend. The resort itself had wonderful amenities, but of course we wanted to make it out to see Smith Rock which is a destination for rock climbers and hikers traveling to Eastern Oregon. The sheer cliffs are quite dramatic and create a fun photography destination as well. These two photographs I decided to try out in black and white and ended up really liking them even though they lose the blue sky and orange rock color.

We were there right in the middle of the day so contrast was really high and although it was sunny, since it was September, it was a quite cool day. I look forward to sharing some photographs of us at the top of those cliffs and of a climber descending from Monkey Rock, which was hard to believe (to me) they could ascend in the first place. 🙂

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!

Portland Portrait Photography: Camas, Washington

This year Portland was hot and dry right up until about the time of year that I try and take my holiday portrait photographs of these kiddos to send to various family members. We ended up having to wait out the Oregon and Washington storms which created flooding throughout the area and barely squeezed in this set of portraits in time to get them developed and sent out.

We were waiting and waiting for a break in the winter rain storms that were beating up Oregon and Washington. The second we got a break in the rain I gathered up the kids and we headed over to Lacamas Lake Heritage Trail in Camas, Washington to try and take some photographs that at least had some pine trees in the back ground to create some winter holiday feelings. To change things up it was my daughter that did not want to cooperate with getting portraits taken this year, so we once again only took a few photographs and the entire photo session lasted about 15 minutes.

The Sibling Portrait

My son made the decision on his own that he wanted to have some more photographs taken of him. He has been really into playing tennis as of late and he really wanted to continue having portraits taken of him posing with his tennis racket using different strokes.

Portrait of a Young Aspiring Tennis Player

 

We were hoping to get our new puppy in the portraits, but my daughter was already so out of sorts it did not seem like a good idea at the time of the actual photo session. I think this is the most hurried and harried session we have had to date. Somehow I still managed to pull out a few usable portraits. 🙂 I hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season and have a great 2016! Come check me out on Instagram: Livelovecreatebehappy.

All photographs copyright and may not be used without permission.

 

Weekly Photography Challenge: Spring

Well, the photography challenge topic this week is spring. I have been posting to Instagram for weeks now with things I have seen around the Portland and Vancouver area that inspire the feeling of spring in me. I have found that every year I love this time of year more and more. I have not been able to stop posting pictures of flowers, I am sure most of my Facebook friends are totally sick of me! 🙂

I found this year that tree blossoms were really standing out to me. It is just a joy to watch the blossoms on trees come out.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The tree blossoms are the very first thing I usually see that makes me think of spring. This year however the first sign of spring I noticed was the sound of croaking frogs (I couldn’t really photograph this though). It seemed like they awakened overnight.

I am looking forward to having a few minutes to check out what others are finding as spring inspiration.

🙂
If you want to join the Weekly Photo Challenge or see others additions you can at http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/spring-2/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Three (2)

Wow, I can’t believe it! I got another set of three ready to post again this week. These are photos I took almost a year ago that I have many more to edit, and have been meaning to get around to for, well almost a year, ha ha ha.

A friend and I took a hike during flower season last spring at a place called Tom McCall Preserve. I did not realize how steep this hike is when we started out. I had gone to this place with my Mom and my kids a while back, but we stayed on a very flat trail. My friend was totally unprepared to go on such a difficult incline I suspect. However this is a hike that has more than enough breathtaking views to give you a break every step if you wanted to stop that often.

Starting out you are able to look out over the Columbia Gorge and a field of flowers. As you progress up the hill you start to see Mount Adams (I think) peeking up from the North. It soon is completely visible with the gorge situated in view as well.

Along the way you see Indian Paint brush, as well as flowers in purple, yellow, white, and greens. There are butterflies and birds. Plenty to feast your eyes on.

As you make a sudden turn around the bend nearing the vista we stopped at is the definite climax of the hike, where all of a sudden Mount Hood pops up to the West. Bam, seriously I made a huge gasp when I saw it.

Of course it was windy as heck once we made the plateau looking out over Mount Hood (it is the Gorge) so because we did not prepare well for our hike we did not stay an extraordinarily long time. It was a hike well worth it.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Object

A bolt from the Lacamas Lake Dam bridge. Taken while walking with a friend teaching her about the basics of photography. 🙂 I really like objects with this aged element to them. I had a couple of pictures of this because I was demonstrating what different apertures can do to the lighting. This was my favorite I like the softer focus, but I did do a bit of post editing and played around a bit with the brightness, finally settling on a darker version of the picture.

It is getting cold here, but we are yet to have snow. My kids are still hoping for the snow though! I think coming up next I will share my pictures from a couple months ago when it was very cold. I spent so much time on editing and posting about Maine that I still haven’t gotten around to those icy pictures!