Sunset at Trillium Lake

This is Trillium Lake, which is outside of Portland, OR.  I was there one evening last August with Dave Wilson and Justin Balog, two great friends and photogs.  We made the drive out there so that we could catch a (hopefully) beautiful sunset, but to be honest, the sunset was mostly non-existent.  The light was flat and boring.  

To be clear - the entire scene is incredibly beautiful, from a pure “appreciation of the landscape” point of view - but the sunset lacked any “punch”.  It was boring light.  It happens, unfortunately.

So, I have to admit that I added the orange glow/sunset look to this shot.  I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but I do enjoy my time in the digital darkroom, and after playing with this HDR for a while, it just felt like the thing to do.  I like it, but I know it’s not “real”.  But since this is art, and it’s MY art, I went for it.  

For comparison purposes, below is the original HDR, before I spiced it up with a little orange glow.  I still like the photo, and think it is beautiful in it's own way....just boring.  What do you think?

iPhone fun in Oregon

Jim is lazy...

I knew it had been a while since I did a blog post with just iPhone shots, but I just checked and the last one was July 12 - that's 5 weeks ago!  Sorry, I really enjoy sharing iPhone shots but get so busy with everything that I haven't taken the time to do them recently.  

...but his iPhone isn't!

Since then, I have been to Oklahoma City, Nashville, San Francisco, the Texas coast (Port Aransas) and Portland, OR.  Whew!  I have a lot to share!  I took loads of iPhone shots in these places (and of course, gunned a million brackets with my Nikon!).

iPhone fun in Oregon...

If you follow me on Facebook you may know that I just returned from a guys' photo trip to Portland, OR last weekend.  It was incredible.  We shot a TON and I am just starting to get to some of my shots from my Nikon.  In the meantime, I thought I would go ahead and get back into the iPhone groove by sharing a few shots I took on my Oregon trip.  Hope you enjoy them, and thanks for looking!

Golden hour on Cannon Beach, OR

And then a little later as sunset passed and blue hour was getting started...

Horsetail Falls, along the Columbia River Gorge...

And this monster is Multnomah Falls...HUGE!

Sunset at Trillium Lake...

And finally, this is the view from Ecola State Park, looking down the coast at Cannon Beach - love this place!