Dominican Republic Time Lapse

One night on our recent Dominican Republic trip I stayed out late and shot some night photos with the full moon out. The clouds above the water were moving so much I had the idea to do shoot this time lapse. Kinda forgot about it until we spent 10 hours of flight time from Punta Cana to Newark to Portland. I played around with the images in photoshop and did 4 different versions of the original version (seen first). Ya it's pretty trippy and acid trip-ish but I made it under the influence of nothing but pure bordeom. :)

Dominican Republic Time Lapse from blaine franger on Vimeo.

and the winner is...

Number 2! I was dead set on #1 but Bethany was set on #2, and thats what triggered this whole post. I'm a sucker for clouds too (like many) but I hated the "not enough action" feeling of the shot. So, with all the input, #2 seems like a better choice.

Thanks everyone for soo much help on that. :) That kind of feedback was so nice! I sent in all 12 images last night and now they want 10 more! Back to the drawing board!

Here is the final version with some adjustments that I sent in:

For anyone curious, this is Jon Schwartz (Blue Water Jon) who is a total pro at kayak fishing. He's got a website, video, and lots of crazy stuff! Check out his website here.

I need your help!

A couple months ago I was contacted by Rangefinder Magazine and they are doing a feature on my photography for the "young guns" issue. I've never been featured like this before, so it's really exciting. The interview and article is all finished but now I'm trying to pick a group of 12 images that shows what I do. 12 images!? OUT OF 12 MILLION! Haha. It's quite hard to narrow down, to say the least. Thanks to Bethany she has laid down the smack and just picked a bunch of images for me...
So, we've mostly narrowed them down but I need your help asap on this one!

These 3 images were obviously shot at the same time, of the same subject, but they are quite different at the same time. Which one works the best for you? You can share why if you want, but if not, just say 1, 2, or 3! (from the left of course)

PS- You don't need a blogger account to leave a comment, just say anonymous or type in your name

Thanks!!!

click to see it full size

continental airlines

Continental airlines has to be one of the worst out there right now... I won't even get into what they dished out to us on our last trip to NY (canceled flights for no apparent reason, canceling one of our tickets, putting us on different flights, wanting $1,500 to get things back as they were, etc). But with all that put aside and trying to forget about it, check out what they served up today. A smashed up crusty hard bread chicken sandwich with a side of 3 pieces of (canned) pineapple. Wow. I'm really not a picky person and I honestly try to see the best in every situation, but this was pretty bad. Anyway I hate ranting about anything on my blog so I'll try and find something nice to talk about now. :)

To our Hood River Friends / Family

Can anyone pick up our 2 fat cracks (see below) at the PDX airport tomorrow at 10AM??? My mom was going to do it but she had to take a last minute trip to San Diego.
Continental flight 584 from Newark, NJ lands at 9:44AM. Let me know with a comment, email, or phone!

Blaine's first introduction to dominican republic beaches...

was handfuls of topless women and men in the tightest smallest speedos you hoped didn't ever exist in this world.

Example:
(although I'm not sure if there is actually a speedo in there somewhere!)

Off to Dominican Republic!

We're leaving in a few minutes and will be out of the office for the next week to shoot a wedding in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic! Should be a good time! :)

Here is a pic of the all inclusive resort we're staying in! :)

40 lbs of fresh picked fruit!

Are berries considered a fruit? I never thought about it until now. Anyway. Yesterday Bethany, Bethany's mom (out visiting from Michigan), and I spent a good portion of the day picking raspberries, cherries, blueberries, and blackberries. YumYumYumYum. All in all we probably ended up with over 40 pounds of fruit, costing a total of $10.00. Only thing we had to pay for was the blueberries, they were $1.25/lb at a little organic blueberry farm (more like someones backyard) in Parkdale. Cherries and Rasberries were compliments of our wonderful friends Mike and Jackie at the Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast. The blackberries are a weed around here in Oregon and they grow everywhere, and take over everything! People hate them, but man, their berries are wonderful.

A sampling of the pickings (there was more behind me):

And a few of the yummy deliciousness I've made so far:
Blackberry shake! (blackberries, vanilla ice cream, ice for texture, milk, soy milk, and a touch of my moms homemade blackberry jam)

Blackberry pancakes!

Smoothies! Blackberry, peach (also picked recently), Banana, ice, milk, homemade apple cider (also compliments of Mt. Hood Bed & Breakfast), flax seed.

Guess I liked the fruit so much I had have a photo with it?

What is your favorite of these 4? Raspberries, Cherries, Blueberries, or Blackberries????

Lightning in Hood River is always welcomed by Blaine

Late last night shortly after we got back from Portland we had the sweetest lightning storm that passed through Hood River! I LOVE lightning more than anything (well, a lot of things at least) and we don't get nearly enough of it here on the west coast.
I hopped on my dirtbike and headed up to the hills around our house... seconds after driving away quite possibly the brightest and loudest crack of lighting I've ever seen/heard went off, it had to be just feet away from us! Then it started to rain and hail in tropical size proportions... insane! I got seriously wet and had to take cover under trees (with the lightning going off all around, smart eh?) during the peak of the storm. Within 10 minutes it had passed right by and the stars were out. If my motorcycle was street legal I would have followed it East.
I ended up only getting one decent shot, but the experience was all worth it!

Check out lightning photos from last year here!

Taken from the Historic Columbia River Highway area, looking North. The bridge over the Columbia River is on the bottom left and the land is the towns of White Salmon and Bingen, Washington.

clustrmaps.lame.

There are very few things I enjoy more than checking out how many red dots are on my Clustrmap on the bottom of the sidebar. Every time I get a new red dot in a new country, it's like Christmas Morning all over again. Actually, not really. I really only check it once every few weeks. Honestly. :)
Until a few days ago I was feeling pretty proud of my ClustrMap, it had red all over the place, I was feeling just a tad bit famous! But now, thanks ClustrMaps, you've erased my map and started all over again. Sweet.

Actually I really don't care about this at all. But seriously, it made me think. If I started a company that made little blog widgets that put red dots on peoples map, I would do everything in my power to make the system work perfectly so everyone could save and save their red dots. I mean really... if all your company did was that... how hard would it be to not erase everyone red dots!?
It makes me think about all the companies out there that basically do one thing, and they fall short of making that one thing perfect (or even just "well").
I was using something the other day (I totally cannot remember what it was) and I remember getting frustrated that the company had 1 (one!!!!) product total, and they couldn't even do it right. It was obviously flawed. It's like a photographer who can't shoot a photo, or a janitor who can't hold a broom, or a sushi chef who can't use a knife. Lame examples, I know. But whatever.

I'm adding http://whos.amung.us/ soon!

Anyway here is my red dots now...

And my red dots before...

(not really. sorry bad joke)