Tag Archives: Hiking

Oregon Through Timelapse

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A General Life Update Where I Make Excuses:

So, it’s been more than a little while since I’ve updated… I’ve been focusing more on film photography this summer, so there hasn’t been as much to share. I have a few rolls that I’ve stashed away, that I am hoping to develop and scan myself, but am holding off until I have a few more rolls finished.

I have picked up a few new cameras, which I really should feature in a little “cameraporn” series, so I will try to do that in the next few weeks. It’ll be a Fujica GW690II, and a Mamiya RZ67proII. I am really enjoying the image quality from these larger sized medium format cameras… You’ll see what I mean when I finally get around to posting those pics.

In any case, you’ll likely be seeing a few more updates than you have been getting from me earlier this year, since now I have a bit more time on my hands… Why you ask? (Well, I’ll tell you, even though you didn’t ask.) Well, because a couple weeks ago, the company I was working at laid me off…

At first, I was a little upset, and maybe a little surprised, although I shouldn’t have been. The past year, my company had merged with another, and I had been working to manage the process of several plant closures we had been going through to achieve the “synergy targets” that the board was looking for. It meant I was in the know on some layoffs, even if I had no real control over them or how it happened. But, they layoffs continued with a voluntary separation, and then involuntary layoffs. I made it through those, but then the company made some organizational changes, and decided they didn’t need project manager any longer. It was just strange to be on both sides of the coin there. No major qualms about it though; it’s actually been quite a blessing in disguise! It happened at an opportune time for me, as I had just been trying to finalize my plans for how I could stretch rest of my vacation time this year, only to find out, that I now have plenty of time to vacation!

I’m planning on taking some time to reevaluate what direction I want my career to head in, as well as take some time to explore and learn, and spend time with my loved ones. But enough about me…

And now to get to the point… Oregon Through Timelapse:

You may have seen the photos I posted when I camped in Oregon. I had done a few timelapses, which I compiled with a couple from the last time I was in Oregon to come up with this short video… I hope you like it! I put it together a a couple months ago, so I’m not sure why I’m just now getting around to sharing it! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the timelapses. I am never sure how much to bore people with details, and I’m probably a little to lazy to go back and look up anything without being sure people want to know!

Anyways, thanks as always for following, and reading my words and looking at my photos. I do a lot of this stuff for my own personal benefit, but it’s also nice to know that other people enjoy it too!

#52weekproject: Week 30 – Jimmy’s 34th Birthday

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Dilapidated Jimmy v01

 

Week 30: Jimmy’s 34th Birthday

Taken Monday, December 22nd, 2014 just off of the barely traversed back country roads of Montana. I spent my Christmas out there visiting my brother, and just happened to take a picture of my bro with his dog, Zipper in front of this finely constructed home. We had taken some time to walk around and check out the inside of this… Can you even call it a house? It’s kind of a creepy thing, checking out an abandoned structure. It had 3 rooms, with a roof, walls and floorboards, all warped and coming apart at the seams. An old mattress lay in the middle of the room, revealing it’s rusty and decrepit springs for the world to see; while old torn clothes, various broken furnishings, and beer cans littered the rest of the room. It felt creepy in broad daylight, so I can only imagine how it would be in the dead of night, with the wind howling and whistling through all the nooks and crannies in the walls.

Anyway, we didn’t stay long enough to find that out in person. We had our own scary encounter later on. As we tried to head back to the cabin were we staying, we took an alternate backcountry route, which, come to find out, was fairly iced over. As night was falling, the temperature dropped, and we almost slid off the side of an iced over single lane road into an 50 foot ravine. Luckily after some white knuckling, we were able to do some controlled sliding back down the sloped road and turn around and head back to our cabin the same way we came. Maybe this year, I’ll get my brother some snow chains for his truck for his birthday.

Anyway, I’m trying to catch up on posting my photos, so hopefully, I’ll be sharing more soon!

#52WeekProject: Week 24a – Trillium Falls

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A Trilli, a trilli, a trilli… Trillium Falls

52WP-W24 Trillium Falls

 

Taken Tuesday, September 30th, 2014.

After camping in Crater Lake with my friends, Hage and Jared, we headed to Eugene, OR, where I picked up my rental car, and had a bite to eat from a food cart at Ninkasi Brewery. I happened to leave Eugene later than intended, which found me driving on the beautiful Redwood Highway after dark. There’s a section of US 199 (between Cave Junction, where i filled up on gas, and Crescent City) that is just beautiful, and you can tell even driving after dark. With the road weaving through the groves of trees, you are just in awe of the towering trees around you, while trying not to go careening into them around curves at 45 mph.

Elk Prairie & Redwoods National Park


In any case, fast forward a couple days to Tuesday, September 30th, and I’m camping near Orick, CA at the Gold Bluffs Beach Campground. It’s in the Elk Prairie area of Redwoods National Park (where you’ll find elk just wandering around, and possibly blocking the dirt road leading you back to your campsite). While I spent a lot of my time trying to take time lapses on the beach, I did get a chance to hike a bit and take a few photos.

Nearby my campsite, there were hiking trails that allow you to hike through the tallest trees in the world, through green and lush landscapes (including an beautiful and aptly named area called Fern Canyon). Here is a photo from one of those hikes, a short 2 mile loop called Trillium Falls. Unfortunately, the water flow was a little low during this time of year, but it was really quite stunning watching the fall leaves fall then there was a strong enough gust of wind to blow through the trees.

I used an ND filter to make this a long exposure, and I would have loved to stack my polarized filter on as well to cut down on the glare off of the rocks and leaves (it really does make a difference), but at that moment, it was stuck screwed onto another filter and I spent a good 15 minutes trying to unstick it like it was working with a jar of spaghetti sauce. Anyway, this turned out pretty good without it, but you know, it could be better.

Polarizing Filter

Here’s another angle of the falls with a polarizing filter. Notice the reduced glare on the foliage. It definitely changes the dynamic of the image.

Trillium 2 w polarizer

 

 

Oh… and here’s a 3 frame animated gif!

 

JLE_9920

Big Sur Timelapse

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So after Christmas with my family in San Jose, California, I rented a car, and drove down the coast to spend time with my friends in Los Angeles for New Years. My plan was to camp for a night in Big Sur, and do some timelapse photos, but with everyone being on vacation and the weather being super nice, all of the campsites ended up being booked before I got there.

I didn’t get to spend much time in Big Sur, since the sun was starting to set by the time I got there, so I just found an area I could pull over, and hike around a bit. I set up my camera and started shooting, but after the sun set, the air cooled, and the fog and moisture seemed to literally, come out of thin air. So, in my mind, I thought I wasn’t going to get really great photos of the sky since it was starting to get foggy, so I ended up skedaddling after about an hour and a half to find a hotel.

Anyway, after checking my photos, it turns out I didn’t end up with enough shots to make a real long timelapse, but I decided to put it together anyway and make it more like a fast moving slideshow.

But I guess it’s a learning experience. Just another reason for me to return to the West Coast sometime, and plan on spending more time out there!

That’s it for now!

P.s. Be sure to watch it in HD for full effect.