Hamilton Mountain

On Monday my family hiked Hamilton Mountain, which is out in the Gorge on the other side of the highway from Beacon Rock.  We had done part of the trail before.  When we got to this sign, we had turned around and decided to hike the rest of the trail some other day.

This time around, we were ready to tackle "more difficult."  It was a really enjoyable hike.  The climb up to Hamilton Mountain was fairly steep, but the spectacular views of the Gorge and the river made it worth it.  

The "Pool of Winds" is part of a nice waterfall on Hardy Creek. 

Looking down from the "Pool of Winds" over the rest of the waterfall and the trail bridge.

The view was so very beautiful!  My pictures don't do it justice.  This is looking west down the Columbia.  That's Beacon Rock down near the river on the bottom left.

It felt so good to reach the summit.

Looking east.  Table Mountain is on the far left.  Directly to the right of it is Mt. Adams, but it doesn't stand out very well in this picture.

Walking along a saddle away from the summit.

As you may know, Monday was a really hot day.  We definitely drank a lot, and we were glad to get back to the creek, take our boots off, and put our feet in the creek for a while. This was probably the best hike I've done in a while. 

Sliver of a Moon

Portraits of Christina

Now that I've learned more about portraits, I need to keep practicing! Yesterday Christina graciously went with me to Officers' Row so I could take some pictures of her.  We both had fun and I think some of the shots turned out pretty well, though there's always lots of room for improvement.  Here are three of my favorites.  These were edited in Adobe Lightroom.  I got a trial version for the workshop and now I know that I definitely want to buy it.

Colville and PWP2

Wow... I haven't posted anything for a month.  Sometimes it's hard to know what impact my blogging/not blogging has on my readers.  Do people stop reading when I don't post anything?  How often do they check my blog? Well, if you're a regular reader, let me say two things: 1) thanks for faithfully checking my blog, 2) I'm sorry if you had to check multiple times before anything showed up! 

Last week was very busy for our family.  Mom and Christina went on our church's annual missions trip to the Colville Indian Reservation.  Dad also got to go for part of the week. The team came back with good reports.  To see more about WPC to Colville 2010 check here.

While I wasn't able to go on the trip, I did get to take the team picture before they left.

I wasn't able to go on the missions trip because I was at a photography workshop hosted by IPS.  IPS is a Christian photography organization.  I can say from first-hand experience that they provide very high quality instruction.  This workshop was Prizewinning Photography 2, which focused primarily on portraiture, workflow, and editing.  Some of the highlights were taking urban portraits in Portland, going to Multnomah and Bridal Veil Falls, and going to Cannon Beach.  And there was class time in there, too, so every day was really packed! 

After having said that we concentrated on portraiture, all I'm posting here are landscapes I took during the week.  I don't want to use the portraits on my blog without having asked my "models."  However, hopefully you will see the fruit of what I learned about portraiture in future blog posts.

Multnomah Falls (my second time there this year)

Bridal Veil Falls--my first time there ever

Cannon Beach (second time there this year as well) 

As you can see, it was cloudy that evening on the beach.  We were there to get sunset portraits, so that wasrather disappointing.  It was cool, too, so a nice warm fire felt really good!

For more on PWP2, check out the IPS blog.