New Blog! Beautiful Hood River, Oregon!

Hi all,
Just today I launched a new blog that I fully intend on keeping up with a lot better than this one. It's called "Beautiful Hood River" and the address is http://beautifulhoodriver.com/. The idea behind it is simply just a photo a day from my beautiful hometown, Hood River Oregon. I have thousands upon thousands of images that have never seen the light of day, so hopefully this will be a good way to get some of them out there to be seen. Each and every day at 12:01AM the blog will automatically update itself with a new image, that is, as long as I keep on top of the "posting in the future", haha.
Please also check out the Beautiful Hood River, Oregon facebook page HERE and click "like" to keep updated with the new photos and general Hood River stuff. :)

Latourell Falls, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

I dropped Bethany off at PDX yesterday and decided to bring my camera for some waterfall photos on the way back to Hood River.

This is Latourell Falls, right off the Historic Columbia River Highway where there are many many waterfalls. This is 6 vertical images stitched together to make a panorama. Resolution and detail are greatly improved by shooting multiple frames for a panorama rather than just simply cropping.

Latourell Falls Horizontal Panorama-


Latourell Falls Vertical Panorama-


And thanks to my new Lowepro Pro Roller x200 for the much needed rest for 3rd tripod leg! :)

First photos from my deck!

Last night was so beautiful! Amazing clouds, moon, stars, warmth and even a couple shooting stars! I was up late until 4AM editing photos in the office but I set up my camera on the deck to take a few star shots with Mt. Underwood. A couple pics-

I went to bed at 4AM and was awaken at 6AM with this bright pink glow coming though the blinds, and I had to get up and check it out! Strolled out to the deck, took a few photos in my boxers while mostly asleep, then stumbled back into bed and slept till 9:30AM. :)

timelapse from my bacony

I've been inspired lately by my friend Chad. He makes super cool timelapse videos with his still camera, and always picks the most perfect music for them.
I've done a few before, but I want to start doing more! Here is one I did a few nights ago. Shot from right outside our bedroom door on the balcony of our new rental house (we have an awesome view!!)
1 frame shot about every 2.5 minutes. Started it at something like 4AM and stopped it at 11PM, so about 19 hours and 826 frames, played back at 15 frames per second. Its not the best one ever, but I have some good ideas for upcoming ones. :)

Sorry the first 20 seconds are pretty boring, gets better when the clouds roll in, then the sun sets, then the stars move!


Time lapse in Hood River from blaine franger on Vimeo.

Broughton Fire - White Salmon, Washington

These are some photos I shot yesterday evening of a fire that has been named "Broughton Fire" in White Salmon, Washington, just below Underwood Mountain.

I noticed the smoke around noon and knew it was a fire, but didn't realize it was a big one until I saw that there was 5 helicopters buzzing around dropping water all over it. I drove down to Ruthton Park in Hood River to take some photos. There were a lot of people down there because it was a great view to see all that was happening.

They suspect it was started by a spark from a passing train! I don't think anyone was injured or killed, but it did burn down 5 houses. Hope those people had insurance... because those are expensive houses up there!
KATU newschannel has an article up about it here and there is a video here.

Helicopters dropping water-


The sun setting to the west was beautiful!




The fire at night-



Zoe kept me company-