Cannon Beach

There are days that I miss living close to the coast. I think I took it for granted when we only lived about an hour and half to two hours away from the coast. I always knew in the back of mind it was always near by, waiting for a visit from us.  I remember loading the kids up on a whim and taking them over to the beach for the day.  Even now I remember the smell of the salt air and the feeling of the sand on our feet as we walked along the beach.  The water was freezing no matter what time of year it was but it was always a refreshing break. 

There is something magical about the Oregon Coast.  It is a wonder to behold.  It is a very rugged and wild place.  The intense energy of the waves crashing on the beach is palpable at times.  I have always loved to drive along the coast line and watch as the scenery changes.  At times you are driving through the forest only to emerge around a bend in the road and see the wide open expanse of the ocean.  It really is an awe inspiring sight.  

The picture above was taken at one of my favorite beaches to explore along the Oregon Coast. It is called Cannon Beach.  It is a very popular place to go but there is still a wildness about the land there. This particular day it was very foggy and overcast, which is common along the Oregon coast no matter what time of year it is.  We had taken a walk along the beach.  The tide had gone out revealing these rocks covered in seaweed.  I really liked the composition here of the smaller rocks in the foreground with the big huge rocks in the foggy background.  The fog can really add a mystical feeling to the beach.  The next time I go back here I will savor every moment of it! 

A Hidden Gem

I just recently finished a slide show/video that I made as a Christmas gift for our extended family.  It has become a tradition for my little nuclear family to make one of these videos every other year.  The grandparents and aunts and uncles really seem to enjoy getting these videos and have almost come to expect their next installment, so to speak.  The slide show/video is usually set to music and is comprised of our favorite pictures from the past couple of years.  Originally, our thought was that this would be a great way for the grandparents and extended family to see what we have been up to and to be able to watch as our children grow and change. 

Every time we have put one of these videos together it has become a labor of love, at least for me.  It takes a lot of time to sift through all the pictures that were taken in a two year time span. ( Especially now that I am a photography NUT! ) I usually agonize over what music I am going to choose.  But this year I decided to pick two of my favorite songs from the past year. So that made it a lot easier to decide.  This year it was a complete joy to put the video together.  I decided to have pictures of the kids, Kendall, myself as well as some of my favorite photos that I have taken. Some of these consisted of flowers, some were of landscapes, a few were from some weddings I had shot...each and every image was special to me in its own unique way.  I was extremely happy with how it turned out and I hope that our extended family will like it as much I do! 

I really wanted to share this photo above of Maggie.  This was one that I found while looking through the hundreds of images that I had taken.  This has become one of my favorite shots of her.  And to think that I had forgotten that I had even taken it! Amazing!  In my mind, it has become a hidden little gem,  just waiting for me to find it.  Sometimes it pays to take the time to slow down and sift through those "old" memories. You might just be surprised what you find. 

Another Kodak POTD in Times Square!

I was so excited to find out that this image above was chosen as the Kodak Picture of Day for December 15th!  It was a thrill to have this picture up on the Kodak billboard in Times Square for a full 24 hours.  This image is special to me because I took it last December. My son, Thomas, was my model holding the ornament.  I used this photo as the cover for our Christmas cards last year.  I had almost forgotten that I had even entered it. 

Honestly, I didn't know about it until the big day had already passed.  Our family was so busy with the Living Nativity play that I had not checked the Kodak website all month.  I usually visit a few times a week as I really enjoy looking at the photos that get chosen.  It truly is an exciting feeling to have one of my shots chosen as one of the 365 shots that are chosen each year! 

The Golden Coin

I was asked by our church to shoot a picture of a little boy dropping a gold coin into a Salvation Army bucket.  They wanted to use the image in order to advertise for their Living Nativity play.  Even though we are new to this area and we have not seen the Nativity before, my husband Kendall is producing the play this year!  

The main story of the play is about two boys who learn about the miracle of Christmas from a salvation army bell ringer.  If you want to know more than that, Kendall says "come see the play and find out." :)  Needless to say, we are quite anxious to see the whole thing, which includes a realistic nativity scene with donkeys, camels and sheep (oh my)!  It takes nearly two hundred people working for several weeks to pull this off, but the church is amazing, how people just come together and get it done.

Thomas was our little hand model for the image above.  Poor little guy, it was rather cold, but he was a real trooper. He held as steady as he could over and over again until I was satisfied with what I captured.  Kendall was the bell ringer in the background and he was quite a trooper as well.  Overall it was a great learning experience!  I am pleased that they decided to use the image on their web page for advertising purposes for the play!

Cable Bridge

Last week we went up to Ritzville, WA to meet our wonderful friend Lynn.  We have known Lynn since our college days at the University of Idaho.  She now lives across the big pond in Cornwall England.  We feel so lucky to have gotten to have a bit of her vacation time back here in the States spent with us.  It was so fun to reminisce about our college days with her, talk about our current lives and look ahead to what the future may hold for all of us.  She leaves tomorrow on a jet plane back across the big pond to her new life in England. I miss her already! But, thanks to facebook we keep can keep tabs on each other on a regular basis. Ah, the marvels of technology.  

The above photo is what we captured on our way home from Ritzville. We have heard about the Cable Bridge since we arrived in the Tri Cities in August.  We had never really taken the time to stop and check out the bridge.  Of course since we pulling into the Tri Cities right as the sun was setting it seemed like a great time to go check it out! It was a might bit chilly and the wind was blowing just enough to make the late autumn air even more cold.  We searched for a place to park as we raced against the sun.  There is a lovely paved trail that you can walk along the Columbia River and take in all of the beauty that the river has to offer.  I got this shot from that walk way just as the sun was sinking behind the mountains.  I did not realize how immense the Cable Bridge is.  I was actually having a hard time getting the whole span of the bridge in frame. I always knew that the Columbia River was mighty but being that close to the river and seeing how large that bridge was,  made the Columbia even more impressive.  

It really was a spectacular sight. If you are ever in the Tri Cities area I highly recommend you check out the Cable Bridge.  If you can check it out at sunset that would even be better.  The sunsets around here are indeed beautiful!

Let It Snow

Lately I have been working on getting all of my images organized and backed up.  While looking through some of the images I came across this one of Thomas, my son, taken almost two years ago when we went to Idaho to visit his grandparents for Christmas. It was a fantastic vacation spent with our extended family.  The icing on the cake was when it snowed the second day we were there. All of the kids were so excited!  I loved this image of Thomas trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.  It represents to me all of the carefree fun we had that day.  Do you remember the last time you stopped and tried to catch a snowflake on your tongue? You really ought to try it. There is nothing better than letting out our inner child once in awhile.  Just think of all the fun you can have!

COJ Waterfall

This is a little waterfall that I found on the grounds of our church. It is tucked away in a beautiful little prayer garden.  The water runs from up above the little falls from a coy pond and then makes its way down under a foot bridge then ultimately falling down to this area.  I had noticed about a week ago that the trees were really starting to drop their leaves and at the time, this little area had just a leaf or two floating in the water.  Yesterday, between breaks in the rain, I decided to venture over and see how things were progressing.  I was so excited to see all of the fall color that had accumulated during the week.  

My next goal was to experiment with leaving my shutter open for different lengths of time to see what worked the best for achieving the silky water look.  I have experimented with this technique a few times  but it is really a work in progress for me.  I plan on visiting this little water fall again as the seasons change to keep playing with getting that silky water look.  The image above was one of my favorites from yesterday.