South Point on Big Island of Hawaii

Just spent the past couple months on the Big Island of Hawaii and published some images to my other photo blog- http://beautifulhoodriver.com/
One of these days I'll figure out all the different blogs I have and where to post what. I'm not sure what the purpose and function of this blog should be anymore! haha

Anyway, just came across this photo of South Point on the Big Island and it's making me really miss Hawaii!

Officially debunking this "Hood River Oregon" Photo

I'd like to take a moment and just for the fun of it, officially debunk one of the most popular photos out there representing Hood River Oregon. Here is the photo: 

I only bring it up because I've seen the photo countless times on websites and blogs and people saying stuff like "look how amazing Hood River is! This photo is totally real!" 

The second I saw this photo I knew it was a huge fake. Why? 

#1) Mount Hood is waaaaaay too large. Yes, it's easy to make Mt. Hood look larger than life by using a telephoto lens to shoot Hood River and Mount Hood in the same frame, like in the image below. But in the fake photo, the foreground (Cliff, River, Town, etc) is shot with a wide angle lens and the mountain was a separate photo shot with a telephoto lens, and pasted in using photoshop. If you look closely, you can actually see the line where it was pasted in at the base of the mountain.  

#2) The mountain is pasted in what seems about 30 miles too far to the West. I'm not exactly sure where the foreground photo was taken from, but the photographer was East of the bridge. The mountain would be far out of the frame to the East... here is a photo proving that! 

#3) I think this part is really funny. Even if the size and placement of the mountain were fine, there is still another huge problem. Why is it winter in town, and summer on the mountain? Fresh snow covering the ground and trees in town, but lots of bare rock and dirt at high elevations on the mountain!? What kind of sense does that make??? Not much  :) 

#4) Lastly, what happened to the 30 miles of land between Hood River and the base of Mount Hood? All of Hood River Valley is gone including Odell, Parkdale, Middle Mountain, the West Hills and Mt Defiance... they don't exist in that photo!

I have no idea who originally photographed/photoshopped the image but I almost wonder if it was a joke to see if people would believe it? It seems nobody really questions it!

Ok that's enough of that. Just wasting some time on a quiet Saturday morning  :) 

Which image?

Bethany and I took a trip almost 4 years ago that lasted 6 months and we hit about 12 countries in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand! We shot over 100,000 images on the trip and finally are JUST NOW! getting around to working on them and maybe even making some huge canvas prints for our walls...
We're having a super hard time deciding which image to choose of these three! We have many other photos for sure chosen but this one is a toss up... what do you think!? The canvas will be a 24"x36"...
Thanks!

Ellary's first time to Lost Lake

Columbia River Panorama

You could say I'm a little envious of this view... 
taken yesterday from the backyard of a beautiful house on the White Salmon, Washington bluff. 
I'd never leave home if I lived there!

Click for larger size-

"Beautiful Hood River" photography exhibit TONIGHT!

Please join us for opening night of "Beautiful Hood River". A photography exhibit by Blaine Franger. Downtown Hood River at The Pines Tasting Room, 2nd & State St. First Friday, July 2nd, 2010. Live music 6-9PM, Free Admission. Show will be up July 2nd - Aug 3rd so please come anytime if you can't make it to the opening night!

I'm a DADDY!!!

I couldn't be happier and more excited to announce to the blog world that I'm a daddy! Our daughter "Ellary Jude Franger" was born on Saturday, June 12th at 2:10AM. A whopping 7lbs 15oz and 20.5 inches long!
I'm working on starting a brand new "family blog" to post all our baby pics and stories to. Hope to have it up and running shortly... will keep ya posted. In the meantime, here are just a quick few of the thousands of photos we've taken in the last week.

Mt. Hood cover image of Columbia Gorge Magazine

For you Columbia Gorge and Pacific Northwest blog followers, you might recognize this months cover image of the beautiful Columbia Gorge Magazine!
It's my image of wildflowers and Mt. Hood that I took August of 2009 while hiking the Timberline Trail (around the perimeter of Mt. Hood). It looks great on the cover!

If you'd like to see more images from that trip, here are the links-
Day 1 photos
Day 2 photos
Day 3 photos
(I still need to blog day 4 photos... someday!)

Here is the original un-cropped cover image-

Blast from the past- My Photography portfolio in 2004

When I graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in December of 2004 all I wanted to do was stock photography. Not the cheesy stuff you see all over the place, but rather fun intriguing images with a concept behind them. Stock photography has completely and totally changed since then... in bad ways for professional photographers, and good ways for amateur photographers. There aren't too many professional photographers making a good living doing just stock photography anymore. Luckily I didn't put all my eggs in one basket and I (we) branched into wedding and portrait photography, travel and fine art photography, and even some advertising and editorial photography. So the downturn in stock photography wasn't too detrimental for my business, but I rather just realized I needed to make some changes and not concentrate on one thing only.

Anyway, I was just looking though some old hard drives and came upon my "graduation portfolio" images from when I graduated in 2004. Remember all I wanted to do was stock photography, so that's what this work mostly reflects. Fun to look back at all these older images! I still have some stock images on Getty Images site here if you'd like to check them out. Surprisingly, it actually still does pretty well and I get royalty checks in the mail every month, sometimes as little as $50 and sometimes for thousands of dollars, it's very up and down!

Anyway here are the portfolio images from 2004:

Mt. Hood with a beautiful cloud cap

Shot this photo yesterday of Mt. Hood with a sweet looking cloud cap! Image is shot from the driveway of beautiful Mt. Hood Bed and Breakfast in Parkdale, Oregon. They have such an awesome close-up view of Mt. Hood!

Checkout my new blog and archives at this blog too

Lately I've been devoting all my "blogging time" to my new daily photo blog "Beautiful Hood River" so definitely go check it out here- http://beautifulhoodriver.com/
Or just click on the pic below! Use the back/forward arrow keys to browse through the images or you can use the mouse too.


There is lots to look through on this blog too, if you look at the whole first page then just click on the archives below on the right! Does anyone know how to add the "older posts" and "newer posts" buttons at the bottom of this blog template? I've seen it on people's blogs but have never been able to figure it out!


I have TONS of new stuff to post here soon but not quite yet... time is short and I have a lot going on right now... Thanks for your patience though!

Featured on "blogs of note"

The folks at Google's Blogger department apparently have taken note of my blog and featured it on "blogs of note". Sweet! Now I feel like I need to blog about something interesting and noteworthy... maybe tomorrow. :)


Spike in web traffic!

3rd Place in Alaska Airlines 2010 Photo Contest

A few days ago I got great news that I placed 3rd in the Alaska Airlines 2010 Photo Contest! Not bad for more than 1,500 entries. :)

If you're taking an Alaska or Horizon air flight in the near future, checkout the magazine to see the winners! Click here for a PDF of all the winners.

Here are scans of the Alaska Air magazine (the Horizon one is a little different but in Alaska's my photo was a bit larger)

Cover-


Page with my Puffer fish image-



A few friends have already been on flights and congratulated me on Facebook, this is the funniest one by my buddy James Munk, haha!

New Blog! Beautiful Hood River, Oregon!

Hi all,
Just today I launched a new blog that I fully intend on keeping up with a lot better than this one. It's called "Beautiful Hood River" and the address is http://beautifulhoodriver.com/. The idea behind it is simply just a photo a day from my beautiful hometown, Hood River Oregon. I have thousands upon thousands of images that have never seen the light of day, so hopefully this will be a good way to get some of them out there to be seen. Each and every day at 12:01AM the blog will automatically update itself with a new image, that is, as long as I keep on top of the "posting in the future", haha.
Please also check out the Beautiful Hood River, Oregon facebook page HERE and click "like" to keep updated with the new photos and general Hood River stuff. :)

A little drive to Mosier

Bethany and I wanted to get out of the house today so we took a little drive to Mosier, the back way. :)
Everything is so green and vibrant this time of year, I love it! These are some photos I shot along the way...

Columbia River and Syncline, Washington


Columbia River and Syncline, Washington


Tractor Sign-


Trees-


Oak tree and cloud-


Cloud reflections on a pond-


Mt Adams-

Hood River Marina

The Hood River Marina/Port area a few evenings ago.