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

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

Night sky, my favorite spot!

Coyote Gulch preview

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

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

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!

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

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.