Communication Tower

Saw this while out for a walk, a lone communication tower against some cool clouds.

Green at the End of the Tunnel

This is a bridge that crosses hwy 26 going to (or from) the Sunset Transit Center. I liked this perspective, played around with it in Lightroom and came up with this. Took out most of the color except for the trees, and turned the clarity all the way down.

Trees & Clouds

I was out for a walk yesterday when I saw these trees all in a row. I thought they looked cool with the neat clouds and blue sky in the background. Just a basic photo for today, but don't worry, I have more tilt shift and brewfest ones coming. ;)

Brewfest Tilt Shift

As I've said, Tilt Shift photos work best when you take them from above and from a distance. In this case I held my camera up as high as I could to get the photo, then thought I'd give it a try in Photoshop to see if it would work. It did! A little different perspective on the brewfest. Now I wish I'd gotten one like this of the people pouring beer. Next year!

Mmm... Beer...

A mug full of awesomeness from the Oregon Brewers Festival!

I <3 Beer

I got this shirt from Old Chicago (they have these little beer tours and when you complete them you get a t-shirt). When I saw it I knew I had to tie-dye it and wear it to the Oregon BrewFest! Riley took this photo with my Droid Incredible. I should have stood somewhere else instead of with the bright sun behind me. Can I claim the beer as an excuse for not thinking the photo through? ;)

Oregon Brewers Festival

Each year in July is the Oregon Brewers Festival. There are about 70 beers on tap from around the country, celebrating all kinds of wonderful microbrewed beers. It's a ton of fun! And unlike what some may think, there is rarely anyone getting too drunk, rude, being jerks or anything you'd think of when mixing thousands of people, a hot day, and beer. In fact, it's a VERY family friendly event! There are lots of people there with their kids, it's just a really fun time where people are friendly and we get to sample some amazing beers! Here's a server pouring me another great beer!

Wild Island Tilt Shift #3

I know, you're probably tired of these, but I had fun with them and had to post one more. :)

Wild Island Tilt Shift #2

Another image I played around with in Photoshop to make a fake Tilt Shift. At first I didn't like it, but coming back today, I actually DO like it! Sometimes you just need to give yourself some time away from the photo. ;)

Wild Island Tilt Shift

I saw some really cool Tilt Shift photos today and remembered you can make fake ones with Photoshop. It works best with photos where you're looking down on a scene, so I decided to try it with some I took from Wild Island Adventure Park in Reno. It's really, REALLY easy to do. This one turned out pretty good I think, though I need to work on it a little more. I like this effect, it's fun and can transform an ordinary blah photo into something really cool!

Sunset On The Drive Home

We left Reno around Noon and by the time we got almost home, the sun was setting. It was really pretty, I liked how the sun was just below the horizon but still lighting up the sky and the clouds. Took this while driving. I never quite know how good pics like this will turn out because I'm trying to drive and not get us in a wreck more than take pictures. ;)

Dump The Water Bucket

In one of the kids areas is this giant bucket at the top. It fills with water then tips over dumping water all over the play structure, which the kids all love and wanted to get under. The whole cycle only takes about two minutes, though it seemed longer when I was sitting in the water watching the kids play. Again, this is at Wild Island Adventure Park in Reno, a great place!

Nice Rest Area

Just east of Susanville on the way to Reno is this really nice rest area. It's very clean, quite big, and has some really nice trees next to it. I've been at many where you have to hold your breath while trying to go fast and forget about washing your hands because the water doesn't work. Not this place!

View from the Pool

The Silver Legacy pool is up about 10 floors or something from the street, outside. It's got a nice view looking at the mountains and some of the skyline. This is three photos I stitched together in Photoshop CS5.

Cool Clouds

Saw these cool clouds while driving to Reno around Mt. Shasta on I-5. When I saw them I thought they would look good after some additional processing in Lightroom. :)

Another Wild Island Panorama

Here's another panorama of Wild Island. I climbed to the top of one of the slides that was about in the middle of the park and took 20+ photos, then stitched them all in Photoshop CS5. This does a good job of showing almost all of the things you can do at the water park. There's the lazy river on the left, the wave pool in the middle, one of the kids area way back to the right, the slides we went on a lot next, then the other kids area way back there. There's two more rides that you can barely see on the far right, the slide I was standing on was blocking most of it. And it was nice that it wasn't too crowded, you didn't have to wait in lines for very long. We're definitely going back here next year!

Maddie Coming Down the Water Slide

Maddie just LOVED the water slides! I swear that girl has no fear! As an added bonus, when we were at the Wild Island water park in Reno, she happened to turn 5 that day. An extra special birthday!

She can't swim well enough to go underwater, so the lifeguard would get a signal from up above that they needed to catch the person coming down. They would move in front of the tube and put their floaty thingy at the end so they could catch the person. They were all very nice and cool!

Reno At Night

My camera broke so I was using Marci's little Panasonic. Turns out it has a long exposure mode so I was playing with it to see what I could get. I would have liked it to be less bright, but I couldn't change any of the other settings. Still, I think it turned out pretty cool. This is looking out the window of our room on the 31st floor at the Silver Legacy looking SSW.

Mt. Shasta

Mt. Shasta and some very cool clouds on our way to Reno. I did some extra processing in Lightroom going for a HDR effect. I took this from inside the car while driving, which you can tell by the rear-view mirror reflection at the top. I should use Photoshop CS5's content-aware fill to remove that. ;)

Wild Island Panorama

Another multi-shot photo I did of the Wild Island Adventure Park in Reno.  Stitched in Photoshop CS5, it was a great place and a wonderful day!