Cup Of Water

Walking down an old closed logging road in Clackamas County I came across this little waterfall and a little blue tin cup hanging on a branch beside it. I had traveled about one and a half miles and had become quite thirsty. After pondering the wisdom of drinking from this water with an unwashed cup I threw caution to the wind and helped myself. Delicious.

It made me smile to think of someone's thoughtfulness when I came upon it and even though it not the greatest of pictures I still smile when I think of it.

Beaten But Not Broke

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Taken on the Oregon coast where gail force winds often occur you have to be mighty strong to survive out here.

This tree has seen many seasons and should see many more. You can see which direction the wind usually comes from but that one branch on the left, how does that thing hang on? Poking way beyond a normal distance, all by itself? Is it some kind of defiance towards the elements? Like the crippled first mate on Bubba Gumps shrimp boat? Sitting on top of the mast during a raging storm Lieutenant Dan screams at God and dares Him to destroy himself.

Perhaps global climate change is not responsible for more severe weather conditions, perhaps it's just the wind trying to take down that defiant branch. Hang in there mighty branch, you give me hope.

Eagle Scouts

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Walking on the beach in Oregon I saw these two eagles off in the distance and as I snuck closer I took a series of pictures. This last picture was as close as I could get before they got skittish and flew off.

The funny thing was, as I was walking towards them there were only two other people on the beach, an older father with adult son. They too were walking my direction and taking pictures of the scenery and each other with their cell phone. Once the eagles flew away I walked towards them to say hi and asked if they had gotten a good picture of the eagles as well. They had no idea they had been there and were sorry they had missed them.

It amazes me how often we can pass right by something of great beauty and not even notice it. Amazing and awesome things are all around us, you don't even need to slow down to see them, just focus beyond the ten feet in front of you.

Here these two guys were taking pictures with two Bald Eagles perched right in front of them in full view with a fantastic surrounding and they completely missed the opportunity. I know I have too, people have told me after the fact.

Live your busy life, do your thing, just lift your eyes and take notice once in a while. You've been missing some pretty awesome stuff. And come to my site once in a while and I'll show you what I've noticed too, that's why I'm here.

Lawn Ornament

As I continue my pursuit of photography I find myself shooting in 3 different categories—wildlife, landscapes, and what I like to call Americana. Those three categories converge nicely into my site name frontierphotographer.com as these are all things I find in the "frontier".

Here I've driven past this plane on a back road in the Willamette Valley. I had to stop at the house at 8:30am and knock on the front door to ask permission to walk around the property and take some pictures.

This was actually being used as lawn decoration if you consider "lawn" as being a field right next to their driveway I was standing in when I took this shot. There were many other cool things lying about but I wanted an image of the plane by itself so as not to be too busy of a picture.

This plane wins my award as "Best Lawn Ornament Ever"! And it's not just a plane but a very cool looking one at that!

Sunlight Through Dark Forest

Just nice lighting.

I saw this driving one evening looking for interesting light while the sun went down. I passed a herd of elk farther up the road without taking a picture because the composition and lighting were no good but when I hit this grove of trees I got out and took this shot.

Nothing special about this as far as subject matter but again I had an itchy trigger finger and needed to shoot something.