Remember: It’s Powell’s City of Books at 1005 West Burnside, Portland, Oregon.

So how did I get started in Night Photography you may ask? I owe my start to my dear friend Patricia who asked me to accompany her on a night shoot in April 2007.

At the time I wasn’t really interested in night photography but I went along for the ride anyway. What the hell I thought to myself. I brought my tripod and Nikon D40 and I actually enjoyed myself. We covered a lot of ground that night. Patricia showed me all her “secret” spots and where to get the best view of Union Station (from the Broadway Bridge it turns out).

I had no expectations and that made all the difference.

I was pleasantly surprised and quite pleased with my shots that night, especially the Steel Bridge, but didn’t do it again for another six months. I suddenly had an idea one night as I was driving - to shoot all of the bridges of Portland, at night, and assemble them into a mosaic - a nine square grid.

I’m almost there. I intend to capture the last bridge this weekend. As I pored through my archive gathering together the necessary bridge photos, I came across this shot of Patricia as we were shooting the St. John’s Bridge. I love the translucent leaves on the trees during the Fall. So beautiful.

Thanks for getting me hooked on photography again.

Ross Island Bridge, Portland, Oregon

My mission to capture all of the Portland bridges continues, albeit slowly. I’m making progress to be sure but I also have a confession. The two most southerly bridges, the Ross Island Bridge and the Sellwood Bridge, just don’t feel as appealing to me as the other Portland bridges. They just aren’t as sexy. Or so I thought.

P. and I drove over to SW Portland (and I almost killed P. in the process but that’s another story) and after winding in and out of major construction, we found a place to park just below the bridge. Being right underneath the RIB was exciting. It’s an older bridge having been built in 1926 and also a long bridge, carrying cars to and from the eastbank of the Willamette to the west.

By just turning my body 90 degrees from my stance underneath RIB, I had a nice shot of the OHSU aerial tram. The tram itself never stopped long enough to pose for my long exposures. *sigh* And the exposure were very long. So even though the tram was traveling slowly (it seemed) it left a long light trail. A swoosh through the sky as it were.

Swooshes are very appropriate in this part of the country being the world headquarters of Nike.

I hope you enjoy my new home. I will try to blog with more regularity so that you’ll return often. I enjoy your visits.

It’s been frightfully cold around these parts. Ice, snow, bitter wind. You name it and we’ve had it these past few days. It’s been too cold to venture out at night. But I did anyway. Last night. And almost froze my fingers off. Seriously. I got an inkling of what it must be like to suffer frostbite. I thought my newly knit fingerless mitts would be sufficient but my fingers were close to numb in a matter of minutes.

Adding to my little adventure I was actually stalked for the first time. I was by myself, P. having been hurt in a fall and unable to accompany me. A car drove slowly by, stopped, drove in reverse and then thick head, with the car window down, stared at me. Frozen. We both froze.

I scored free tickets to a press screening of the movie Valkyrie coming out on Christmas Day. Seriously, the Oregonian’s own Shawn Levy was sitting right behind me. Tom Cruise plays *gasp* a Nazi – albeit a good Nazi who tries to save the day but we all know how that story ends. Tom didn’t even pretend to put on a German accent. Just Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise. And the rest of the Nazi officers had lovely English accents because they were all English actors. I say, wait for the dvd. It’s certainly not the feel good movie of the year if you know what I mean.

Walking back to my car I noticed an exceptionally well-lit scene up ahead along with the fragrance of raw sewage. Although it looked like it could be a movie night shoot it was in reality a couple of good natured guys working on the pipes of Portland. Pipes of Portland…hmmm…another blog perhaps? I think not. But it got me thinking about the people who toil away while we sleep, safe and sound in our warm beds.

Do think about the people who work at night?

Last month I wrote a post about the Steel Bridge and I have decided to feature one Portland bridge per month (and quite possibly other bridges around the world). This month I present to you the Marquam Bridge, the busiest bridge in Oregon carrying I5 and over 135,000 vehicles per day. I never really appreciated the Marquam Bridge until I stood directly underneath it at OMSI. What a behemoth – a real workhorse of a bridge.

I love this quote by former mayor Vera Katz in her state of the city address in 2001: “It’s like having the Berlin Wall dividing east and west, with all the subtle charm of the Daytona 500 smack dab in the middle of our city.”

The Marquam Bridge offers by far the best view of the city but it can be quite distracting if you’re the driver. However if are lucky enough to be driven across it, from west to east, you’ll be treated to a stunning panorama (the upper deck carries northbound traffic and the lower deck, southbound). Unlike the Fremont Bridge which is closed to traffic during the annual Bridge Pedal, the Marquam is never closed to traffic. At least not to my knowledge. You might know something that I don’t.

Fall is obviously a great time for trees especially here in Portland, but I am drawn to trees the year round and the word wide. Not that I actually travel much these days. I’m sticking pretty close to the West Coast. Akthough I always take notice of the spectacular foliage during the fall season, this year the trees have taken on an almost supernatural glow at night. Perhaps it’s the translucent quality of the leaves that makes them radiate eerily. I’m not exactly sure but they are profoundly beautiful to me.

This tree looked so majestic and intricate to me, so solid and wise that I just had to capture its nighttime glory as we were wandering along Waterfront Park.

Which reminds me: I need to get down to the Reed campus post haste. Spectacular trees to be found there.

Do you have a favorite tree? Favorite tree time of year? Do tell.

I think I mentioned last month (is it December already!?!?) that I had attended a sing along Moulin Rouge at the Bagdad Theater with my friend Evelyn aka evymetal. It was a blast and now Evelyn’s daughter Nico is producing a similar production with the film Cabaret on Saturday, December 6 at 10pm. I’m going to be really dating myself here when I say that I actually remember when Cabaret first came out and Liza Minnelli was still a cute young thing.

But I digress. Here’s a quote from E. regarding the event: “Attached is a flyer for my daughter Nico’s next event. This is a sing-along, burleque, circus, dance in the aisles screening of Cabaret!! It promises to be a fabulous time! ONLY $5!!!” 

Probably the most photogenic bridge in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge was on my to do list while visiting here in the Bay Area. Having grown up in the East Bay and having taken this landmark for granted, I marveled at the fact that I had never visited the bridge at night. As busy as this tourist spot can be, A., M. and I had little trouble navigating the various vista points and parking. I wanted to capture the bridge from various vantage points including Fort Point, the spot where Kim Novak famously jumped in the water in the film Vertigo.

Heading north over the bridge into the Marin Headlands is where we found the true magic. The trail was extremely dark without benefit of moonlight and both A. and I felt a bit sketched out hiking so high above highway 101 in almost pitch black. But seeing the bridge from this viewpoint was stunning. It is an awesome sight and one of the true wonders of the world.

I’m not taking the GGB for granted anymore.

I guess I forgot to tell my loyal audience that I was going on the road for a week. Yes, I’m in California to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. I’ve got lots of family here. They’re all over the SF Bay Area. I also see this as a great opportunity to capture some Bay Area landmarks at night but have so far been thwarted by the weather - it threatened to rain, but didn’t - and other factors. This evening I drove all the way into Oakland to shoot the Fox Theater but because it’s in the middle of rennovations it wasn’t lit up and the street was so severely torn up, there was nowhere to park.

As I was driving down one of the many detours, I spied the Greyhound Bus Station. Perfect! I suppose the moral of the story is to remain open. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, despite our best efforts, but often better (or at least different) than we expect.

As the Rolling Stones say, “You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need.”