2015 & 2016 Star Photography Workshop Info // Moon Shadow - Mount Hood Oregon

ON SALE NOW! 2015 Star Photography Workshops

After a sold out year in 2014, I'm excited to announce my 2015 Star Photography Workshop Schedule. I'll also be releasing a workshop for Southern California and an international location within the next few months.

 

Click here & head over to my Star Photography Workshops Page for complete details. 

 

The Shot
In my opinion this is one of Mount Hood's most under rated vantage points, especially in the winter months. We arrived just after midnight as the rising moon was sitting low in the sky casting shadows and amazing light over most of the landscape.

With a tall snow embankment on my left, the moon's light didn't touch the foreground but blazed it's light across the remainder of the landscape. Slight cloud cover gives a nice glow to the stars with Mount Hood looming in the background. When printed full size you can see the snow flakes sparkle in the light, but standing there it almost felt like there were small blinking lights covering the ground.

This photo is composed of two shots ( same composition ), 1 at a short exposure time / high ISO to capture the stars without creating star trails. Another shot was taken at lower ISO and longer exposure time to capture the rest of the scene without generating as much noise. These two shots were taken seconds apart to capture what I saw that night. Fresh snow + night skies = Good times!

As always, click the photo to see it full size on a black background:)

Click here to purchase a print of this photo

Painted in the Sky - Lost Lake, Oregon

I have a ton of new stuff to share with you all that I've been working on for the past few weeks including some magazine article & cover features along with a few new photos and some hiking / traveling tips for trip planning that I found to be really cool.

Recently, I had the pleasure of working with David duChemin & his team over at Craft & Vision on a photography interview which is included in their latest issue of Photograph Magazine. Along with the interview there are a bunch of Milky Way and star photography photos included as well. If you're interested in picking up a copy you can click here to purchase Photograph Issue No. 7. There are a bunch of other good articles in the issue as well that prove to be good reads.

I've also recently collaborated with Washington State Magazine to provide them with the front cover of their Summer 2014 Edition.

This time of year is really exciting for me because all of the great mountainous locations in the Pacific Northwest, Montana, and Canada are starting to open up providing unlimited photography and travel locations. Pouring over maps every day I've been able to nail down a bunch of good stuff to add to my Summer To Do List.

Paul Weeks & I are headed to Glacier National Park to hike 4 days in the back country along with 3 more days exploring some of the day hikes that the park has to offer. GNP ( Glacier National Park ) is a massive region and almost impossible to navigate with out expert help or hours upon hours of research.  After a few days of research I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the entire trip, until I found the Hike734 website which is run by Jake Bramante. When it comes to planning an awesome trip in GNP's back country look no further than this website. Using some topographic maps and the videos and info he provided I was able to nail down an awesome 4 day excursion in the middle of no where.

Summer Star Photography Workshops Update
After the last update nearly all of the workshop spots sold out. I now have 3 open spots left for the Friday August 29th Star Photography Workshop @ Mount Rainier National Park. After these are gone no I won't offer any other workshops til 2015. These will go very fast, so grab your spots ASAP if you're interested.

The Shot
For night photographers this is the time of year when the Milky Way starts to come back into view in the Pacific Northwest. Last weekend I was able to take a one on one workshop participant to Lost Lake to capture some of the amazing star action that's going on. After scouting out exactly where the Milky Way would rise we set up our tripods and started to shoot. The night ended up turning out in our favor, along with some amazing clear skies with an added cloud here and there for good measure which I think added some nice detail. Although most of the time was spent teaching and enjoying the scenery, I was able to sneak one shot in before we packed up and called it a night.

You can thank Smugmug for the small photo resolution seen below. They seem to be having some trouble with their website that they are not able to fix at the time. Hopefully I'll be back to posting in 900px wide as soon as possible:)

Click here to purchase a print

What Dreams Become - Crater Lake, Oregon

Over the past 2 weeks I've been working on a few projects which include an exclusive / in depth Star Photography Tutorial for PetaPixel & an interview with Astrum People. Make sure you head on over and check them both out when you get a chance.

For anyone else that may be interested my Summer Star Photography Workshops @ Mount Rainier National Park still have a few open spots for August. There are about 5 left so grab one while you still can! Both July workshops are sold out, but you can email me to be placed on the wait list. 

The Shot

My buddy Paul Weeks and I drove from Seattle last Friday night and arrived at Crater Lake around 3AM. This gave us just enough time to snowshoe out for some predawn and sunrise shots. The next day we ended up hiking a few more miles and camping on on the top of the Watchman Lookout which gives a full view of the lake from above. This time of year at Crater Lake is amazing as there are hardly any people up there.

As far as shooting goes I took 2 shots for depth of field, and another shot for the stars about 30 minutes before the other 2 shots. The (2) focus shots were blended by hand in Photoshop for depth of field, and the shot for the stars was blended using Photoshop Lighten Blend Mode with a few extra adjustments.

A Path to the Stars - Alvord Desert, Oregon

The first month of 2014 has flown bye already. Hopefully everyone's new years resolutions are going ok. I don't really do the resolution thing, but I do constantly make notes and provide myself with short term goals and long term strategies on accomplishing everything that I want to get done.

One of my short term goals has been to stay away from the social media self centered brag fest ( minus sharing a picture here and there and answering a few questions ) and work more on new projects, trip planning and helping others to learn more about photography and accomplishing what they want to with their art. It's been great so far and helped to provide a major increase in creative/unique thinking patterns which I felt were being drowned out for a while.

After taking a step back and looking in from a distance many people seem to be "sharing" all of their awards  / accomplishments ( bragging rights ) which they have received. Many will spend their entire life running faster and faster chasing the goals conceived by others, while leaving their own wonderful thoughts and ideas by the wayside; their dreams slowly drowned by the overpowering hum of the internet's definition of "GREAT".

I've done this, we all do this, maybe it's just human nature, or maybe it's something that will dominate more and more as we're increasingly digitally connected to one another at all times. Just keep in mind that any accomplishment you may be chasing was derived from the brain of another person just like you. So why not create something new, why not be different?

I write a lot lately, just jots here and there with thoughts that my brain constructs from watching myself and others on a daily basis... so here is a quick one I wrote for everyone, or maybe just for myself. Take a second to sit back and think about it, maybe it's for you as well.

Allowing society to cripple your creativity with pre-defined awards ( bragging rights ) and place an established value on the beauty you create is giving away your path to the stars, to your dreams, and most of all your path to create something new, something beautiful, something that can not be defined by words, actions or ideas that the human mind has already conceived. -Dave Morrow

On to another quick topic, I did a quick solo trip to the Olympic Peninsula this weekend and explored Rialto and Shi Shi Beaches. Here is a quick video from Rialto that I recorded just after sunrise. You can hear the birds chirping if you listen closely. Once it's playing click the little gear at the bottom of the video for 1080P best quality.

Just Before Sunset @ Point of Arches Washington / Nexus 5

The Shot

I spent 3 days out in the playa of Alvord Desert last year. Mostly just sitting around, reading, drinking some beer and relaxing, with sunrise, sunset and the night hours set aside for taking pictures. It's a great place to be to clear your mind and think about random stuff that may not pop up with the everyday nonstop thought patterns of life... It's nice out there & they have some awesome dark skies!

Spirit Dance - Lost Lake, Oregon

I've come to realize that not nearly enough night photos have been posted to this website lately. I have a huge stash pile of unprocessed night shots on my computer, but really got sucked into post processing landscape photos lately and working on a few new workflows that go along with them.

In regards to night photography, has anyone traveled to Sweden to shoot the Aurora? I've been researching Abisko National Park there and it looks down right amazing. Just looking for any insider tips that anyone may have. I've pretty much got the whole thing scoped out, but it never hurts to grab a few tips from others before a trip.

The Shot
I made two trips to lost lake this past summer. The second attempt was too late in the year for any Milky Way action over Mount Hood, but it did yield some light aurora / air glow color around the horizon. I messed around with the ISO settings as much as I could to capture a bunch of "reflective light" in the water. Usually for star shots without the Milky Way I tend to keep the ISO much lower, but this time a high ISO setting yielded so much more star light in the water.

A Place We Call Home - Alvord Desert, Oregon

I've been attempting to bring new topics to the table with each blog post and adding a little bit of what I know and even including some resources I used to find this information. This week I want to touch a bit on data / computer backup. No matter who you are ( photographer or not ) if you've got important data on your computer of any kind, being finances, family pictures, photography portfolios and so on it's very important that you back this data up. Even the best hard drives and best computers in the world fail at times. Unfortunately a single bad hard drive or disk failure and you've lost everything... most likely forever. That's where a good backup solution comes in.

I backup in a few different ways to cover all my bases. First there is at home backup which is done in my actual office. To do so I use (2) 6TB Western Digital Hard Drives which mirror ( are a direct copy of one another ) each other. You can do this with any size hard drive, I just chose to use big hard drives since I have a lot of data to store now and in the future. If you don't have a lot of data right now, hold off on a huge hard drive, since they do get much cheaper each year.

My personal preference for running this mirror back up is Mac's Time Machine which works really well. It actually allows you to jump back to a certain point/date in your computer's life and restore anything and everything that you had at that point. You can restore it all or just restore selective parts. This could include settings, files, and anything else that is possible to screw up. If I ever make a mistake I can revert to how things were in the past. My computer is currently setup to backup once a day on my home storage drives.

In lieu of mirror backups which require you to have double the amount of hard drive space as data you wish to back up there are also other disk configurations that do save you a small bit of space when backing HUGE amounts of data. These are known as RAID backup configurations. After reading up on these I decided the good old mirror back up was good enough for me at this point. But depending on your situation ( especially for time lapse photographers ) you may want to look into this.

The next line of back up I use is Crash Plan which is an unlimited online backup solution. The current plan I use costs around 5$ a month and allows for unlimited backup of your data. You can determine how often you would like Crash Plan to back up the files on your computer and even specify which files you do and don't want to backup. Personally I just have them backup my entire computer. 

If you decide to use Crash Plan and have a large amount of data to initially backup you will need to order a Seed Drive which costs a few extra bucks. In my case I had 2 TB of data which would have taken 40 days to upload to the Crash Plan Servers using high speed internet, so a faster more efficient Seed Drive was necessary. Once you order this drive Crash Plan sends you a hard drive in the mail which they claim to hold 1TB ( I found it to be more like 1.3TB ), you in turn put as much data from your computer on this hard drive as you can and send it back to them. After a few days it's on their servers. Now all you have to do is turn on the Crash Plan Program on your computer, now it only took a day for me to fully back up all my remaining data to their servers. From there on out it's all automatic and on their cloud.

In the case of a fire, robbery, or any other freak accident, all my data is now on the Crash Plan servers and backed up each night via high speed internet.

That pretty much covers my entire backup plan making sure that I never lose any sort of data no matter what problems may come at me. It seems like a lot of work, but is always well worth the cost.

If you want to see how I backup and store data in a very safe yet minimal way while on the road check out my post on Using Your Nexus 10 or Nexus 7 to Transfer Picture Files from Your Camera's Memory Card to an External Hard Drive.

The Shot
I've recently been going through my shots from this past year and stumbled across the Alvord Desert Album. I almost forgot about these pictures, which is funny since they are some of my favorites from the year. This particular night the sunset early and the Milky Way was bright by 8PM. I saw some clouds starting to roll in so it was time to get as much shooting done as possible before clouds encompassed the desert. After taking 15 or 20 different night sky compositions there was no longer any view of the stars or even the sky for that matter. This was one of my favorites from the nite. If you're interested in learning how I post processed or took this shot head on over to www.LearnStarPhotography.com for my Free Star Photography Tutorial and Star Photography Post Processing Video Tutorial.

Click here to purchase a print

Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Lenticulars - Alvord Desert Oregon

There are some awesome shots from the Alvord Desert so this past summer I decided it was time to knock it off the old To Do list. The drive down there is pretty lengthy from Seattle so it seemed best to stay down there for 3-4 days. Needless to say there is absolutely nothing out there and that includes people. For 3 days I sat around, read, drank beer and tried to stay out of the nasty wind storms that constantly bombard the playa. Each night with sunset came along some of the nicest light I've ever witnessed and then... The Milky Way. Alvord Desert is an awesome place that I highly recommend to any photographer or explorer.

Here are a few Behind the Scenes shots that I took while wasting the days away down there.

The Shot
Up to this point in my life I've never seen a really good lenticular cloud in person.... Well it happened. This one was huge and made Steens Mountain ( 9,722 ft ) look minuscule in comparison. Thankfully this guy stayed around for sunset as well.

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Flyin' High - Crater Lake Oregon

For all of you star photography fanatics out there,  I'll be on the Drink and Click Show with Lotus Carroll this coming Wednesday discussing the subject. You will also have a chance to win a free copy of my Star Photography Post Processing Video Tutorials & Presets.

Click here for event time and details

As promised in my last blog post I just updated my Free Star Photography Tutorial to include a section on Star Trails. Of course the Milky Way stuff is still over there as well.

While in Big Sur last week I recorded a bunch of new Behind the Scenes Videos which include tips & tricks you can use while out shooting. I have included the first of these videos below which covers the skills required to get nice dynamic water movement in your landscape photography shots. I shot this on my Google Nexus 5, but just ordered a Go Pro that will assist me in making even more of these videos. I still think the Nexus 5 does pretty damn well @ 1080P so click that option for the best video quality! Don't get scared of my buddy Paul that pops in at the end haha!

The Shot
Crater Lake has a bunch of great destinations in which to shoot the Milky Way & it seems that over the years many of the compositions have been exhausted. Looking around online you will find a bunch of pictures of this same tree, but I haven't seen any from this exact angle as of yet:) We arrived here an hour before dawn as the Milky Way was starting to face in the Northern Sky, thankfully there was still enough darkness left to snap off a few shots.

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Wild World - Cannon Beach, Oregon

It's been a year and a half now since I took my first Milky Way shot, and around a year since the original version of my Free Star Photography Tutorial was posted online. Until 3 days ago I had never taken a star trail shot or processed one for that matter. On this recent trip I decided those days should end, so star trails it was. After doing a bit of messing around in the field and getting some stuff I liked on the camera and in post processing it's due time that a star trails section is added to the Free Star Photography Tutorial. After clicking "Publish" on this post I'll start writing it, so you can look for it in the next day or two, I'll also provide a link in the next blog post! Just like the current star photography tutorial for Milky Way shots, this will be very in depth and provide everything you need to know.

The Shot
Another morning on Cannon Beach, I thought this one was gonna be a dude, and then.... Thankfully we waited a bit after the sun came up and things started to get a bit more interesting. The one nice thing about this place, no matter how many times you go, there is always something different to shoot or explore. The tides seem to play a huge roll in this and constantly changes the visible landscape. On this particular morning I found this rock and the little tide pool that had formed around it. As usual I took a little walk around the thing to get a glance from all angles and tried to nail down an interesting composition. When the light started to get nice and contrasted the clouds and water I started clicking away. If you look closely at the rock on the right you can see a star fish clinging for his life.

In terms of post processing this was mostly carried out in Lightroom, with some final vignette and contrast adjustments in Photoshop & 10 minutes later the photo was done. This is one advantage of shooting away from the sun. A single RAW files easily does the trick:)

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Churn - Cape Kiwanda, Oregon

After searching frantically and finding lots of new places to shoot while heading up the California Coast I am starting to draw blank. There are tons of great spots that have been photographed time after time, but I would prefer to get a few some what unique spots as well. This usually happens through pure off the path exploration. Unless anyone wants to hand over some GPS coordinates for good locations, say between Los Angeles and San Francisco anywhere near the coast?

Enough with trip planning, I have some cool videos to share. My project over the past few weeks has been to rid my Lightroom Picture File Catalog of any pictures that I don't really care for anymore as well as set up a more efficient file structure using smart albums along with some other drag and drop sort of setups. There really isn't a need to muck up a huge hard drive with garbage files, I also find it to be so much more inspiring looking nice picture compositions. Often times looking through these pictures I'll get inspired and go off on a post processing tangent. For those of you interested in the workflow / organizational part of my post processing, check out the video below. I made this video last year, but it still has a bunch of good tips in it:) I also recommend the Why You Need an Artistic Workflow Article by Klaus Herrmann which is a great read.

Dave's Post Processing Workflow Video Tutorial

The Shot

Last summer was my official immersion into the world of photography. Prior to that I never really pushed myself in terms of travel photography since picking up a camera in 2011. The real tip in the scales came when I decided to ditch the Canon 7D and buy a Nikon D800 along with a few good Lenses. After the D800 arrived one of the first trips I made was the Oregon Coast and Cape Kiwanda. Upon arrival I realized all those amazing pictures I had been seeing from guys like Aaron Reed and Chip Philips at this location were not just "Walk Ups". I kept coming back to the location, and finally on the 6th time the waves were moving around pretty well. Here is my first post from the trip along with some post processing info:)

Post Processing Info ( Grab some discount codes to the programs below at bottom of About Me Page )
Processing Time: 45 minutes
Music: The Path - Carbon Based Life Forms
Drink: Ninkasi Sleigh'r

Lightroom 4

• Single RAW file captured at an exposure time of 1 second.
• Bring out shadows and blacks
• Slight Clarity brush on water for some pop.
• + Vibrance & - Saturation 

 Photoshop CS6

• Apply Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to bring out the "mid-tones" and "highlights" in the water.
• Apply color correction using "Color Balance" adjustment.
• Selective color balance to the water and the red rocks. 
• Selectively adjust contrast using "Curves" adjustment.
• Nik Color Efex Pro Contrast, Sunlight, and warmth / glow.
• Nik Output Sharpener ( selectively )
• Noiseware Professional by Imagenomic, the best NR software out there...
• Slight global vignette application
• Save to JPEG.

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Split Decision - Jonsrud Viewpoint, Oregon

Just getting back from an internet hiatus and a really nice trip to China which allowed me to reset my motivation and inspiration as well as get moving on a few projects that I have wanted to start. I also just posted my in depth review on how I have started to use the Google Nexus 10 as my full time travel device. I put a lot of detail and work into this, so I think you will really like it:)

Using Your Nexus 10 or Nexus 7 to Transfer Picture Files from Your Camera's Hard Drive to an External Hard Drive

Workshops Update:
New Star Photography Online Post Processing Group Workshop dates have just been added along with my 2014 In the Field Star Photography Group Workshop Schedule. Grab a spot before they sell out, half of the In the Field Workshop spots have already sold.

In terms of the trip to China we accomplished everything we wanted to, and thankfully the weather played along. I just got done processing the first D800 picture from the trip last night, but tried to post some with my iPhone here and there while on the road. As always you can find all of these pictures in my Behind the Scenes Album over on good ole' SmugMug. Here are a few of my favorite locations that we were able to shoot at.

Paul Weeks & I Riding Bikes in Yangshuo China / D800

A Boat Crusing Through Hong Kong Harbor / Nexus 10

Bamboo Rafting Down the Lijiang River, China / iPhone 4

 

The Shot

I have been to this location a bunch of times to shoot in the past and it's really hit or miss with the weather. At times you can see Mt. Hood jutting out in the distance, at others you can't see a thing. Well the morning of this particular shot the only thing I could see was the foreground fog and blazing sun pouring through it, here is what came after a run through Nik Silver Efex.

Click here to hang this picture on your wall:)

The Rise & Fall - Cannon Beach, OR

We are moving this coming week to a different neighborhood in Seattle. This makes it a great time for me to throw away, donate, or give away nearly everything I own. All my belongings have been condensed down to a camera/computer equipment, a few boxes of clothes, one box of books and a few other random things. It feels great owning only things that are truly necessary. Is there anyone else out there that enjoys living like this?

Aime Ayers was selected as the winner of my Star Photography Workshop Give Away Contest. There were a bunch of really great pictures included. I liked them all so much that a random drawing was necessary to pick the winner. Click here to see Aime's Picture of the Milky Way.

The Shot
Looking back through the last few posts, it seems there have a been a bunch of H20 shots posted on this website. Well here is another one. I'll try to give it a break next time... This one was snapped at Cannon Beach sometime last year, not really sure if it was sunset, or rise, but you could check the EXIF if you want to find out. For anyone that didn't know you can click on any of the pictures and follow them to my SmugMug portfolio. Once there, just click the "i" or info button under the right side of the picture to see the EXIF data.

Click to buy a print of this picture

Sucker Punch - Eagle Creek, Oregon

Along with the new design of my Smugmug Portfolio, I have introduced some new print options. Head on over that way or check out my Buy Prints Page for more details. PS: There are some really nice new prices;)

And on to post processing & the world of Photoshop. Emails constantly come in, many star photography related, but overall post processing related, asking me how I process the shots on this website. Well there really isn't a straightforward answer. Most of the time it's a new creative process for each picture. I do provide some tutorials on my Learn Photography Page which covers a bunch of this stuff, but why not provide some more info from time to time with the actual pictures? Well here ya go...

The Shot

Punch Bowl Falls located a few miles up Eagle Creek in the Columbia River Gorge is an amazing place to capture some nice photos. Just remember, bring your chest waders. I was able to capture the full dynamic range of light with three bracketed RAW files then blend them together in Photoshop using the process below.

Post Processing Info

Processing Time: 2 hours

Music: Miles Davis & Thelonious Monk Playlist

Drink: Ninkasi IPA

Lightroom 4 

1. RAW file adjustment for each of my 3 exposures at -1EV, 0EV, and +1EV.
2. Export all (3) files as JPEGs.

Photoshop CS6

1. Hand blend (3) JPEG files using Tony Kuypers Luminosity Masking Actions & Techniques to create (1) well exposed .PSD file. 
2. Apply color correction 
3. Apply overall contrast adjustments and glow using Nik Color Efex Pro 4
4. Apply selective color, contrast and glow adjustments using OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7 ( Love this program!! ).
5. Luminosity adjustments once again using Tony's Actions
6. Apply final vignette using darken/lighten center in Nik Color Efex Pro 4
7. Final curves / lighting adjustments, and painting out a few pieces of sensor dust using clone tool. 

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The Blue Pill Makes Me... - Ecola State Park, OR

Along with some new tips & tricks I have added a Star Photography Upload Gallery to my Free Star Photography Tutorial. Once you have taken and processed some of your star pictures feel free to upload them to the gallery. I will be looking through all the pictures every few weeks and share some of my favorites on Google+ and Facebook. This feature is open to anyone:) Please comment on your uploaded picture with your name and website and leave a short description about the shot as well.

Click Here to Upload Your Favorite Star Photos

The Shot

A couple of months back my friend Paul and I were hitting the road every weekend destined for new locations and places to shoot. Paul has some nice pics on his site as well. One of the spots we hit was Ecola State Park near Cannon Beach Oregon. Arriving just before sunrise always gives some great lighting and mood for amazing pictures...

Click here to buy a print of this shot

Star Photography Workshop Free Give Away Contest

This coming weekend is a new moon, and great for star photography so I decided to open a contest giving away one free admission to my September 6th Star Photography Workshop at Mount Rainier National Park. The winning photo/photographer will also be shared on my Facebook and Google+ pages. Please follow all rules and guidelines listed below to enter.

Click here for full contest rules and details

The Shot

Every year I see so many "flower shots" from Rowena Crest Park in Oregon, so I had to venture up there and see what all the fuss was about. Prior to going I promised myself not to take any sun star or sunrise flower shots that constantly swamp the internet. I hope you enjoy something a little different from this well known location, if you don't to bad:( If you want to learn how I processed it head on over to my Star Photography Post Processing Group Workshop page and I would be happy to teach you!

Rise - Crater Lake, Oregon

Just a heads up! onOne Software is having a 50% off sale for the next few days. Head on over to their website to buy! I love this stuff and use it to process most of my pictures, otherwise I really wouldn't promote it:)

It looks like summer has finally arrived in Seattle, knock on wood! After 3 weeks without touching Photoshop it's about time to dust it off and get things going again. Hopefully those creative juices are ready to pump out some awesome photos! I also have two updates for my workshops as follows, just click the title for full details.

In the Field Star Photography Workshops July 13th - (1) Spot Remains

Online Star Photography Post Processing Group Workshop August 4th - (4) Spots Remain

The Shot

Last year around this time I ventured down to Crater Lake on a quick 4 day push through the Oregon Coast and on to the massive lake. This year will bring the same, but hopefully some better skies. It was clear and beautiful the entire time, but as a photographer, this is not always my wish:) The moon on the other hand was just awesome as it danced through the evening sky.

Click to Hang this shot on your wall!

Cannon Blast - Cannon Beach, Oregon

Does anyone else amass an insane amount of emails when they go away for a bit? Normally I can check these once in a while and cut down on the disaster waiting for me upon return, but when overseas without cell phone service all bets are off. None the less, I kinda like responding and sending emails, so this afternoon will be enjoyable, sorting through pictures and doing "online stuff". That being said, I am back from another amazing trip to Iceland, which may just become a yearly ritual for me:)

The Shot

During the summer my girlfriend Meghan and I often explore the Oregon Coast. This is easily one of our favorite places to lay around and spend the day having a few drinks. Usually I'll snap off some pictures here and there too. 

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The Hidden Grotto - Ruckel Creek, OR

Just walked in the door from an awesome trip to the East Coast. I was able to explore Philly and catch a great sunset or two as well as spend some time with my family, which is always really nice. This coming weekend is the start of my Star Photography Workshop season. The June workshops are completely sold out, but you can still grab a spot in the July 12th, or July 13th workshop, there are only 2 spots left so act quickly. Full details here on my Summer Star Photography Workshops Page.

The Shot

Mossy Grotto falls as some call it is an amazing fall a few miles up the Ruckel Creek Trailhead. It will take some exploring to find, but I consider the adventure to be well worth it. Many people like to leave early and catch this fall in the morning, I took this shot around 7:30PM and things still seemed to work out OK. Just make sure you have a headlamp if you climb up that way at night, because it gets dark pretty quickly in the dense forest...

Click here to hang this picture on your wall

Follow the Leader - Elowah Falls, Oregon

I'm not sure if everyone knows this, but you can click on any of the pictures provided in my blog and follow that link to my full portfolio. I keep all my photos archived over on SmugMug.com for safe keeping. Go ahead and try clicking the picture below and see where you end up... While you're over there feel free to hover over the picture and allow the "i" or info button to pop up on the righthand side of the shot. Clicking that info button will allow you to see all my my EXIF data. I think that kinda stuff is pretty cool!

The Shot

Unfortunately this coming weekend in Seattle is going to be pretty wet & boring, I'm sure that there will be lots of post processing to do. I would rather be hanging out and shooting in the Columbia River Gorge where I took this shot. Elowah Falls is one of my favs to shoot and has endless compositions from all angles...

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Night Falls on the Crater - Crater Lake, OR

WOW these star workshops are selling faster than I thought possible, thanks for your support everyone, we are going to have a blast out there this summer:) Half the spots are gone, the other half are for anyone that grabs one. More info at the link below:

 In the Field Star Photography Workshops @ Mount Rainier

I might be working on a package of textures that I will eventually provide to the general public:) I thought it would be easy to do such a project but it ended up taking a lot more time than I had planned. None the less they are coming along nicely, I have 200ish so far. You can see one of them in the following picture & get your hands on them in the following months.

The Shot

My first trip to Crater Lake was a random trip down the Oregon Coast, while down there I was to close (within 5 hours) not to visit this awesome landmark.