Enter for your chance to ... ? Monthly Theme Day--Electricity.

Monthly Theme Day at City Daily Photo - Electricity. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.



I'm riding on the MAX Light Rail train on the right, the red and white one you can see curving to the left. I love how these two tracks lead to a gentle 400-foot serpentine when two trains meet along NW Hoyt and NW 3rd Avenue, on the west end of the Steel Bridge.

I can't tell from the reflections exactly what one could win if one entered whatever--surely it's not crab legs. Nor can I tell what sort of bottles of beer appear.

I took this photo on September 20, 2011. It's been altered at Picnik with the Effect HDR-ish. I think it works well for Theme Day.

On the street, animate. Seen from the bus on East Burnside. October 8, 2011. Portland's just plain interesting.

Almost anachronisms abound. Left to right.

(1) The need for a box fan in Portland in October--see it in the doorway. It's usually in the low 60s, or cooler even.
(2) People sitting out from under cover--the two men closest to the curb. In October in Portland, it's more than likely to be raining.
(3) People smoking near the entrance of the Grendel's Coffee House. The Oregon Indoor Clean Air Act prohibits smoking in most public places and places of employment. Additionally, smoking is not permitted within ten feet of any entrance, exit, window, or air-intake vent.
(4) The USPS corner mailbox beside the brick column. According to a Sept. 8, 2011, article at Seattle PI dot com, in 1985 there were 400,000 of them out and about, now 160,000 remain. Actually the article is pretty informative.

Image cropped and altered with Picnik Effect HDR-ish.

Quirky find of mine, at the east end of the Morrison Bridge

I took this photo on November 20, 2010. SPF 100, 768,000 FL OZ. I can't remember how long the water tower was painted like this, but I do remember hearing something about its decoration being illegal, according to city guidelines. I thought it matched the hideously large signs about flying to Hawaii. If I were to remove anything from this intersection, it would be those signs, not the decoration on the water tower. I altered the photo with the HDR-ish special effect at Picnik.

Seen on the Walk to Work, September 30, 2011

A new, modern building on the corner of SE 6th Avenue and East Burnside. I cannot explain why, but it appeals to me, so much so that I always look up when I walk or ride by (if I'm on the correct side of the bus to able to see it out of the window). As near as I can tell, businesses occupy or will occupy all of the space.

Here are three versions of much the same cropped photo. This one is merely cropped at Picnik. The grays and rectangles are a gray flannel suit. The windows are the shiny tie paired with it by a stylist with personal flair.


This one is cropped and altered for clarity at Picnik. Clarity makes the grays pop which brings into greater focus the architectural details--those various rectangular shapes extended from the main structure. I don't know architectural terms, sorry.


This is the second photo, further enhanced with the HDR-ish special effect at Picnik. This version is just plain fun to me. Moving the Strength slider and the Radius slider, I came up with this combo which I like, mostly because of the glowing on the gray rectangles and the details become better visible in the clouds.

It's all in how you look at it.

Big Pink and a parking lot sign. The sign is on the southeast corner of SW Broadway and West Burnside. Big Pink is exactly one block east of the sign. I used the tilt feature of my camera so that I could take a satisfactory look from this unusual angle. I've cropped the photo and used the HDR-ish special effect at Picnik. By the way, Big Pink is either 536 or 546 feet tall and is the second tallest building in Portland. I found both heights on the Internet, so who knows. I do know I've been on the 30th floor, which is not the top floor, to the Portland City Grill. See views from the PCG here and here.

The view from ... ?

Guess, anyone? Looks like I've been to an exotic locale and didn't let you know I was going, doesn't it?


I will tell you that I took the photo, uploaded it from the D5100 to Flickr, opened it in Picnik where I altered it with two effects, vibrance and HDR-ish, then I cropped it as a square before putting it here on the blog. Then I looked at it for a while and decided to try to clone out the upright that is on the window pane. That's the photo you see at the top of the blog. I tried to clone it out, and for the most part, I'm pleased with the results. Well, sort of pleased. It's not easy to find colors and directions that you can use to cover up what you don't want visible.

Here's the original photo, straight from the camera.


OK. I'll spill the beans. My living room has four windows which look out onto the sidewalk that goes from the building's front door out to the sidewalk along the street. I pulled the blinds up on the east-most window and liked the look enough to grab my camera and take a few photos. I distinctly thought, "These should be fun at Picnik!"

So, I'm not crazy just because I thought this would be fun to play with at Picnik. You can see why when you look at the altered photo above, can't you? Hope so. Such outcomes are one of the reasons I adore taking digital photos and having a great camera to do so and then having a great computer, my beloved iMac which I have named ALL, a place to get busy with my photos.

No, I'm not crazy. I'm keeping myself sane.