Photography: Downtown Portland at Night

After our stay at the Oregon coast, we decided to stay one night in Downtown Portland, Oregon. Portland is quite a city, and from our 15th floor hotel room, I was able to get some interesting shots of the buildings and the streets below. I like the angles of this shot, and the repetition of elements (the cars and the windows) and how they line up. Sometimes I get the best shots when I'm not even looking through the viewfinder!

Road Trip to the Coast: Newport, Oregon

(Click the photo for a larger view)

Newport, Oregon is a fishing village that was founded in 1882. It sits on Yaquina Bay and is the home of Rogue Ales (a microbrewery), the Yaquina Bay and Yaquina Head Lighthouses, the famous Yaquina Bay Bridge, and the totally awesome Oregon Coast Aquarium.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium was the home of Keiko, the orca used in the filming of the movie Free Willy. His tank has been converted into an exhibit called "Passages of the Deep" which has a clear tunnel that you can walk through, where you are surrounded by all manner of marine life, including sharks. I've visited it twice, and it's awesome.

We started out the day trying our hand at catching crab under the expert tutelage of my brother-in-law. I soon tired of that (mostly because it was quite chilly) and set off to have lunch with some other family at the Rogue Ale Distillery. We had amazing (and expensive) Kobe beef burgers and Dead Guy Ale. Yum.

Finally, we made it over to the famous Newport waterfront, where we visited seals, and perused the delightfully touristy shops, where you can buy anything from salt water taffy to shark teeth. All in all, it was a wonderful day.

Photos were taken with my Nikon digital SLR.

Road Trip to the Coast: Night Photography

Here are a few shots taken at night around our vacation house on the Oregon Coast. The first one is looking down from the patio to the porch below. I really like how the textures show up. The last two photos were taken from the front "yard" (basically the 30 feet between the front of the house and the beach cliff). All shots used a tripod with my timer, since I lost my remote on my trip to Montana earlier in the summer.

We had phenomenal weather for October on the coast. Normally it's rainy and a bit blustery this time of year, but we had sunny days in the 50s and clear nights. Back home in the desert, it rained. Now that's how vacation should go!

Stay tuned for some more shots of the coast, and then some shots of our trip to the South Fork of the Boise River.

Road Trip to the Coast: Playing on the Beach

Who doesn't love the beach? Our family trip to the Oregon Coast was classic... one evening everyone hiked ourselves down to the beach and enjoyed the sun, sand, and sea. I was the goofy one with the camera who had the privilege of capturing it all.