I just realized that I missed posting last week. I’ve been recovering from the stomach flu and must have forgot! But now I’m back (almost recovered) and ready to dive headfirst into Fall. When I think of Fall, I think of our trip to Portland, Oregon. Cathedral Park is full of vibrant Fall colors. Located beneath St. Johns Bridge, it also offers beautiful views of the Willamette River.
Cathedral Park
The park itself is very peaceful and has a few walking paths. Sculptures and guide signs dot the park, and the colors here are Fall colors through and through. For this first shot, I wanted to capture the vibrant yellow hues of the trees in the background. I ended up changing my metering to spot metering for highlights. After looking in the viewfinder, I lowered the exposure compensation to -1.7EV to avoid overexposing the areas illuminated by the sun. I included the bench on the left for a bit of environmental context.
The Willamette River
At Cathedral Park, there’s a little walkway that goes out into the Willamette River a bit. As I prepared this post, I looked at the following two shots and couldn’t decide which one to include, so I chose both! I like the next shot because of the texture the clouds add to the sky and water. I added a slight vignette in post-production, as I think the darkness on the edge adds a melancholy mood to the image.
For the next shot, I zoomed in a bit to 40mm. I like this shot because of a few things. First, I like the architecture in the left third of the image. I also like the parallel shadows seen in the water. The water was relatively calm, and the ripples add a bit of texture, much like the clouds in the previous photo. As I framed the shot, I liked the composition with the cluster of poles in the foreground on the right, which adds a bit of depth to the image as well.
From the walkway, looking back at Cathedral Park gave me a stunning view of some really vibrant Fall colors. For the next shot, I tried to get as much of the trees as possible. I waited until the water was really calm before taking the shot, as I wanted a relatively crisp reflection in the Willamette River. I took a long exposure with the same composition, but this image just looks more clear and captures the scene a bit better.
“Love”
The last image of the set is one of my favorites. Everywhere we went in Portland, there were signs stating “Be nice” or “Love” or something similar. I thought it was so cool to have those phrases be part of the city culture, and I think more cities should do the same. From the edge of Cathedral Park looking to the right, under St. Johns Bridge, I saw the “Love” sign and some ducks that were going for a swim. I decided to take the shot as a portrait because I wanted to capture the rocks in the foreground, the “Love” sign in the background, and the ducks in the middle. The image is almost showing the ducks swimming towards love. There’s something calming about that for me.
A Bit of History of Cathedral Park
Cathedral Park is thought to be one of the 14 Lewis and Clark landing sites in the Vancouver-Portland area. Supposedly, Clark and 8 men camped here in 1806 and used the area which was previously inhabited by Native American tribes who fished and camped there.
Cathedral Park was actually not part of the original design of St. Johns Bridge and was added in 1980, 50 years after the construction of the bridge was complete. Until that time, it was pretty much a junkyard until then-honorary Mayor Howard Galbraith organized a drive that raised the $7.5 million to build the park. Fun fact: there’s actually a time capsule buried there that will be opened in 2030!
As always, comments, feedback, and questions are welcome below!