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!

Skull Ranch

File under "Americana". I came across this awesome, uh, "collection"  while driving the back roads of Clackamas County Oregon. Right at a 90 degree corner in the road I set up in the middle of the street and rushed this image as traffic was coming my way. 

This is art, not the picture but this ranch. I almost titled this shot "Welcome Bigfoot" as this part of the ranch not only shows the aesthetic of the owner but some of their personality as well.

Fun to find such expressions in unexpected places.

Row of Bikes

I captured this image during the Cripple Creek Veteran's Bike Rally this last August. I liked how it turned out a lot except for one thing, that mural in the upper right corner needs a bit more breathing space on the top and right. It used to have more breathing space but due to me being set up in the middle of the street on a steep slope and not having time to adjust properly by the time I adjusted for level in photoshop and cropped accordingly there was nothing left. This may be more "frontiery" than the yellow bike image but still doesn't fit my usual theme.

Merry Christmas!

From the "St. Elmo" series here is a very nice looking picture of a christmas wreath on a cabin door.

The composition is good, the colors are good, especially the vibrant colors of the wreath against the muted old wood of the cabin. It's a very nice photo and it was taken just like anyone else might have taken this photo. But that's part of the problem, it's nice, but ordinary. I might not have ever seen this photo before but I've seen many like it. It would look good on a Christmas card but there's not enough interest for an aluminum print.