It’s been a slow month for just about everyone I know, but I did manage to get to the coast to photograph my friend Kris and her family.  The scene on top of Neah-kah-nie Mountain near Manzanita was fantastic.

Once again, I traveled to Redmond, Oregon to add to my collection for the Redmond Chamber.  A special thanks to Heather for her hard work in arranging our shooting schedule and subjects.  This many subjects would be impossible to shoot without her tireless work and attention to detail.

She even made sure I had the opportunity to ride a dairy cow! Never knew I wanted to do that!

With the Labor Day weekend behind, the world seems to be caught up in back-to-school.  The phone is quiet, giving me the time to plan for the future.

I did, however, have the pleasure of photographing my niece’s senior photos.  Some favorites are below.

Despite the ridiculous triple-digit temperatures on Saturday, we still got out to see a few things in the Redmond area. First up was mud volleyball - a tournament fundraiser for the Redmond Gymnastics Academy Booster Club. The event was a really great time. There were at least 8 teams competing, some high school and some adult teams. During this time of the Olympics, I’d have to say that the only thing better than beach volleyball is mud volleyball.

Next up was the Rockchuck Rumble - a 327-yard (6 blocks) fun run in Downtown Redmond. What a riot. The pics tell the story. On the way out of town we saw the full moon coming up over the hills, so of course we stopped. The last shot of Mt. Jefferson Marci saw and shot. She has a great eye.

This is Roger - he’s a rep at my bank branch, and has an amazing hobby - fire spinning.  He spins small kevlar cubes dipped in kerosene attached to short chains.  It’s so cool to see the patterns that he can make.  Thanks for the great shoot, Roger and Jenna!

Saturday evening was absolutely beautiful after a little storm rolled through. We had a chance to get in some boogie boarding.

After sunset we all were sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows, and Kristi pointed out that the moon looked really beautful through the trees.  So i had to spend a few minutes playing around with long exposures.  The clouds moving through made for interesting, almost haunting background.

This weekend we decided to do a quick backpacking trip with my wife’s sister and family.  It was great fun, and we came away from it wanting to do more backpacking, not less!

The we visited Placid Lake in the Wind River Recreation area in Washington State.  The area is very remote, and at about 5000 feet elevation.  Saturday was beautiful and sunny, and the kids got to fish (we caught nine trout), boat and play in and out of the water.  We were all exhausted on Sunday.  The kids found a bug that kept them entertained for at least an hour before we left.  I was excited about maneuvering a road labeled, “needs improvement” that was the last 1/4 mile before the trail head.  I didn’t scrape at all.

Yesterday I had the privilege of photographing another cast of a Broadway Rose production, Nite Club Confidential.  This one was especially fun because  BR’s Marketing Director, Alan, sent me a pdf with 5 or 6 photos on it with the title “lighting inspiration.”  So I got to dig out my parabolics and spot grids and design a setup for this session.

The second reason this was fun (and not so, as I’ll explain) was that we had three actors all posing at their own pace, resulting in a lot of shots where one or two were ‘perfect’, but never three.  So we picked out three shots, one for each actor, and made one ‘perfect’ image (above).  Seems kind of sneaky if I really think about it, but sometimes the stars (no pun here) don’t align perfectly, and you just have to pull another tool from the box to get the job done!

Last weekend we took the family to stay at a hunting cabin in Tygh Valley, Oregon (aka. the middle of nowhere!).  The weather was great even though it was hot, and I got some time to do some shooting.

Here’s a sunset shot from the edge of the property we stayed at.

Sunday morning I took a trip about 4 miles down the road to Sherars Falls.  This area is used by local Native Americans for dip net fishing.

I caught this Blue Heron wandering around while I was there.

On our way home Sunday morning we saw a small plume of smoke rising from the slopes of Mount Adams.  We watched the plume grow larger and thicker over the next hour or so as we drove west toward Hood River.  I decided to chase it a bit, so off we went north through White Salmon hunting for a good vantage point.  Near Trout Lake we found a great spot to check out the action.  Later in the day the news was covering the fire from there as well.

All good things must come to an end, and vacation is no exception.  I can’t think of a better way to get back to work than photographing three beautiful and talented ladies, however.  This, among other shots was done for the Broadway Rose Theater Company, for advertising and promotion of their summer production of Dames at Sea.