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.

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.

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 5

For week five of my black and white photography challenge I am posting a photograph from my day to day life, some might call this lifestyle photography.

While I was getting some work done the other day my I got paints out for my daughter. She decided she was going to replicate all of one of her favorite books. She ended up stopping short, but enjoyed painting.

I snapped a few photographs with my phone and then edited them with Snapseed, an application you can download onto your phone.

I made a black and white version for this post and a color version for my Instagram (Livelovecreatebehappy is my user name if you want to go check it out). Let me know which you like better :-).

See last week’s black and white photograph at the post for week 4 of my black and white photography challenge.

Feel free to join in on the challenge and post a black and white photograph a week for 8 weeks. 🙂

Weekly Photography Challenge: Enveloped

These succulents have enveloped this rock in my garden. So for this week I am sharing this photograph for the WordPress photography challenge.

Have a great week! 🙂

8 Week Black & White Photography Challenge: Week 4 Fern

I was very fortunate to be taken to do some of my favorite things for Mother’s day this last weekend. I started my day running with a friend. After my run I met my family for brunch. They stood in the 45 minute line before I arrived so I could just and sit down (maybe the best part).

After brunch at La Petite Patisserie we walked down Alberta street to Salt and Straw ice cream where I tasted each of the May flower flavors. I ended up getting a half scoop each of salted caramel and dandelion sorbet with wildflowers. Yummy!!

Next we wandered up the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge and bipassed the usual stop at Multnomah Falls to go to Horse Tail Falls, Ponytail Falls, and the Oneonta Gorge. It was beautiful and I want to go back on a really warm day and walk up the creek in the gorge to see the gorge from another perspective. The hike was just short of 3 miles and made a loop. There are plenty of off shoots that we can go back and explore some more another day.

So my only mistake was not charging my camera battery the night before, oops! So my photography this week comes from my phone.

I always love the way the ferns hang off the cliffs surrounding a waterfall and waterfalls you can walk behind offer a good view. I changed this one too black and white, but you can see the original colour and more from this trip at my Instagram account (a live feed should be on the right if you are on the nonmobile version). Or search for me, my user name is livelovecreatebehappy.

I have definitely been feeling the challenge of trying to see photographs in black and white before taking a photo.

Enjoy the rest of your week! 🙂

Japanese Maple Tree: WPC Intricate

This week I am sharing a few photographs of a Japanese maple tree that is in Camas, Washington outside the public library. When the leaves were just coming out this spring I stopped by and took a photograph with my phone, but I liked it so much I really wanted to return and take a few photographs with my DLSR camera as well.

I ended up not editing them right away, because I have been busy with my projects for Brasier Law, and now that I had time to edit them I am having to make do with software apps on an HP computer rather than my old trusty Apple. 😦 After 8 years my MacBook finally bit the dust and so I am readjusting and figuring out how to edit my photographs in different programs. I may end up going to back to Adobe here soon, but for now I am experimenting with some other programs. Nothing is comparing to good old photoshop elements so far.

So anyway feel like this tree has so many intricacies that it really fit the bill for this weeks photography challenge from WordPress. The bark, the leaves, the colors, the sunlight, nature just really knows how to perform doesn’t it?

Anyway, happy hump day!

Weekly Photography Challenge: Motion

A couple weekends ago I was able to follow along with another Portland photographer Gina Neal to photograph three ballerinas in a couple of Portland locations. We started at this green house located at the Pomarius Nursery in NW Portland.

I have to confess my camera has been acting up and this space was difficult for my lenses capabilities, but it was a lot of fun because everything these young women did was beautiful. Hopefully I will get around to posting a few more of the photographs from this day, but for now this one seemed to fit my needs for the weekly photography challenge motion. It could go along well with my 8 Week Black and White Photography challenge as well, but I am hopeful that I will add an additional photograph from this day to cover that one.

I hope you are having a good week.