The Blaine Franger Photography Blog

Downtown Hood River, Mt. Hood, and the Columbia River

2009-06-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

On a gorgeous day, June 28th 2009! I love it here and am absolutely blown away every time I go outside. This photo is shot from Highway 14 in White Salmon, Washington.

First sunset from our deck (Time-Lapse)

2009-06-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

First sunset from our deck (Time-Lapse) from blaine franger on Vimeo.

This is a little time-lapse clip of a sunset, viewed from the deck of our new house. It's not the most interesting clip ever but it's a little sentimental to me because it was the first sunset I witnessed at our place. :)

The deck is one of my favorite features of the house and I'm sure there will be a lot more of these coming in the future.

Please excuse the abrupt ending... I don't even attempt editing films!

Been busy, forgot I had a blog!

2009-06-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last update! I basically forgot I had a blog! Oops.
The big news in our life is that we bought our first house! If you are my facebook friend you probably know this already but thought I'd share it with my blog followers too, if any are left! :)
Here are a few pics I'll post here, but check out the full tour at the gallery here (you don't need facebook to view it)-
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=85682&id=502014824&l=61a03d4eed

Lightning over Hood River and the Gorge

2009-06-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

We've had a few days of cool weather in Hood River that was screaming lightning storm, but in the end, it was just a big tease! Lightning is rare in this part of the state and it's one of my favorite things to shoot, so if there is even a possibility of it, I'm out there no questions asked.
This was 2 nights ago when I cruised my dirtbike up to a good viewpoint and was hoping to get Mt. Hood with some lightning, but there wasn't any striking around it. There was a few bolts far off over the hills of Washington, so this is the only decent shot I got.

What you see in the shot is the Westside of Hood River Oregon on the bottom right, then the Columbia River with the Hood River Toll Bridge going to the towns of Bingen and White Salmon, Washington.

Camping at Kingsley

2009-06-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago we did a quick night of camping at good ol' Kingsley Reservoir in the hills of Hood River. Kingsley is known as the spot where high schoolers go to party, and also where the hicks hangout to 4x4, good times. Luckily we had a nice quiet evening up there almost alone.

Our friend Amos had his sister and brother in law in town from Oklahoma and they were great people... we all hope to climb a mountain or two together in the future.

Anyway I didn't shoot much, but here are a few shots I took between eating sausage dogs and drinking Busch beer, in true Kingsley fashion. :)

Morning after, we all look mucho cansado (very tired).

Mt. Hood and Lost Lake

2009-06-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Shot a few nights ago...

Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and the Columbia River Gorge aerial photos

2009-05-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

This was my second time (see the first time here) taking a flight over the Gorge with Ken and this time Bethany came too! She was pretty nervous because she has a healthy hatred for small planes (you'd never know by seeing her skydiving blog post!), but Ken did a great job of putting her at ease and taking it easy. :)

We started off flying over the Columbia River. These two shots are looking east right past Mosier. Everything is so green in the spring!

We then flew around Mt. Adams in Washington, which is incredible! So much open country out there. I'd see dirt roads and trails everywhere and wonder how I could get to them on my dirtbike.

Mt. Rainer was even out on this super clear day. Mt. Adams in the foreground, Rainer in the back-

Rolling hills and a lake in Washington-

View into a convex mirror on the plane-

Columbia river at Cascade Locks, and Bridge of the Gods towards the bottom-

Mt. Hood in all it's glory! We flew around it 4 times I think... so lots of different angles! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this mountain!!! 11,239 feet tall!

Gorgeous sunset-

If you have any favorites in particular let me know!

I feel so blessed to live in this amazing place and all of this beauty is right in our backyard. If you couldn't tell, I love Hood River. :)

Thanks again for an amazing time Ken!

A view down the Columbia River Gorge

2009-05-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

Night sky, my favorite spot!

2009-05-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

Coyote Gulch preview

2009-05-18T02:27:00.000-07:00

Where have I been lately!? No posts since May 6th! I'm beginning to think I'll never catch up!
We just recently returned from a sweet trip with good friends. First was a couple days in San Diego to see family and friends, then a road trip out to Utah to go backpacking with good friends from college.
We ended up backpacking the Coyote Gulch near Escalante, Utah. What an incredible area!
This is the only pic I've done so far. It's shot inside the gulch where we camped for 2 nights. The rock walls are 300-500 feet tall... huge! The North star was perfectly lined up in the opening and made for a great long exposure.

30 minute exposure @ f/2.8, ISO 100. Canon 5Dmark2 16mm lens. Lit with our little campfire. :)
More to come later!

My favorite spot, again

2009-05-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

I just came across these images on my computer that I shot a couple weeks ago, and didn't remember how cool they were.
This was an unusually warm and super gorgeous evening in Hood River. I was up exploring on my dirtbike and stopped at my favorite spot during sunset, and shot these images. The crazy thing is that these are all taken basically from the exact same place, it's just a matter of turning the camera in a different direction! Talk about incredible views! I love this place...

Mt Adams to the North-

Mt. Saint Helens to the North West-

Mount Hood to the South East-

I really enjoyed these UFO like clouds-

I stayed till it was dark and did this 30 minute exposure on my Canon 5DMark2-

The next day I took a flight with our friend Ken, and shot these same mountains in the same light, but from a plane! Got some amazing images... not enough time to work on them now though!

2009 Starvation Ridge 12 Hour race photos

2009-05-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

Last year I photographed the Starvation Ridge 24 hour race and it was an absolute blast! I got some really great images and also had a great time riding the track as a "sweep rider" which means I'm just riding around looking for any kind of trouble and helping out, etc. You see those pics here.
I decided to head out for this years 12 hour race and be a sweep rider again, and hopefully shoot some photos too. The weather wasn't anything amazing (lots of rain) and the good light for photos lasted about an hour total, so I ended up doing a lot more riding and hanging out than shooting. It was fun though. I wasn't even going to post these images but friends and people from the race have been asking where they are... so I figured I'd throw them up!
Thanks to the event organizers Scott and Debby for putting all this on year after year, and letting me come to sweep ride and shoot photos.
Also thanks to the Team Watson guys for letting me hang out in their pit out of the rain and bug them with dirtbike questions for the technically impaired (ME)...

Scott giving a little talk before the start-

Next 8 shots are Wiley Watson, he's a ripper! Son of moto performance & suspension extraordinaire Tom Watson.

Other random guys-

Some nice landscapes with the wind farms!

Richard Hallman came out to shoot for the day too, he's an amazing photographer in Hood River. It was getting dark and windy right about this time, and he was freeezing in his shorts so I gave him a ride back on my bike.

I stayed till dark and played around with some night photos, but didn't get much of anything good... here are a couple...

Photo gear!

2009-05-03T13:30:00.001-07:00

One of the most common questions Bethany and I get asked is "What kind of cameras and lenses do you use?"
I've never compiled a list of our cameras and lenses except for the insurance policy... but we just recently joined Canon Professional Services and had to list and add the serial numbers of all our gear. For those who are curious- this is the whole list of our Canon camera and lenses. We use the Canon system for 99% of our work because it's amazing gear and shoots just about everything really well.

We also own a medium format Contax 645AF camera with a 80mm lens and 140mm lens. I still use this camera for super long exposures of star trails. It sees about 1 or 2 rolls of film per year, so it's always a surprise when I get that film developed! :)

I also still own a couple Nikon cameras and a few lenses, including my first ever SLR camera the "Nikon FA" which still works great for long exposures because it doesn't use batteries on the bulb setting.
I still own my original Nikon F5 as well because it's very sentimental to me! I put thousands and thousands of rolls of Fuji slide film through that camera. That thing was a workhorse! 8 frames per second, and 8 AA batteries... shooting sequences of snowboarding and wakeboarding it would burn through a 36 exposure roll of film in less than 5 seconds! At 7 bucks a roll for film, and 8 bucks for processing, that was expeeeeeensive! Starting off with film definitely gives you a whole different appreciation for the digital age.

We of course have tons of accessories and random little things, but that's a whole other blog post. :)

I don't have photos of the Contax and Nikon cameras right now, but here are all the Canons! Feel free to ask technical gear and camera questions in the comments, I don't mind at all and would be happy to help out with any opinions.

My favorite spot

2009-05-01T01:59:00.000-07:00

This is currently my favorite spot to cruise to on my dirtbike and take photos. I can get there in about 20 minutes by dirtbike...
I think the elevation is probably about 4,600 feet and it's such an incredible view from there. Mt. Saint Helens, Mt. Rainer, and Mt. Adams are all in this shot, a little hard to see though because it's with a super wide 16mm lens. Mt. Hood is directly behind me.

We don't get too many clear days in the spring so I've been trying to get out and shoot every chance I get when the weather is good. I shot this last night along with some film as well.
20 minute exposure @f/4, ISO 100, Canon 5D Mark2, 16-35mm lens.

Mt. Hood aerial... a little preview!

2009-04-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry I'm falling behind on my blog again! I've been pulling some long hours at the office trying to get caught up (is that ever going to happen?) after all the traveling the last couple months.
Good news is that I've been able to shoot a ton too! I have so much to post here and no time to do it!

Here is a little preview of some photos I can't wait to work on. Our friend Ken took Bethany and I flying on a gorgeous spring day last week. I shot many great images of the mountains... more coming later! :)

Hanging my 5D mark2 and fisheye out the window while going about 150MPH... brrrr.

3 of us having a great time putting around in the sky!

Many more images coming later!

woohooo!

2009-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

My blog isn't hacked anymore! When all this started about a week ago I was pretty frustrated at Google, just assuming that they were totally wrong about my site having malware and being hacked... but they were totally right! It was indeed hacked and contained malicious files. It amazes me that they are able to detect that, and prevent as many computers from getting it as possible.
When I cleaned up the files, I had to "request a review" from Google so that they could verify there wasn't malicious files anymore, and they actually did the review and removed the warning the same day. Pretty amazing if you ask me. Thanks Google!

To celebrate here is the one and only shot from the Kilauea Volcano that I've done so far. Hopefully I can get to the rest sometime this decade...

Malware fixed.... waiting on Google now

2009-04-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

Turns out my website files indeed were hacked by some crazy Ukrainian hackers! I was up from 1AM-7AM this morning working to fix it all. I was able to delete every single website file on my web server, then re-upload them from a backup that was 2 months old. A little tedious getting everything synced up and running right, but it's all good now. No more malware files! So if you're reading this now, no worries about any damage to your computer even though the message is still on there.
Now it's just a waiting game for Google to review my website and lift the warning message that everyone is seeing. Hopefully that happens sooner than later!!!

Freakin malware

2009-04-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone if you're seeing a message on my blog/website about Malware and harmful this harmful that...
I don't know what happened but apparently it's some type of virus in my website files. I'm trying to fix it! This is sooo LAME! Why are some people so stupid!? Don't you have ANYTHING better to do with your time than hack people's websites!?!? GET A LIFE!

Sea turtle in Kona, Hawaii

2009-04-15T00:32:00.000-07:00

I love these creatures... swimming with them is so much fun! I was photographing them with our underwater housing "dome port" which is a huge clear bubble looking thing so you can see in & out of the water at the same time. The turtles were really curious what it was and swimming right up to it!
I have lots more shots but here is my favorite so far-

WOW

2009-04-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

I just finished 2 back to back days/nights shooting the worlds most active volcano- Kilauea on Hawaii (the big island). EPIC to say the least.
I'm going to save the talking and photos for when I can think straight... I'm going on 2 nights without sleep and heading to the beach with Bethany to take a nap. :)
For now, here is an awesome photo Bethany took of me yesterday on "the bench" above the outflow of lava into the ocean. Incredible...

Kilauea Volcano

2009-04-11T01:44:00.000-07:00

More coming soon...

self portrait with a friend

2009-04-10T15:56:00.000-07:00

What rental Jeeps are made for

2009-04-09T13:51:00.001-07:00

Bethany and I are in Hawaii now. We had back to back destination weddings, so that has been fun. :)
Last weeks wedding was in Riviera Maya, Mexico and this weekends wedding was in Hawaii. You can check out both of the slideshows here: http://www.blaineandbethany.com/slideshows/

Whenever we have a destination wedding we like to extend the trip so we can explore on our own too. The first 4 days in Hawaii we rented a bright blue PT Cruiser which was fine because we were busy with the wedding, so only had to drive on the roads. But on Monday I switched it out for a 4x4 Jeep Wrangler... now thats what I'm talkin about! This thing is pretty much unstoppable. Awesome.

I conned Bethany into taking some photos of me having some fun... so here are a few. More to come later... videos too!

Oh ya... When I asked the rental company about taking the Jeep offroad, they said- "The contract says your not supposed to, but we know everyone does! So basically if it breaks down, you're on your own."
Sounds like a green light to me. :)

Isla Mujeres lightning

2009-03-28T00:52:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to see two awesome lighting storms during my time in Isla Mujeres. The first storm started right after dark and I was walking back home from a long session of snorkeling. I knew there was a storm coming just by the way the air felt. Suddenly huge winds picked up and the air temp plummeted in a matter of seconds. Next thing I know, I look up and see a full on "Tornadic waterspout" that was about 300 feet tall from the water! It's like a tornado over the water... very cool. Greg got to see it too, but we rushed back home to get the girls and show them from the roof, and it had vanished. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera either. :(

But here are a few other photos I shot-

Thunderheads forming at sunset:

When it got dark this cloud over the ocean was striking about once every 5 seconds-

Big bolt of lighting striking the eastern side of Isla Mujeres-

Underwater images from Isla Mujeres, Mexico

2009-03-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

I've been having such a fun time in the warm Caribbean waters with my underwater housing from Del Mar Housings. I have a custom housing for the Canon 5D but I've been talking with Erik a bit about getting a new housing for the 5D Mark2... so we'll see!

These are all images from the past couple days. It's so fun to swim around out there and just shoot whatever you happen to see!

I realized I could use the 100mm macro lens in my 16-35mm port, so I gave that a try. Super hard to focus on stuff, so images were mostly all crap... but good to know I have that option. This Barracuda was hangin around for a bit so I got a couple shots of him. During one dive I actually had about 200 Barracuda circling around me (no camera)! I could barely see through them! After some research I found out they hang around snorkelers because they think we're out there hunting, so they want to feed on the scraps of what we kill, haha. Sorry Barracudas... I'm just pokin around taking photos.

These little stingrays are everywhere. I pet lots of them and they seem harmless... although Bethany seems to think they can still sting?

See the Barracudas?

Surge in the water looks really cool with ripply sandy bottoms.

This is the largest Morey Eel I've ever seen. I never saw his entire body but I think he was approx 8 feet long. He's shy but I managed to get a couple shots of him.

Another Barracuda-

Starfish and curious onlooking fish-

Cool arches. I love the way things look underwater!

A couple times I swam out to the very end of Isla Mujeres, which is the Easternmost point in all of Mexico. There are two bodies of water that meet and it creates an insane tip current that shoots off the tip of the island, with big waves and turbulence. I hung out in the midst of it all for a bit. :)
It took every ounce of strength and energy to be in control of where it was taking me. The only way I could shoot this photo was by diving down 20 feet and grabbing onto a rock, so the 15mph current didn't take me out. This is a wave passing overhead. I love experiencing the sheer force water can dish out... I'm sure any extreme kayaker or surfer would agree.

More fun with the waves hitting the rocks, then draining out and creating large waterfalls before the next wave comes in.