>Finch's House

>On Saturday I went to Rob Finch's party at his house in Portland, Ore. A couple dozen photographers showed their work from 2006. It's great opportunity to think about the upcoming contest season and get inspired for the coming year. The level of work at this gathering was through the roof.

>Cole on Spencer Butte

>
This morning Cole and hiked to the top of Spencer Butte.

>My Mother's Christmas Present

>
My mom mentioned that she saw a print she liked at a furniture store that was a photo of a saddle in a barn. It was framed and sold for $179. I wasn't sure I could find anything like that to shoot, but I swung into the Oregon Horse Center parking lot and saw a teenage girl grooming her horse. I told her what I wanted to do and she sprung into action and set out her saddle for me. I then had her go down to the end of the barn with her horse and open the door. I shot a dozen frames in RAW. I then put them in Aperture, tweaked them into a color monochrome. I opened the .psd in CS2 and incrementally increased the image size to 16x20 and put it on a 20x30 canvas size to get the white border. I saved it back into Aperture and uploaded the image to Apple's print service. I had the print in a less than a week.

My mom was very pleased with the results and will hang it on the wall in her new house that should be finished in few weeks.

>Santa Pub Crawl Audio Slideshow

>
Here's my latest attempt at combining audio with still photos. I think it's my best effort so far. But, it's still just practice. I'm still learning how to do it efficiently and make it interesting. It's extremely challenging to capture good audio and shoot photos. I have a lot to learn. Click on the link above to see it on the registerguard.com website.

>Chess Club

>
I shot these of Cole at a chess tournament that takes place at the Vet's Club in Eugene. It's a really cool space with nice light.
When I was shooting this it really struck me that my kids are smarter, faster, better looking, more social, and overall a much better version of a human than I ever was at the age. They are excelling at everything they do, despite their parents.

>New Audio

>
I've been experimenting a bit more with audio. After my first few projects, I was profoundly aggravated with the process. I struggled with the software and the audio I captured was a mess. I guess I just had a major breakthrough with the technology. I bought a Shure SM-58 microphone that seriously cleaned up my audio. The stereo omni mic that came with Microtracker just picks up too much stuff. I'm now using Soundtrack Pro to edit and I feel much more comfortable with it.

These stories are very low-key daily kind of stuff. I mostly wanted to see how fast I could put one together. I shot until 5:30 p.m. on "Graves aglow" story. I had the pictures tweaked, captioned, and the audio edited by 7:30 p.m. These stories were more an exercise in workflow than serious story-telling. Even so, I'm fairly pleased with them and look forward to doing some more in-depth serious stories.

>Merry Christmas Card

>
This is this year's family Christmas card photo. Since we only had one hat I did a little photoshop composite consisting of five layers. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Boyd family!

>The Big Bad Wolf

>This was before the opening of a "Haunted Hayride" in Springfield, Ore. All the monsters were waiting for sunset.

>Ladies in Black

> Davies shot this of me at the dedication to the new Federal Courthouse in Eugene, Ore. These woman are called the "Ladies in Black". They are apparently war protestors.

>Rock Climber

>
I had one the staffers from the Riverhouse shoot my photo while I was up on the wall shooting a story for the Outdoors page.

>Live Buck

>Since I posted a dead doe I thought it only fair to post a live buck. Click the link above to see recent work I posted on an assignment at taxidermy shop. I know I seem to be overly pre-occupied with wildlife, but I can't help it...it's hunting season!

>A Cup on a Table

>
A cup sat on an end table in a synagogue so I took a picture.

>Power Lunch

>Some of us have lunch. Others, have a power lunch.

>Poached?

>The deer in this photograph is a doe. Without a hard to get doe tag, does are not legal to kill.

>My First Wedding Contest Win

>
Click on the link above to see the above contest winner under the "Emotion" category. It's not only my first wedding photo win, it's the first and only image I've ever entered. Ha! I like those stats.

>Post Election Party in Portland

>


I shot these photos after covering Gov. Ted Kulongoski's victory party at the Benson Hotel in Portland, Ore. Many of the younger politicos went across the street to the Saucebox where they drank, smoked, andt talked on their cell phones...incessently. It was interesting because I just stood in the middel of all of it and looked through my camera. Nobody could figure out what I was up to and they never said a word. I was just part of the chaos.

>Bulldog Spirit

>My sister is a the assistant volleyball coach of the North Bend Bulldogs. Last night they won the 4A State Championship. Kelcy McKenna was the star of the game as usual and even got the MVP of the tournament. It was a great match against Estacada High School. It was the first sporting event I've been purely as a spectator in years, but even then I hopped out of the stands and shot the jube. Couldn't help it.

>My Favorite T-Shirt Shop

>I shot this at the American Apparel store. I was buying my latest t-shirt. When I find the perfect thing I like to buy a good supply. In this case, I found thier t-shirt that's made of 50 percent cotton and 50 percent poly. The fit is perfect. They are super soft. The neck doesn't stretch out. It's the closest thing to the perfect t-shirt I've ever found. Plus, it's made in America.

>At Least One Person Thinks This Blog Is Interesting

>
Other than my mother.

>Another Soldiers Funeral

>
Army Pfc. Dean R. Bright was killed in action in Taji, Iraq on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006. He grew up in Sutherlin and was buried at Roseburg National Cemetery on Oct. 14. This is a non-audio slideshow of some of the photos I took that day.