portland saturday market

a few days ago, i was perusing meetup.com and found a group called women learning photography together... well, whaddya know?  i'm a woman learning photography!  so, i figured i should join these ladies on their photography field trips!

today was my first meetup with the group and we met at portland saturday market.  this was great for me because i'm in love with street photography, but i'm too chicken s#%t to actually approach people and ask if i can take their picture.  and i'm even more chicken s#%t to take their picture without asking them.  saturday market is nice because there are so many people around and so many tourists, a photographer kind of blends in (or at least, a photographer doesn't look awkward taking photos in places they shouldn't be).

this first photo was taken in an empty lot at 4th and burnside.  it really makes me wonder why there is a table and chair in an empty lot... and why is the window bricked up?

the next three were shot along the waterfront.  the first one (with the words) is of some steps that surround a fountain.  it seems to speak about the people who came to portland, where they came from and how they got here.  

i had to get some blossom shots... spring is here (although the temperature didn't feel like spring today at all!).

and now for the saturday market... 

this woman had the best stall of any merchant at the market (not to mention that her pottery is beautiful).  

hats galore!

this band was pretty awesome.  they were belting out some southern bluegrass for shoppers' listening pleasure.

the band wasn't the only person out there trying to make some money.  this guy was putting on a dance show while his friends played some percussion on 5-gallon buckets.

this woman was drawing some pretty awesome chalk art on the sidewalk.  not sure the point of it, though, since it later rained!!

after the market, i made my way back to my car via 4th street (china town).

there were definitely other people taking photos of this sign at the same time as i was.  they must have an adolescent mind like me - lol!  

futures

today at adelsheim, the consumer direct department hosted a futures event, in which consumers can taste wine from last year's harvest right out of the barrel.  the owner (david adelsheim), winemaker (dave paige) and associate winemaker (erik kramer) were all there sharing their knowledge with the masses... and sarah king was there pouring in the most amazing red coat i've ever seen!

for this event, i rented a 50mm 1.4 lens and a flash.  i have to say that, after friday evening, i kind of gave up on the lens.  i didn't like it's extremely shallow depth of field (which frankly ended up making most of my photos show up out of focus... due to operator error, i know).  i decided that, until i figure out exactly what type of photography i'd like to focus on, i'm sticking with the kit lens.  i'm very partial to wide angle shots, so i'm thinking about going in that direction perhaps.  i'm not really a portrait photographer, so i'm now not convinced that i need a portrait lens.  at least i rented it first without just buying it outright!  

but i digress...

back to today's event!  (disclaimer: the image quality looks fairly poor on this blog posting, but they are much better on flickr)

adelsheim in spring

since i am taking pictures of the futures event at adelsheim tomorrow, i wanted to test out some things today... namely the flash i rented for the weekend.  chad offered to model for me, what a sport!

thankfully, i got a couple of decent shots of the space.  hopefully i know what i'm doing tomorrow when there is more than one person milling around.

after we finished in the caves, we took fife out into the calkins lane vineyard next to the winery to get some energy out.

photography field trip at omsi

my photography class met this morning at the oregon museum of science and industry (omsi) in portland for a field trip.  monday is our last class, so our goal today was to take 3 - 5 photos to share and explain why they are interesting.

i'm not sure why they're interesting, but here they are.  i must admit that i was feeling a bit uninspired at omsi, especially with such a broad assignment (pretty much anything i wanted to shoot).  that said, i tried panning for the first time and i liked how they came out.  another observation: i also really need to work on incorporating people into my photos and getting over my fear of asking to photograph them. photos with people in them are so much more interesting and dynamic.