Portland Farmers' Market

Saturday morning, a couple of weeks ago. And coffee afterwards.

Color vs Black & White

A week or so ago we took a hike in Portland's Forest Park. It's one of the country's largest urban parks, with many miles of rough and hilly walking trails lined with large old trees (mainly fir and maple) and extensive patches of ferns. Naturally, I took my camera and took lots of photos, but I was troubled by two things: the intense green was occasionally overwhelming, and the bright sun increased contrast uncomfortably. I expected this to be a problem, so I tried to deal with the extreme exposure range by underexposing by 2 stops in camera, then using Lightroom to bring up the dark green foliage, bring down the bright yellow-white patches, and reduce contrast. 

That strategy worked reasonably with many of the photos,  but I decided to explore what would happen if I converted the color photos to black & white. That worked fairly well (to my taste) for photos that had a lot of structure and didn't depend so much on shades of green. I decided to show three such pairs of photos on this blog. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Old Town Street Art

Portland's Old Town has its own share of street art, more colorful than overtly protesting.

More Downtown Portland Murals

Apple Store, A Few Weeks Later

The memorial to George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, on the black-painted plywood surrounding and protecting the Apple Store in downtown Portland, has gotten impressively developed over the past month or so. See my June 5 post for an earlier version.

Reds and Greens - Plus Something Else

Various shades of rusty reds and greens in Portland, plus a more variegated and even more colorful scene outside a Trader Joe's store.

 

Colorful Construction

Highway overpass and construction against a bright blue sky in Portland's Slabtown.