Midnight Lightning Near Bachelor and Broken Top



This image was taken late last night at the highway 20 viewpoint between Tumalo and Sisters.
Taken with a tripod mounted Canon 20D using a Canon 28-70mm F2.8L lens. ISO 400, 1 minute exposure @ F2.8. In all honesty I should have taken this photo at ISO 200 or even 100, but I wasn't getting any good bolt lightning, so I bumped the ISO to 400. Of course THATS when the bolt lightning starts up! The original image was totally flooded with too much light and would have been unusable. Fortunately I was shooting using RAW and I was able to tweak the highlights and brightness in Photoshop to bring the image back together. Also, I wish I had used a tighter aperture, but I didn't because I needed to get as much light as I could and also, I wasn't sure if it was necessary for this kind of shot. I just focused on infinity and opened up the shutter and hoped for the best! As it is, the ridgeline seems a little blurry to me, but its still an enjoyable shot overall.

Hey! Its my birthday! Trip down memory lane.

Wow, 37 today. Feels.....not all that different than 30. Holy cow, 3 more years closer to geezer like status. Seriously though, I was asked if I felt old. What exactly am I supposed to say to that? I do remember when I was in my 20's thinking that 37 was downright ancient. Hell, I'm at my prime! Nah, I don't feel old. And we won't talk about the little bit o' grey that was cropping up in my beard until I shaved it off.
Lets think back to the things I remember as a kid. Rotary phones, black and white television, typewriters, 12 television channels, the internet didn't exist, I saw the first Star Wars film in a movie theatre when I was 6. H.R. Puff n stuff (The Flute in that show was creepy.) Land of the Lost (Sleestacks!) My first home video console was "Pong" and it had like 2 or 3 settings to it. What else? I remember seeing the Pontiac Firebird at a carshow back in the '70's, the same style Burt Reynolds drove in "Smoky and the Bandit". Jimmy Carter. I remember thinking how awesome 8 track tapes were. I remember that the poster from 'Jaws' scared me as a kid, although I wouldn't see it until much, much later in life. Happy Days, the Muppet Show, Thats Incredible!, The Gong Show, Greatest American Hero, Mork and Mindy, Stretch Armstrong, Mattel Electronics Football, Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition, Star Wars toys, Wham-O magic window, Atari 2600 (Combat and Space Invaders blew my mind) The TI-994a, commodore 64, tape drives on computers, 5 1/4" floppy disks, The Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure. (AWESOME!), Big Wheels! (mine was crushed by a drunken neighbor parking his truck, I barely escaped, Damn you Mr. Glass!), Shag Carpet, polyester suits, ABBA, Blondie, (I had a crush on Deborah Harry!), Dynamite magazine, My Empire Strikes Back lunch box, The Brady Bunch (The Hawaiian Vacation episode was the best), Shazam (couldn't a superhero find a better ride than an old Winnebago? Seriously).
Good grief, I could go on and on, and I've barely even touched on anything during the 80's. I you've got a comment or a happy birthday wish, please leave one and I'll post it up!

Balloons Over Bend Night Glow


Another shot from tonights event. This was a particularly difficult shot to get, as I needed a long exposure and the damn balloon kept moving around in the wind. Finally I got a semi-decent shot. Out of about 20 shots, this was one of the better ones.

Fire Dancers at Balloons Over Bend Night Glow




I wish I had caught the name of the group doing the fire dance performance at the Les Schwab Amphitheater, but they were almost done with their performance by the time I arrived. Pretty cool stuff though! I wanted to capture the fluidity of their performance, so I left the shutter open for about 4 seconds for each exposure. Had I more time, I would have tried to use shorter exposure times, but I wasn't in a good position as it was to photograph them and they're performance ended right after I took these images. (NOTE: Just got an email from an anonymous viewer, the groups name is "FireFlyte" and they were excellent).