Oneonta Falls and the Columbia River Gorge

Oneonta Falls, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Oregon Coast today).

This turned out better than my shots here last Summer. I like the leading lines in the left foreground water (bubbles on the surface of the stream?).

Shot with 82mm circular polarizer. Adobe Lightroom adjustments: White Balance: Shade, slight bump in contrast (Canon 0EV RAW results are too low in contrast), Recovery (recover highlight detail), Punch (further detail recovery and contrast bump). See "more properties" in right column of the photo's page on Flickr for exposure detail (click on the photo).


Regarding using "shade" for the white balance "correction" It looks more like what we'd perceive (the waterfall as white), but less like as it actually was and the camera recorded (with a blue tone to the light). Let the debate on what "reality" really is ensue...

BACK UP YOUR PHOTO DATA NOW!

BACK UP YOUR PHOTO DATA NOW!, originally uploaded by Jeff Sullivan (Columbia River Gorge tonight).

It looks like my new 1.5 TB disk drive may be damaged beyond repair. It was the primary storage for images form my most recent trips, and on the road I rarely have access to three power plugs for several hours to perform the backups that I should have been performing, so I may have lost months of work, including the first 9 days of my current trip to national parks with my kids.

I was just about to back it up...

I'll try a data recover service when I determine which ones are most likely to be able to work on physically damaged drives, but the drive was dropped, so it's most likely damaged beyond repair.

I'll only know the extent of the loss when I swing back by Northern California and see what data I have on my next most recent backup drive (I have another 1TB with me, but it contains mostly older files up to 2007).

Don't assume that you can back up your files tomorrow or on your next stop in a trip. They could be lost if you don't duplicate them immediately.

Oregon Photography Tour: Columbia Gorge

My trip started with the 600 mile drive to Portland, OR. With rain forecast for the next week, it didn't make sense to visit the Hoh Rain Forest and the beaches on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Having lived in Portland for 3 years in the 1980s, I knew that if I set mysights inland towards the dry Eastern side of the Cascades, I'd probably be able to avoid the worst of the rain.

The Columbia River Gorge was a logical way to head out of town, but it was raining and even having brought a giant golf umbrella and towel for frequent drying, most of my shots have some degree of water drops on the lense. The drizzle stopped briefly during my hike into Oneonta Gorge, so I was able to capture this shot of Oneonta Falls.



My first night out of Portland, after a dinner stop at the Full Sail Brewery in the town of Hood River, I headed towards the rian shadow of Mt. Hood. I still had a Forest Service map from when I lived in Portland years ago, and I tried to find a campsite that would have a sunset and sunrise view of the mountain.

This site, "Clouds Rest" had a promising name, and while it seemed to take foreever to reach up a decaying dirt road, my effort was rewarded with this sunset view of the breaking storm, over a sea of wildflowers.



It was raining and gray when I woke up, so it was fortunate that I made it to the campsite in time for sunset!

I heard a couple of days later that the Washington coast received record rain on the days that I had planned to visit, so having the flexibility to head for a drier part of Oregon really paid off!