Fog + Portland + Camera = Fun

This morning I got up early and went on a photo adventure to capture the fog. Alright, so it wasn't all that early (I am a night owl) but the fog was persistent and I ended up driving around town for a couple hours checking out different sights...

The St. Johns Bridge (photo above) is simply gorgeous, so I headed there first. There is a beautiful park underneath the bridge, with a pier that let me get out on the water to take a few snapshots... there was a goose honking at me as I took pictures. I think he was calling to his girlfriend, or telling me to go away!
I then drove up to the shop to unload my kiln, while thinking about other locations for photo shoots... I passed the Old Historic Columbian Cemetery on the way to do some errands and couldn't resist pulling in to check it out... my photography teacher in high school used to take us to cemeteries to take pictures - and those were always my favorite photo adventures. Something about the different grave-stones and the old stories they contain. The details in the carvings, the remains of flowers left to pay respect, the general decay and crumbling of the years... I have always wanted to check out this old cemetery in N. Portland and it was certainly a neat adventure although I didn't take a whole lot of pictures... there was no fog at this point (wouldn't that have made for some incredible pictures!) just a funky old cemetery. There are a few pictures in my flickr account if you are curious... link
Lastly I stopped at the Grotto, there was still a bit of fog and I had been trying to get a good photo of a tree in a field in the fog... I had circled the Rose City Golf Course looking for just the right perspective on a beautiful tree. Golf courses have great trees and open fields, I thought this would be perfect, alas the fog was being elusive and coming and going without giving me the view that I was craving... so I headed over to the Grotto, they have beautiful trees and dramatic religious sculptures nestled among these trees. Sure enough the fog rolled back in for me and I wandered the Grotto appreciating the sights. Such an incredible place.

If you want to see more pictures, check out my Flickr account

Harvesting Wild Mussels

We bought some 2011 Fishing (specifically shell-fishing) licenses at the local store. An impromptu beach vacation with friends gave the opportunity to hunt our own seafood dinner!

Our beach cottage was perched on the beach of Lincoln City, on a cliff overlooking the ocean and giant rocks that become exposed at low tide. The rocks are covered with wild-life, a free aquarium to explore and discover.

We brought some buckets and chisels and pliers and paint scrapers... tools are definitely helpful. Last year Tim and I went without tools, just a bucket, and this was silly. Now we know. Mussel beards are really strong (the little hairs that hold the shell to the rock) and tools help to pry the shellfish and save your hands from injury.

Not only did we collect mussels, we also harvested some edible barnacles that look like parrot beaks with long mussels that hold them to the rocks... I had seen Anthony Bourdain eat them on his show and he said they were delicious. They were a little more difficult to harvest, but they ended up being super tasty! (even better than the mussels I dare say!) It was a little creepy that the barnacles made noises as we harvested them. Naomi and I squealed and screamed a bit as they hissed and blew bubbles and spit orange juices at us. What can I say, the barnacles put up good fight! We won.

After harvesting and cleaning and cooking them we had a delicious traditional Moules Marinieres. What a great time! Enjoy the slide-show

Beautiful Pictures

My Nikon D80 whispers sweet nothings in my ear, take more pictures, play with me, find beautiful images and feel the creative juices. Inspiration. Seriously, I took about 1000 pictures over the last few days... I made Tim pull the car over so I could take pictures of these old train cars... and my little friend in the pictures is 6 and looks so sweet when he plays with his trains... Ah to be 6. When I look at these pictures I can hear his dad bellowing "Alllll Aboard!!!"

Puzzles

Having a little bit of free time lately has given me the chance to relax at home, reading books, cooking a lot, watching movies, getting crafty and playing with puzzles. Yep, I love puzzles. So I looked around online to find out about printing my own images into a puzzle... this is what I ended up getting.

Its from a picture I took of Tim at the driving range. The man likes to golf. I enjoy going to the driving range with him. What a great bonding experience this was to sit down with him and put together this puzzle. Quality time for sure.

I used the site Discount Photogifts to get this made up. It was $25 +s/h and it came with the neat cookie tin that contains all the pieces. The tin itself is a treasure. The puzzle was only 551 pieces, so it was not to hard and not too big, perfect for putting on the kitchen table and finishing quickly so it doesn't take up the table all week.

Honestly it was hard to pick an image to use (although I love what I chose in the end) and I had trouble finding anything customizable that was more than 1000pieces. That would be sweet... if anyone else finds something, let me know :)

My Booth at the Portland Saturday Market

I was in the mood to take pictures this Saturday, so I documented a bit of what it is like to set up at the Portland Saturday Market. I love the imagery of this place, and I've taken pictures in the morning down here many times, but not really of the actual process of setting up... I've done this every weekend for 8 years now... so here ya go...
here is Mr Tim pushing my cart. Lately he has been able to join me in the morning setting up my booth before he goes to work - Thanks Tim! The yellow cart he is dragging is one of a half dozen or so carts that the market supplies to help vendors haul their stuff around the site. They are great! Sometimes its a challenge to find one to use, but its worth it. I have a few carts of my own to supplement though... you can't depend entirely on the PSM carts, there are hundreds of other vendors who also want to use them.
see here my booth is strapped to a cart. I wheel it out and set it up while Tim is dragging the rest of my stuff out from storage. This storage space is literally under the sidewalk on the South West side of the Burnside Bridge. The walls are wet with water that seeps through the concrete sidewalk. Its old and really pretty gross. Mold, yes. Rats, sometimes. Floods, I've experienced 2 in my 8 years. There is more storage in this building in the Shanghai tunnel space that is directly underneath my storage. Its awesome. Old historic creepy spaces. This is the basement of the old building that was once a brothel in Old Town Portland. The PSM office spaces are on the bridge level floor and most of the rest of the building is storage. I think the building is haunted by one of the old prostitutes that used to work in the brothel. Story goes that she tried to blow the whistle on the people being Shanghaied (between 1850-1941 people in port cities were stolen and sold to sea captains as labor - on the west coast Portland surpassed even San Fransisco in numbers of men Shanghaied) and so the prostitute was Shanghaied! She was never seen again and I think she haunts the place now! Currently a handful of artists store their market stuff (retail display stuff and whatnot, we're not allowed to store product in this storage) in this Shanghai tunnel space. Its really fascinating to me!
here is the big cart getting loaded up with my stuff. Tim built me these wooden pedestals, I love them. I use them as storage as well as retail display furniture.
here is my stuff ready to be pushed from my car to the booth. This little folding cart is wonderful. Its from Costco, its very light and it folds up real small... best part is its sturdy and holds lots of weight.
the market in the morning is an interesting site of people setting up their booths...
this coffee booth has been at the market for decades, serving warm beverages to the masses with handmade syrups and fresh local roasted beans...
heres my booth all ready to go
and what it looks like from where I sit...

Images from my day...

I thought it'd be fun to just share some images from the last few days... I take a lot of pictures :)
these colorful plates are at Bullseye, I was there lingering while shopping for my new kiln... the colors made me break out the ol' camera while waiting
I love taking pictures of bright colors and interesting textures... flowers... and interesting things...
Earlier in the day I was down at the Lan Su Chinese Garden for tea with a friend
the garden is having a 2 for 1 admission deal for the month of September - check it out!
The lotus flowers in the lake are blooming right now... its a perfect time of year to visit the Chinese Garden
The tea house at the Garden is so amazing. Even the pots they store the tea in are beautiful.
Back at home I washed some pieces... found these pictures on my camera...

this is the mobile hanging in the car I share with Tim - my orange dancer
one picture from this past weekend: this was a tub of pieces I brought with me on Sunday to keep my hands busy... pieces to make a few mobiles...

and here is a picture of my new shop space with both tables assembled - 6 feet square of awesome tables!

Blog Photography

Do you wonder where to find pictures for your blog? Or how I find the time to take pictures for my blog?

My advice for anyone reading this that is also a blogger - simply take a lot of pictures. Statistically speaking, the more pictures you take, the more likely there will be a few beauties in the bunch. Snap colorful shots of the world around you.

I carry a little Canon PowerShot around with me at all times. Now a days most of our phones take great pictures as well. I just got a new phone, and currently I don't know how to get the pictures off of it - woops - but I digress! I also like to use my Nikon D80 as often as possible, great lens and great shots are so key!
This photo of some glue was taken when I was working in the studio on prepping some scrap for a kiln fire. Working with my scrap is nothing glorious (at all!) but this picture is fun and bright, and its a window into my world. I used it for a blog article about glue.

The first photo above of the orange glass pieces - that was taken one evening when I was working with my little scrap pieces - making them into little mobiles... I had previously been using my lightbox, so it was sitting in front of me, and I couldn't fight the urge to put my tray of glass bits on top of the light box and illuminate the pieces. Oh what a visual feast for the eyes! The glass lit up and sparkled - I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. I still use them from time to time. And I now keep my lightbox in my photo set-up to light things up from the bottom.

Below is a picture of some buttons I made for a friend one evening... I find colorful pictures of glass to please my eye. What can I say, I am a bit glass obsessed!
I am taking a class right now from Diane Gilleland - Blog Tune Up - so in the next few weeks you might notice an evolution in the ol' Garden of Leah. Today I made a new banner :)

I noticed in going over class materials that many times the questions come around to photography. I am a visually indulgent artist - I love taking pictures - so the photography part of blogging is a sheer pleasure for me.

I am taking this class because I want to give my blog some tender loving care. Blogs can lead to some really fun opportunities, and I enjoy taking advantage of that. So I am attempting to fine tune things here in the Garden of Leah and take it to the next level. I hope you as the reader find this transition enjoyable :)

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm Pictures

Today I went out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm with some friends... Tonight I taught a class at the glass school... I am very tired now, but I thought I'd share some pictures from the farm (I took 943 pictures!!)

Night Adventures

Okay - so my taxes are done and I've got huge stacks of glass discs in production... I was planning on going into the studio last night and working - but instead I played hooky!!! Evening adventures were meant to happen! My friend Jan convinced me of such (it wasn't hard)
First we went and saw a movie at Living Room Theaters - which somehow I had never heard of... this is how they describe themselves on the website:

Living Room® Theaters is a visionary new concept created by longtime filmmakers. We set out to reinvent the way films are viewed and distributed. And to change everything we didn't like about conventional and art house movie theaters - from the film selection to the lobby ambiance, food, seating and service.

It was great! We saw Alice in Wonderland and ate delicious food and then we had a drink afterward. I have to go back and have a date with Tim there. Its definitely great date material.

Later walked across the street to Powels books which was barely still open... I found some excellent books and also a couple fun toys for myself. These little jelly lens things you can attach to the lens of a small camera and make sparkles (I also got one that makes it look like a wide angle lens). This made for some fun night-time photography until the jelly plucked the metal ring around my lens right off my camera (woops) and then the camera also ran out of batteries.

Okay - then last but not least we stopped at the food carts on Hawthorne for a late night fried pie. Why not? What a night. Thanx Jan :)

Pictures from my Dad

I love getting pictures from my Dad in my email box - today it was water droplets falling. They are amazing! What fun!

I think water droplets illustrate the concept of letting go in a visual way. That moment of the water droplet losing its individual identity and becoming part of so much more... its an interesting moment, that instant where the letting go takes place. Letting go is not easy.

Surface tension is crazy cool stuff. I am not sure why this last picture is red, but I like it. A lighting technique?

Picture Taking Today

After a long weekend at the market working, today I played hookie with Tim and we ran errands and walked around different parts of town taking pictures. The cherry blossom trees on the waterfront were calling to my camera. They were saying "Leah come take pictures!!"
Look at all this gorgeousness! I love the design of this park.

Its the Portland Oregon version of the avenues of cherry blossom trees in Washington DC. Beautiful pink and white flower laden trees adorn the waterfront on the North side of Burnside in Waterfront Park. I love this picture with the benches. The park benches have beautiful scroll work with details of cast roses.

I took a lot of pictures as always. There are more on Flickr.

New thing I learned about Photography!

I've been having too much fun with my camera, thanks Dad! He sent me a 50mm 1.8 lens. When I read my friend Laini's blog post in which she calls this puppy the "Plastic Fantastic" I was amazed that I owned the exact lens she spoke of. Thanks Laini for showing me how it works without making me have to read the manual!! Especially with cute pictures of her baby daughter to woo me into photography excitement.

Personally the most fantastic aspect to using the "Plastic Fantastic" is the fact it gets me to turn the camera off the AUTO setting. Yep, I am guilty of using AUTO on my D80 far too often. *gasp* But with this 50mm 1.8 lens I set it to Aperture priority and crank the F-Stop down to 1.8... then the magic starts... check out these shots I took at the beach, the top shot is the 50mm 1.8lens, the bottom shot it the 18-135mm lens that I normally use. My goodness - the difference!!!


The 50mm 1.8lens is great for portraits and those ever-so desirable product shots where everything in the background is sorta fuzzy and sparkles with light. Let me not lead you to believe I am bashing my 18-135mm lens... because its awesome. For one thing, the above shots, the top one (with the 50mm lens) is just that, no cropping - the bottom shot has been cropped considerably, the lens took so much more picture than just me and Tim (it just didn't happen to take a very good shot of me and Tim!) with so much more focus on the background. It was such an incredible day, the weather was gorgeous and this picture captured the beautiful sky. Check it out in original form:
Okay - so product photography with the 50mm 1.8lens will follow in another blog post when I have better pictures to prove its worth... but seriously - the portraits, its just amazing. Check out this one I took of Oleo the cat - this lens is notorious for taking good portraits indoors with crappy lighting and no flash = better portraits ?!? with the 50mm 1.8 this is possible, check it out:
heres a link to my friend Laini's blog post that inspired me and taught me whats up!
http://growwings.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-thing-ive-learned-about-photography.html

I want to make your studio a mobile!

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on the Etsy blog about photography - it was called "Seller Tip: Present Yourself to the Press" Great article - to sum it up: all artists and small business people should be prepared with a good head shot and/or a good shot of their studio. These pictures should be quality, ready on demand and high resolution. This way when a magazine or blog contacts you for an interview you are ready! I couldn't agree more.
So here's the story I am trying to share: while reading this article I noticed this picture (the one above) and I fixated on this beautiful little Italian studio space, something about it made me swoon and I instantly wanted to make a mobile for this space (maybe I just want to sit in that hammock and gaze at a mobile - wouldn't that be a nice way to take a nap?!) I'm not sure if its the fact that the studio is in Italy, or the bright colors and maps and embroidery hoops on the wall... something about it caught my attention.

So I emailed the artist and told her so! This is very unlike me - I have never done anything like this... and when she got back to me enthusiastically I realized that I had to follow thru with the offer!
This is the mobile I made... after digging around in my drawer of random circles (I always seem to have some extra laying around, so I try and herd them into a particular drawer and occasionally they come in very handy - like now!) I made this beautiful mobile for that wonderful little Italian studio.

Then I imposed the picture of the mobile into the picture of the studio - I wanted to see what it may look like!
And now I am thinking that this was really fun! I figure its my good karma for the year... and now I am thinking that it'd be fun to do a contest called "I want to make a mobile for your studio" and take submissions of studio shots and the one that most inspires me to make a mobile for their space would win one! What fun. I wonder how I could effectively advertise this... more thoughts to come. For now I just wanted to share the story