Star Teepee

My wife and I just returned from a camping trip in Eastern Oregon. We stayed for one night near John Day and the rest of the trip on Lake Owyhee which is near Ontario, Oregon on the Idaho border. We went there to explore the area and look for agates, thunder eggs and picture jasper. With our trusty Jeep, we climbed all over the hills and visited several sites known to rock hounds. A 5 gallon bucket full of rocks now sits in our garage awaiting polishing and/or cutting, which is my wife's department. They are mostly white agates. They were by far the most abundant. In some locations, you almost couldn't take a step without finding one. 

At both campgrounds, we stayed in teepees (or tipis depending on how you spell it) which were very nice. On our second night at Lake Owyhee, we had some inclement weather though. High winds up to 60 MPH sustained came through the canyon and threatened to tear the teepees apart. They held up though with a few repairs and adjustments made as needed. That night was quite an adventure though.

The rest of the trip, the weather was on and off again, but pretty mild. On the last night, the clouds cleared just in time for me to take a long exposure shot of the stars above the teepee. If you leave the shutter open for long enough, you can see trails from the stars as they appear to rotate around the Earth. I setup the tripod and positioned the camera. When it got dark enough, I clicked the shutter open and sat by the campfire. I meant to leave it for one hour, but I fell asleep and woke up a little later. So, this was a 1 hour and 10 minute exposure. The teepee is lit by ambient light from the campground and the fire which also probably contributed to the sky not being black. But, those where elements that were out of my control and I think it still turned out nicely.

Here is the finished shot. I will post more pictures from the trip later in the next week or two.

Valley of the Giants

I went on an excursion to the Valley of the Giants today with some friends. It's a relatively short drive from home, up into the Oregon coast range west of Monmouth. The last stretch is approximately 20 miles of gravel road, winding through the hills and patches of clear-cut forest. It is a beautiful area where loggers had dared not go because of the rough terrain. So, there are a fair amount of original growth trees standing tall, with trunks as wide as any I have seen in this part of Oregon. We hiked a trail that took us deep into the forest to a spot where one of these massive trees blew over in a wind storm. It was raining most of the time and it was difficult to protect the camera and lenses from the water. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of this massive tree. However, on the way in, we crossed a bridge over a small stream and I risked the camera and myself (slipping on the rocks) to take some long exposure HDR shots. The best of which is posted below. I did take a few more pictures along the trail that will be up on Flickr soon.

Update on Monday, May 21, 2012 at 6:21PM by Anthony Sheler

This image is now available as a free wallpaper here. Or, buy a print from the store under Oregon Scenery!

Dramatic Portait

I did a photo shoot with my lovely wife, Camille, to try some new techniques. We mostly did head shots and a few with the dogs, who seemed to want to be in every shot and yet not cooperate for the camera. That's pretty typical for Chewie and Mara. Aside from the dog shots, I got several keepers and a couple I really like. Below, is a back and white close up that I processed to give it a dramatic, classic look. There's a hint of sepia tone and fairly high contrast. It's one of my favorites from the shoot, but I've posted my top 4 in the portrait section of my portfolio. 

Corvallis Spring Garden Festival

I did some volunteer work for Da Vinci Days in Corvallis. They had a booth set up at the Spring and Garden Festival so I took some shots at the booth and around the event. Of course, my wife and I enjoyed the outing on such a nice spring morning. 

A group of young musicians, the Ancient Ways Community Marimba Band, were there to perform interpretations of music from Zimbabwe. Below is a close-up I shot of one player's hands as she skillfully wielded the mallets. You can see more pictures from the festival on the Da Vinci Days' Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/davincidays

Adventures in Homebrewing

Making my own beer has interested me for a while, but it seemed like something you needed a lot of equipment and time for and I didn't really know much about the process. When I met my wife, several years ago, I discovered that her parents had been home brewing for some time. Last year, we participated in brewing a couple of batches of beer at my in-law's house, using their equipment. We gave it away as Christmas presents to friends and family and I must say it turned out very well. Since I needed yet another expensive hobby, (it's really not that bad compared to others) we decided to start home brewing for ourselves.

We bought or inherited all the essential equipment plus the ingredients for our first batch of beer. My in-laws came down for an early Easter dinner and helped us brew that first batch which was a barley wine. It will require aging and is still in a secondary fermentation bucket. While waiting on that, we decided to start something else which could be ready to bottle at the same time. We found a recipe for a dunkelweizen on the web that looked good. On Sunday, my wife and I brewed our first batch of beer entirely on our own! We fumbled around a bit, but I think we were successful. It's in the fermenter now and bubbling away while the yeast converts all the sugars into alcohol. 

I took a couple shots of the carboy. You can see the foamy head on top of the liquid. That's the yeast doing it's job. There's an airlock on the top to release the CO2 that's produced as a byproduct of fermentation, without letting any air back in. One of the biggest concerns in brewing is sanitation. You have to keep everything clean and sealed up as much as possible to prevent unwanted bacteria or wild yeasts from ruining your beer.

I should point out that I didn't use a lot of light for this since it can be bad for the beer. I just did long exposures on a tripod with a couple of diffused lights.