It's almost here.  The plum tree is blooming, the daffodils are popping and my hyacinth is blooming.  The Tulip Festival starts this weekend-but the bloom season is lagging due to the colder weather this last month.  I check their Field Report page to see the progression of the blooms.  Then there are the Iris, Peony, Dahlia and some of my best places such as Red Ridge Farm.   The camera is out and I am refreshing my skills with some Creative Live classes and reading.  I am posting a couple of iPhone shots that I also shared on my Facebook page. 

I decided to rework the website, hopefully making it easier to navigate and find the image or subject you are looking for.  The front page features five categories:  Botanical | Monochrome | Places | Things | Creatures & People.  I have grouped all the image pages under the various headings.

• Botanical features all things that grow:  flowers, organics, Dahlia, Tulips and more
  
• Monochrome features black/white as well as monochrome
  
• Things contains  abstract, architectural, objects
  
• Creatures & People, should be self-explanatory
  
• Places has Oregon, Italy, New Orleans, Shaniko and a couple of pages on the Wine Country
  

I hope you will explore, enjoy and of course, purchase my photos.

Sally

I have made my photo art cards available for online sales as well as local pickup.  Cards are sets of four blank cards with a different photos on each front.  I hope you will enjoy these.  You can also select individual photos and have them made into a card through my online fulfillment.  Just click on the image and follow the instructions.  I hope you enjoy this shareable addition to my photography.  

This year's Dahlia shoot was tricky due to the heat and dryness.  That said I came away with over 500 photos to process and weed down to the best 10-well, more like the best 15.  I decided to number my Dahlias as I have so many that coming up with creative names boggled my mind.  If you have any suggestions for titles, please, make suggestions. 

About the photos:  I tend to be straightforward in my photos and do minimal manipulation.  I work with light, angles, depth and clarity.  That being said I did play with one photo and used a Mist Preset and love how it worked and the made the dahlia look like frosted glass, Dahlia 335.   Tried on a couple others and just didn't like how it altered the photo.  
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I have had ups and downs with the Nikon D90, sometimes great shots and other times just defeated me.  I am still willing to master it, but I had to have a camera I could function readily with for the Lavender Festival.  Upshot is I bought a Nikon D3300 (very similar to my first serious camera).  I was able to get the photos I wanted with a minimum of fuss.

To see or purchase follow the link Dahlia

This year I visited the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and spent time shooting tulips-still working on some of those-not as happy about them as I'd like to be.  BUT, the Schreiner's Iris Gardens!  I was past the season for the iris fields, but their garden is glorious.  I tried some shots with the wide angle trying to capture it, but I didn't like them.  There was no way they did justice.  I did get some wonderful iris photos as well as several botanicals, peonies, and poppies. 

While there another enthusiast told me about Adelman Peony Gardens - WOW!  Simple, elegant and while not as extensive as Schreiner's it was beautifully laid out.  Many of the Peonies were past their prime and the blooms were removed-but there were more than enough that I spent 2-3 hours wandering around with camera and tripod.  I think in full bloom I would end up with more photos than I could process and decide which were the best.

One thing I am thoroughly happy with is I am more in sync with my camera and composition was flowing.  I did very little post processing or tweaking, weather was perfect, cool, blue skies with enough clouds for great light and illumination to backlight some of the blooms.  I love it when I can see light through the petals.  I took a couple of pictures featuring Lupine with roses in the background.  I couldn't decide whether I like the Lupine sharp and the roses soft or visa versa. 

I hope you enjoy my latest photos and you can find them under All Photos - New Works

 Donna Rohr and I spent several hours on Monday (10/23) with our cameras in and around the Ribbon Ridge and east Chehalem Ridge AVA's.  The Vines were an incredible yellow, with green grass and great barns.  Enjoy!  Click here for more

I will be the featured artist at Artisanal Wine Cellars for the November ARTwalk.  I will feature several new photos in a new way (to me) Metal with a satin finish and rounded corners. Printing on metal yields vivid colors and clarity.  I decided to use the Satin finish as the gloss has such high reflection value that it can be distracting.  I will also have a variety of pieces that have been shown before.  Please stop by, check out the new works and visit.  I'm looking forward to sharing my photos with you. 

Tomorrow the City of Newberg will begin the process of removing the Beautiful Villa Oak.  Attempts were made to change the course of the sidewalk and bike lane, but ultimately were unable to prevail.  Donna Rohr, fellow photographer, posted on Facebook trying to get a large group of people to come for a portrait with the Villa Oak.  On Friday, the 29th Donna found out the removal date is October 2nd.  With such short notice she was unable to reach out to as many  people as she had hoped.  Both of us took many shots and then came back to catch the evening light.  The photos posted here are the best of my photos.  Enjoy-if you would like copies, please contact me. 

Editing is done as is the weaning out process.  I ended up with 33 of what I feel are the best Dahlias I have shot to date.  Out of 392 shoots it came down to 33 images-Dahlias in color, monochrome,a few flora and one kind of abstract tossed in. Please visit the pages under 2017 New Works. I hope you enjoy my photos and if you get a change visit the Swan Island Dahlia Festival -last weekend in August and first weekend in September.  

No photos yet as I am still editing, but I like what I see so far.  I picked a perfect day to go to the Swan Island Dahlias, festival is not for a couple of weeks so it was very quiet and I spent almost 4 hours taking photos (around 392).  Now the weeding, tweaking and post-processing begins. 

I have a new (reconditioned) camera body as the meter in my poor, abused red Nikon 3300 died.  I was able to get a Nikon D90 body for the same price as the repair would have been.  I couldn't figure out how to use it (very different system) until i found some YouTube Video courses in how the new camera works.  After a month of frustration I am so happy to see so many successful pictures from the Dahlia Fields. 

As I get more processing done I will start posting here and on Facebook.  The final gallery choices will be in 2017 New Works under Dahlias. 

To purchase any photo on the site, click on the photo and in the enlarged view you will see a white bar at the top with choices to
Buy Print  |  Buy Card |  Download (and on the far right)   eCard  Just click on your selection an you will be taken to my Fotomoto site and can make a multitude of selections on how you want the photo processed.  The photo is then sent to you.  Some of the options are forced to crop and give you the freedom to choose how that is done.  If you are local and want a photo print I can print up to 13 x 19 or a panorama  13 x ? 

If you would like to license an image-please contact me with any inquiries and I will get back to you with a usage fee.
Please provide us with the following information:

1. Which photo(s) you are interested in
2. A detailed description of the desired usage
3. A brief description of the company and industry
4. The image size(s) required
   

Looking forward to sharing my images with you.    Sally