Auburn visit

This is a shot from our visit with Skye & Sarah last weekend. The top of the hill where they live has a good view of Mt. Rainier. Using the zoom lens helps make it appear a little closer than it really is!

I'll try to update the blog with some more family & photography news soon. I'm wrapping up the launch of my first serious website by this weekend.

Japanese Garden

This past weekend I stopped by the Japanese Garden in Manito Park to check out the fall colors. It was much better than I expected! I will create a link to some of the pictures later on. In the meantime I'm printing some of them as greeting cards for my November show at Arbor Crest, River Park Square location-

Got sidetracked!

I've been working on several photography "projects" as well as the Cle Elum airport during August & September. I will now try to catch up my Blog for the nearly 10 week time gap! In this time, outside of work, I have visited a couple wineries to collect scenic and commercial images, shot some portraits and worked my way through a Photoshop CS3 book. Well, a book focused on a simplified editing system, not a comprehensive, learn-everything-possible book!

The image below is from Hattrup Farms in Yakima, WA. They are not a winery, simply a vineyard growing mainly red varietals and selling all the fruit to wineries in Washington and Oregon. I believe these are Cabernet Sauvignon grapes with the sunset in the background-

Getting caught up in Cle Elum...

OK, finally recovered from the wedding and helping move some of Skye & Sarah's stuff to Auburn. I'm back on track at my inspection job in Cle Elum. Takes a while to get back in the mood! We're finally building the runway base and should have asphalt in place by the end of the month. In the meantime we had some visitors on the site this morning. Just some young bucks checking out the scene...

Skye & Sarah's Wedding!

The final event of a busy summer! Just a quick note here with a couple pictures- I will update this more later. The wedding was held at the Davenport, arranged by Tom & Kim Olson, parents of the bride. It was a wonderful event, too many details to describe at first! A storybook beginning to a wonderful marriage of two young people who are working hard at doing life the right way!

Long hike...

I'm trying to post once a week but I haven't taken interesting photos lately, just a hike that was too long with too little to show for it!

The Cle Elum-Roslyn-Ronald area had a long history of coal mining. You can hike an old railroad bed that was converted into a trail several years ago. It' s interesting due to family history- my maternal grandfather was an electrician in a coal mine. Longer story for another blog! Anyway, if you are in the Cle Elum/Roslyn area this is one way to kill two hours and end up with sore feet! Wear stiff hiking boots or shoes because there is plenty of mid-size gravel in places. My feet were beat up by wearing running shoes.

The 2nd picture here is some old piece of equipment. It's hard to see any evidence of the old mining operations. I'll have to explore more later....

Peaceful moments are easier to find at sunrise, even on a job site. We are starting at 5AM in Cle Elum for now, with the heat wave, so I've been able to enjoy some quiet mornings. Here's a shot of site equipment a little after sunrise. Below that is a farm at the east end of our project (shot late in the day.) I'm using a 16:9 crop ratio in iPhoto when it helps the composition. Gradually, though, I will migrate my workflow of artistic images to Adobe Bridge & Photoshop. For now iPhoto is a good basic program like Picasa when you know only basic editing tools are needed.

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Stuttering start in Cle Elum...

Well, I was in Cle Elum for all of a day and a half when my schedule changed. Along with serious work I did find the trail next to the runway which is useful for daily exercise. It also provides wild flower photo opportunities. Someday I might run into a horse on the trail!

Here's a screen saver of some flower I found. Guess I'll learn the name of it later-

Allison's Graduation!

OK, one more of our big Summer 2008 Events happened this past weekend- Allison's graduation from Eastern Washington U. with her Bachelor's in Social Work. This was a huge accomplishment while raising two kids, oops, one kid at home! The little dark-haired boy is our grandson Sammy. The big kid is her husband Julio, a wonderful father and husband! We had a nice barbecue lunch at the house afterwards with local family attending- the little boy in the last picture is Ezra Baird, son of Ben & Mandy Baird. Ben is one of Allison's cousins living in the area.

Omak & Okanagan country...

First time to Omak, home of the "Suicide Race" as a part of the Omak Stampede in August. The countryside around here is rugged but beautiful. Nearby are a town and lake by the name of Conconully. Situated against the Okanagan Forest Conconully is a camping & fishing destination. Good place to disappear from civilization! No cell phone coverage! The pictures above are in order- a valley in the Scotch Creek area south of Conconully, Lake Conconully itself and finally the Tiffany Range in the Okanagan Forest. More on this quick project and area scenery later.

Views of Caterina Winery...

Here are a few shots of the winery starting with the entrance, there is a lot of space to fill from an art perspective. I won't try explaining all the shots, you'll have to check out the winery sometime to understand where everything is!

First Friday show at Caterina Winery

My latest adventure was getting set up for Friday, June 6th at the Caterina Winery in Spokane (905 N. Washington.) There are about twelve 8"x12" prints matted at 16"x20" along with five canvas gallery wraps. The wide mat look is new for me. These are white with black core which creates a more formal gallery look. Having 4" of "spatial relief" around the picture (the width of the mat) also helps the picture stand on its own against a variety of backgrounds. I will try to include a picture of the show in my next post.

Also within a couple days I will have a link to an online gallery where prints of the images involved in this show can be ordered. In the future (November is my next show at Arbor Crest- River Park Square) I will pre-load a slideshow and online gallery link.

Good news for Sammy and all of us!

This is Sammy practicing his golf swing back in early April.

There has been a huge development at the University of Minnesota on EB research! This case specifically deals with RDEB, the type of EB that Sammy has- Recessive Dystrophic (Epidermolysis Bullosa.) It's weird. After a couple years of dealing with this situation the act of saying the full words for RDEB is like saying "middle linebacker", it just rolls off the tongue as a series of syllables with no unusual meaning. In reality RDEB carries serious consequences with it which I won't go into right now. You can check out more info on EB at http://www.debra.org and here is the link to the University of Minnesota article on a stem cell (from cord blood & bone marrow) transplant case that appears to have corrected the collagen deficiency in the skin- http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/eb/index.htm

I will post more updates as available on this type of research.

Speaking of beauty and solitude...

Here is our beautiful grandson, Sammy wearing grandma's reading glasses! Sitting with Sammy watching Blue's Clues is a very peaceful place. Except when he sings along and does the motions! I haven't mentioned Sammy in a while because I've been on the road and focused on inspection work. Look up Sammy in the list of labels on the lower right side of the page. This will show you posts which specifically mention Sammy!

Pangborn wrapped up...

So, the access road in Wenatchee is now paved- this is a Fire Station access road for Pangborn Airport. This project lasted just over 3 weeks. I am currently in College Place (Walla Walla) giving another inspector a break. I will go into that more in the next post.

Below you see two pictures of paving operations at Pangborn then you see a picture of Pioneer Coffee in Cle Elum. I visited Cle Elum to check on lodging. That job starts up June 16th. The Pioneer Coffee shop will be my office for the airport reconstruction job! Nice place to visit and hang out.

Skye's Whitworth graduation

The summer is speeding up! I barely got the wedding slideshow figured out when the Whitworth graduation came up on the schedule this past weekend. Here are a few shots to get started- I'll have to come up with a slideshow later. The graduation ceremony was great- good speakers and music. It was a reminder of why Whitworth is such a great Christian university to attend. Afterwards we all went to Wolf's Lodge for dinner- the Olsens, Dunnings, Bairds and Brandon! (Skye's degree is Accounting & Bus. Mgmnt, KPMG lined up in Seattle.)

monochrome mood

For the past few months I've altered many of my images to sepia or monochrome after shooting color in my Canon 20D. A recent conversation with a fellow inspector wandered into black & white photography. I've only shot maybe 2 rolls of black & white and barely played around with digital black & white. This friend mentioned using red filters to improve the look of clouds for black & white. So....I've been shooting a lot of black & white in the past few weeks with the in-camera setting on red filter.

Here's a couple shots from today on site-

Week 2 in Wenatchee (Pangorn Airport)

Project rolling along quickly, getting the crushed rock in place while forms for concrete curb are being set. Interesting sight on the tarmac today- a helicoptor rescue crew does monthly practice sessions right behind the FedEx building. They made several runs dropping rope and zipping two guys down for training. Got a shot during the 2nd sequence. More notes on Wenatchee later...

Fire Station view

The access road we are rebuilding goes to FedEx and the Fire Station at Pangborn Airport. The Fire Station is like a miniature control tower so sometimes I can go in there to catch the view. Here's a shot through the station window. Hopefully I'll get to fly over these mountains before the job is over!

Wenatchee Pangborn Airport

OK, I've started up on the segue inspection job- the Fire Access Road at Pangborn Airport in Wenatchee. It's east of East Wenatchee, actually. The view of Wenatchee Valley is very impressive! I've only driven through a couple times on the way to Seattle, never stopped to take a look around. Here's a couple shots- one is a wide view of only part of the valley, I'm trying to find a better location to get a wide view, the other is a shot of work on the job with the mountains in the background. Pangborn Airport has a nice view of a range to the south of Wenatchee.

Jobsite wildlife

Someday I'd like to do a few sessions of serious bird & wildlife photography. It' s not like a landscape where you simply show up early or late in the day for good light. The landscape doesn't move, it's always going to be right where you left it! The birds on our jobsite have some predictable activities but I need a longer lens- a 400 or 500 to get some really good shots. And I might have to sit in one spot for a couple hours for a good shot. In the meantime I did catch a pheasant a few weeks ago and some crows with the moon in the background so I'll just include those here-

Final week in Walla Walla, i.e. College Place

The last 12 weeks have gone by fast! I'm thinking about setting up a separate blog that stores the pictures and events of the East Whitman Drive Extension project. This project converted an old onion field into a minor arterial, serving residential and commercial lots. I've worked about 20 weeks on the project. It's been fun meeting & working with the crew from Apollo Construction and the inspectors & staff of City of College Place. I wish I could have seen it to the very end but some delays have pushed it beyond my schedule. Teresa & I are heading to Hawaii for Angela's wedding next week then I go up to Wenatchee for the next inspection project.

I'll have some project wrap-up thoughts at the end of the week, here's a quick before and after from Whitman Drive- last October and last week-

Back at work...

My long delay here was due to getting back into the inspection racket and then losing track entirely of my new adventure with blogging! Since I now have the rest of the summer lined out I feel like I can start updating this thing at least on a weekly basis. There are many family and friends that I will start inviting to this blog. I need to find out if there is a "Visitor's Book" concept that can be attached to blogs- a way for people to sign in the first time they visit?!

Anyone reading this can give me some suggestions since it's all new to me!

KREM Big Dig

Not having enough mess to deal with at my house, I decided to go join KREM's Big Dig for a couple hours this Saturday (2/3/08.) They divided the South Hill into sections, I arrived a few minutes late so I got a map for Section 4- bounded by Regal, 29th, Havana and 37th. After patrolling solo for a few minutes I found a few people to work with mainly on 32nd & 33rd Streets. See the pictures in the slideshow in the right side of the blog.

Samuel Diaz

Sammy is our first grandson and he was born with EB, a rare genetic skin disorder. EB comes in several forms but all involve blistering of the skin in response to "normal" levels of friction and stress. This simple explanation will help blog viewers understand why they see red spots on Sammy in some of the pictures. If you would like to learn more about EB please visit "debra.org"

Chicago slideshow

I loaded up a selection of pictures from our trip through Chicago last November. We stayed on the Magnificent Mile, a section of downtown Chicago known for extreme consumerism! We had dinner at Bennigan's the evening we arrived after visiting several shops up and down Michigan Ave. The next day we spent most of our time in the museum of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Welcome!

This blog will share my photography adventures and portfolio as it develops in the coming years. Currently my work focuses on the Pacific Northwest although I have some architectural shots from Cincinnati (hometown) and Chicago from a recent trip.

Anyone can contact me through kenth7@gmail.com or kentphoto@mac.com for a price list of images in three formats- canvas, archive print and poster.

Enjoy!