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Thirsty Thursday: Portland Wandering

Rambler: Beth

Drink at Hand: Tablas Creek 2011 Mourvedre 

Thirsty Thursday here again, time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans! And if you are thirsty and you like Rhone varietals, I highly recommend anything from Tablas Creek. Great winery outside Paso Robles. Now, back to the photos...

I had my final Portland State MBA residency weekend last weekend. Yay for a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel (I'll finish in December), but boo for no more required trips to Portland. I've had fun exploring the city and enjoying its quirkiness. Its an urban wilderness for me...a place I can wander and be in my own head without anyone bothering me, much like being out in an actual wilderness. 

I had a flight to catch at 10, but when I woke up and peeked outside, I wanted to go wander with camera in hand. It wasn't raining too much and the soft light was calling me. 

The view from my hotel room that coaxed me outside. 

I had about an hour, so I quickly grabbed the camera and headed out. I just wandered, slightly rushed with only an hour so I didn't have time to immerse myself in many scenes, but I found a few interesting sites. I only had the 40mm f/2.8 with me, and the fixed focal length forced me to work for the compositions I wanted. 

So, after finding food carts, a bubbler, Voodoo doughnuts, and people on bikes all in an hour (and not knowing that I'd find any of those things), I think I had a pretty successful Portland morning photo walk. Someday I'll get back to do a few more photo walkabouts in Portland. 

Thirsty Thursday: Analog

Rambler: Terry
Drink in Hand: 2009 Paraiso Zinfandel Irie

It's been a long week since last Thursday. In fact, the days have blended together and I find myself wondering how it can be another Thursday already. Last weekend I had hoped to go through some of my Germany / Italy pictures, but it's amazing how fast plans change. These are the shots that I was able to edit throughout blur of last week. Unlike most of my edits (which are almost completely done in Apple Aperture), I discovered that my Nik Software Aperture plugins were automatically updated by Google. I'm still not thrilled that Google felt that it could update software on my computer without my knowledge (not even a notification). However, I have fallen in love with Nik Analog Efex Pro. I'm actually quite surprised that I enjoy these type of finishes so much. Many moons ago when I started to get serious about photography, I found myself waiting for the digital era. I didn't want a film camera. I didn't want a Holga. I suppose I was just naïve. I just wanted a DSLR. I didn't want to deal with developing film. I wanted sharp and crisp images with vivid colors. I wasn't a big fan of black and white photography. I didn't like the imperfect artifacts of film. But that's something's changed lately. I simply love it. There's something about the imperfections and the textures that I love. In fact, some of the images weren't perfect to start with. . . a bit blurry or maybe a poor composition. All of these images were taken with my Canon 5DMKII and processed through the Nik Analog Efex Pro plugin for Aperture. This set is a mixture of images from both Germany and Italy. I hope you enjoy them and all their imperfections. They seem a bit more real to me.