city

WC: My Favorite Things to Shoot Around Portland

Portland is a wonderful city.  I’ve been living in the area for many years now, and I simply love it.  One of the benefits to living in a place for a long period of time is the photo opportunities.  Any place can be beautiful.  But the truly magical moments are sporadic and fleeting.  You might luck out with timing, but that’s sheer coincidence.  To guarantee success in a particular place, living there certainly gives you the upper hand.

Over the years, I have found there are so many things I love photographing in this city.  Here are some of my favorites – something of a personal photo tour, if you will.
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Top Pic(k)s of 2016

Ok, I know I’ve been neglecting the posts on our amazing desert road trip, but I wanted one more reflective post before returning to our next leg – Moab.  Stay tuned!

I love stats (reporting them, not calculating them), so here they are:

  • Photos taken in 2015: 21668
  • Photos taken in 2016: 26014

Yep.  I took almost 4500 more photos last year than the year prior.. and I thought I was being careful to take fewer pictures!  To be fair, over 600 of those were of Landscape Arch, alone (that post is coming soon), and nearly half of those photos are from my work at anime conventions.. don’t judge me!

© LotsaSmiles Photography 2016

Kissing Camels, Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

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Photo of the Week: Journey

I see many unusual things on my daily commute.  I’ve always had a penchant for noticing the unusual, and while that might garner some quizzical glances from passersby, more often than not, I’m pleased by the results.

The simple, odd finds make my day-to-day life more interesting.  People are interesting.  Their stories are interesting.  And these tiny mementos they leave behind are insights into fragments of their tales.

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Chicago: The Opportunity

In an effort to tackle some of my monstrous backlog, I’m going to try to post about some older adventures from time to time.  This one hails from 2011.

I learned from my father many years ago one very important lesson: take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.  After all, you never know when you might look back on a “no” and wish that it had been a “yes.”  I strive to live every day by the mantra of “no regrets,” and thus far, it has served me well. Continue reading →

How to Be Late for Work

Warning: photography may become addictive.  So much so, that your camera calls to you when you should be doing other things.. like work.  The pull didn’t used to be so strong for me, nor was it so easy to acquiesce to its alluring beckoning.  But over time, it became easier.  It takes practice, but you, too, can become an effective member of the tardy workforce.  These are the key elements conducive to photographic slacking: Continue reading →