Happy New Year! 2011 was a unique year for me, a year of transition and change. It was the year I tied the knot to my beautiful bride and stepped up the ladder at work. With that being said, wedding planning and the event it self, took quite a bit of time. I have the best wife, who understands my need to explore and photograph the world that's out there, but not as much this summer. My shooting time was spent mostly in the fall and a little in early winter, oh and I squeezed in a few shutter clicks while in Italy on our honeymoon!
I'm happy to be sharing this post with you all as part of my website and especially as part of Jim Goldstein's 'Best of 2011' project. Thank you Jim for inviting photographers to share there passion and talent.
Be sure to click on each image to view larger:
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| Frozen Beauty |
This was taken at Crater Lake National Park in early 2011. I live close, but not close enough to venture out and guarantee the weather will be cooperative. After about a week of cold cloudy days, the sky opened up to share a gorgeous sunrise. I'm excited for my next return!
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| Green Grass on the Other Side? |
I decided to venture out to the John Day NM Painted Hills in May, the light was moderately cooperative on the painted hills, but as I turned around to move up from where I was shooting - this, to my surprise, caught my eye.
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| Surprise Bloom |
Every year in Salem in May/June we have all of these bright orange and yellow poppies start blooming in the most random of places, one in particular near Keizer kept catching my eye when leaving work....needless to say I packed my camera gear the next few days. I love these flowers but they are tough to shoot. They don't like wind, rain, or clouds. I was able to get there just in time to catch them for 30-45 minutes before they started to close up.
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| Color Palate II |
Italy! I absolutely love the color palate in this shot. Every color imaginable. This was a small corner market in Florence that we notice as we strolled around listening to the sounds, smelling the foods, and taking in all the sites.
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| Venice Light |
Venice, Italy: This is a wonderful and beautiful city. All of the color are bright and live. This was a spot along the NW part of the sections of the city on a side canal.
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| Fire, after the fire |
Cascade Fire - My favorite time to explore the wilderness and to capture image is fall, hands down. I love the color that comes out that time of year. This is a shot from an area near the Cascade crest in Central Oregon. The vine maples are ablaze with color in the old burned out forest.
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| Texture & Color |
Right at the pass where Oregon's dense old growth forests turn to poderosa pine and sagebrush the best color was found this year. I love this shot because of the texture of the fern and the bright fall color. This shot also reminds me to stop, slow down, and look at the details, textures, etc while shooting. Not all great shots we capture are a grand landscape views.
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| Aspen Edge |
Living in Oregon puts me several hundreds of miles away from any dense groves of aspen, but in a few remote and not so remote spots Oregon has several aspen groves - I can thank the Bend area for this shot. I love this shot because of the crispness of the leaves - also another hard to capture macro shot if there is any wind.
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| Color Flow |
This shot was taken along the Wenatchee river in Tumwater Canyon, WA. The hills were on fire this day and even lighting from the cloudy day was a blessing.
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| Stand Out |
This fall was great in Oregon. I seemed longer than any fall I can remember in the past few years I've been here. I decided for two days I would stroll around the streets of Salem and take images of the leaves and dynamic colors showing this year. I loved how this leaf pops against the drier, browner leaves under neath.
Thanks for taking a look back with me at some of my favorite images from this past year. I'm excited to see where the road takes me this year (I've already planned out my Yosemite plans for this year!). Hope to see you stop by again throughout the year for updates on my images and I'm already looking forward to next year for the best of 2012!
