The Garden at Shore Acres - A Digital Painting

After how well my last digital painting from a photograph was received I decided to make another one. This one is from another Oregon garden, the beautiful one at Shore Acres State Park on the coast.


Maybe a series would be a good idea. There are certainly plenty of gardens within a few hours drive,

Photographing Bicycle Races

A couple of weekends ago, I photographed bicycle races for the time. The races were local, in downtown Albany (Oregon), with the streets barricaded. Photographing in a new situation like this is certainly a learning experience.
The races provided opportunities for a number of different types of shots. To me, low angle shots, rather than shooting from a standing position, make the action appear more dramatic (thanks for the tip, Dale!). Other things to consider were sun/light position, different angles, backgrounds, and matters of motion. Since the race course was set up as an irregular loop through town, there were plenty of different angles to try while having the riders well-lit. I found head-on shots to be some of my favorites.



Getting in tight on the corners was good for close-ups. You can see the muscles flexing and the looks of determination on the faces of the riders.

Capturing the look of the movement and speed is another challenge when shooting the races. Motion blur conveys that for me and panning can add an extra element.


Photographing the races was a lot of fun and I look forward to doing it again next year. There are more photos of the race on my Flickr Photostream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/robrrobinson/.

Waterfalls, large and small

Friday was a day for waterfalls at Silver Falls State Park. This spring was a very wet one so the streams and falls were flowing strongly. The first waterfall, below, is a very small one on the way to North Falls.

North Falls was difficult to photograph because of the wind created by the falls shooting spray toward the vantage point near the base.

Lower South Falls is fun. The trail passes behind the waterfall and, as usual, was a very wet spot.

Below is another view of Lower South Falls from far enough along the trail to escape the mist.

South Falls is probably the most visited waterfall at the park, being the largest and most easily accessible. A trail also passes behind the falls here and under a huge cave-like overhang of basalt .

Water is always noisily pounding the pool at the base of the waterfall.

Image Odysseys - a new blog

Image Odysseys is my new blog for discovering the beauty of Oregon through paintings and photography. Image Odysseys will feature very scenic, diverse sections of Oregon. First up of the odysseys will be the southern coast of Oregon, with its haystack rocks and rugged Pacific coastline. Future journeys will highlight areas like the Columbia River Gorge, the volcanic Cascades, the High Desert, the rocky Wallowa Mountains and many others.

Stop by and join in the adventures.