merry christmas everyone!

beautiful night

We shot a wedding last weekend in Wenatchee Washington that I posted about here. The drive back home was absolutely beautiful with a full moon out and clear skies! The only bummer was that is was frigid cold out, 5 degrees F in some parts! But that didn't stop me from taking lots of photos on the drive home. I just finished these ones so I thought I'd post em' up for you to see.
Thanks to Bethany and Amy for being patient to wait in the car while I was out shooting so many times! I'm sure it wasn't that hard being in the warm heated car while I was out getting frostbite! Hahaha...

playing around at night

A couple nights ago I was getting a little stir crazy being inside while it was so beautiful and snowing outside. So I hopped in the car and started driving around our small little town looking for something interesting to photograph at 3AM. I stopped the car and started walking around with my camera when I saw this possibility for a cool photo. The tire tracks in the snow were so cool looking, along with the brake lights of the car. I took a few shots that were pretty bland, then I had the idea to "paint" the tracks with a flashlight during the exposure, and I came up with this. I think it's cool looking but still lacking something that I haven't figure out yet. What do you think?



And here is a little snapshot of the scene, just for fun.

2 blogs, business and personal

I just wanted to let you know, from now on this blog will be primarily a photo and news blog for Blaine Franger Photography. I will do my best to keep it consistently updated with new photos and content.

Also, I started a more personal blog called "Thoughts and Snapshots" that you might want to check out. I will be posting my snapshots on that blog along with random stories and adventures from my life. You can click here or use the link under "My Websites" on the right side of this page.

Enjoy!

congrats Molly and Ben!

Bethany and I photographed a friends wedding this weekend up in Wenatchee, Washington. The wedding was lots of fun and the photos look great. Here are a couple of the bride and groom-





They had a big surprise for everyone that they kept a secret until the end of the reception. Just about the time they were scheduled to leave, everyone was wondering where they're getaway car was. Well, they made plans to skip the car and leave in a HELICOPTER! So sweet!

They walked out of the church building with everyone and the helicopter was just touching down to pick them up!



They hopped in and flew off into the sunset!

archie is still back

I posted a story a while ago about my cat Archie that miraculously came home after missing for 9 months. I'm back in Oregon now, and he's still sticking around. I was wandering around our property in the 15-degree freezingness the other night and snapped a couple pics of him. Thought I'd share. I'll try to get some better ones later...

i love stars!!!

Stars are one of my favorite things to photograph ever. I shoot them all the time and never get sick of it! I have so many star trail photos from the last 4 years and they are all starting to look the same, but I'll never stop taking them because it's so fun.
For those that care about technical stuff- the exposures ranged from 1 hour up to 5 hours @ f/4. I set up 3 cameras to get the maximum amount of photos possible in one night. I usually start the exposures, go to bed and set my alarm for a few hours later. And I just do that all night until sunrise. Great fun.

These photos are from our road trip last month. The desert is the best place to do star trails.

home(s) for the holidays

Bethany and I are leaving today to spend the weekend in Santa Barbara, and then head up to Oregon to my visit my family. I can't wait, it's going to be fun to see winter weather again. We are going to try and get a couple days of snowboarding in too!

My parents house a couple Christmas' ago-


This is the view from the house. It's beautiful! The mountain in the middle is Mt. Adams in Washington.



Then a couple days before Christmas we are flying to Michigan to visit her family. Really looking forward to that too!
They live on a lake so they have an awesome view, but it's not gonna look like this in the winter! It might even be frozen over!?



I plan on taking a lot of photos so I'll try to keep the blog updated with some new stuff!

cool pictures

It's been a while since the last time I just uploaded some cool pictures, so I thought I'd share a few. I took these 2-3 years ago and just recently re-discovered them. Hope you like em'...

long lost archie

I just got a call from my mom because she wanted to tell me something pretty funny, and actually quite amazing.
Our family has had this cat named Archie for quite a long time. 5 or 6 years, maybe more. He's a pretty sweet cat because he does his own thing and minds his own business all the time. He's really independent, which I like about him. He kills his own birds and mice and doesn't rely on us for his everyday grub like most cats.

So anyway, it's a pretty normal thing for him to disappear and not see him for weeks. If he's gone for more than a month, which has happened a couple times, then we start to think that he's really gone. But the darn cat always comes back.

I suppose Archie had some serious stuff to take care of in Oregon because he has been gone for the last 9 months and he just returned home. We thought he was gone for sure. Crazy cat.