Peter Cornett - Floater drummer

I barely got Pete into yesterday’s photos so today he gets to take up an entire pic.

Floater @ The Zoo (Roseburg, Oregon)

Floater at The Zoo was a rather strange experience for many reasons. The stage is only a foot or so off the ground. That coupled with girls on shoulders and security trying to keep people off the stage meant you couldn’t always see much of the band.

The sound was also messed up. The band couldn’t hear themselves as the stage monitors didn’t work. Sometimes the mix was bad or instruments couldn’t be heard in the audience either.

I did finally figure out how to get decent audio on my D7000 (Low instead of Auto setting for video audio). However, the lighting was so poor (the audience was better lit than the band) that I couldn’t get the autofocus to work for video so after a minute or so in the following video I shifted to manual focus which worked much better.

Posted on September 21st, 2011 under outside of ashland. Tags: floater, video. Comments Off on Floater video

Floater marquee - The Zoo - Roseburg, Oregon

I took a small road trip up I-5 for a couple hours to see Floater in Roseburg this past weekend. Floater played outdoors, on a stage built behind the old strip club which is now a bar called The Zoo.

Floater audience

The Zoo may no longer be a strip club but the pole dancers live on!

Posted on September 20th, 2011 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: concert photography, floater, signs. Comments Off on Floater at The Zoo in Roseburg

I don’t know the name of this waterfall, but it was the last of several we visited on the Paulina Plunge tour we took last month near Bend, Oregon.

Posted on September 16th, 2011 under outside of ashland. Tags: bend, paulina plunge, water, waterfall. Comments Off on Paulina Plunge Waterfall

As a hiker approaches the top of Wagner Butte the scene changes again. Instead of forest, desert, wildflower-covered field, or grassy meadow there are a few rocks to climb (not difficult) to get to the top.

I have never seen a dandelion seed head this big before. I should have put a finger in the photo to give the viewer a point of reference. Usually they are smaller than a golf ball, but this one (and the others in the field on the Wagner Butte trail) was bigger than my fist.

The sign on the top of Wagner Butte has been there for probably a couple decades now. The elements have not been kind, and it is now barely readable.

Posted on September 9th, 2011 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: flowers, hike, nikon d7000, signs, Tamron 10-24mm lens, wagner butte. Comments: 1

Looking west (and maybe a bit south) from the western slopes of Wagner Butte yields the above view which is probably Little Applegate in the foreground. I’m not sure what mountain ranges go beyond that.

As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes the landscape can get a bit desert like; however, frequently there are wildflowers right in the middle of these scenes. I wonder how different this view would be in the morning (or a month or two earlier). I took this photo in the late afternoon in early September.

Along the Wagner Butte trail you cross a dozen or so streams. This late in the year they were mostly a trickle of water, but in spring, or while it is raining, I imagine they can be somewhat tricky to cross. This one was probably twenty feet across of mud in early September so crossing over via the log helped to keep shoes from becoming a mess even without a small river coming down the mountainside.

My new 10-24mm lens can do some pretty cool things in the macro photography world, nice bokeh too. I was surprised how close I could get and still focus. The specs said the minimum focus distance was 9.5 inches, but I was less than that far away on this photo (and even closer on some others I’ll show you in the next few days). My other lens really does require a distance between the end of the lens and the focus subject of at least a foot and a half.

This flower probably looked much better a week or two earlier in the year. I’d like to do this hike in, say, July and then again in September of the same year to compare the wildflowers. Do some last all summer long or are there totally different wildflowers blossoming and dying as the summer progresses?

Posted on September 8th, 2011 under nature, outside of ashland, places. Tags: flowers, hike, photography, Tamron 10-24mm lens, wagner butte. Comments Off on Wagner Butte (3 of 7)

The Weepies' Steve Tannen on guitar

The blog entry with the prior images of The Weepies has quickly become the most popular on the site so I’ll offer you some more pics of The Weepies from their show opening for Aimee Mann in Jacksonville last week.

Deb Talan of The Weepies

The Weepies at Britt Festival 2011

Posted on September 2nd, 2011 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: britt festivals, jacksonville, weepies. Comments Off on More photos of The Weepies

Ellie said her favorite part of the Paulina Plunge Tour was the last three-mile downhill stretch.

Posted on September 1st, 2011 under outside of ashland, people. Tags: bend, biking, ellie, paulina plunge. Comments Off on Bend mountain biking

Ryan jumping in a waterfall on the Paulina Plunge tour

As previously mentioned, we had a little summer adventure in and around Bend, Oregon a couple weeks ago. The “Paulina Plunge Tour” had us hop in a bus at the Sun River Resort, drive a while, and be given a bike to begin things off. We rode about 6 miles (90%+ downhill) during the day and stopped at three waterfalls. Today’s photo is of Ryan jumping in at the base of the first waterfall.

Posted on August 30th, 2011 under nature, outside of ashland, people, places. Tags: bend, paulina plunge, ryan. Comments Off on Paulina Plunge

Aimee Mann

I’m heading to another show at Britt tonight (Cheap Trick), but I’m not bringing my camera. Today I can offer you a couple more pics from last week’s excellent Aimee Mann show though.

Aimee Mann on the Britt Stage

Posted on August 29th, 2011 under outside of ashland, people, places. Tags: aimee mann, britt festivals, jacksonville. Comments: 2