I am a student pilot working toward a private pilot certificate. Eventually I plan to earn a commercial certificate so I can offer an aerial photography service. Until then I’ll have to settle for taking personal photos, like these shots of the Columbia River Gorge and Hood River Valley from a Cessna 172. The pictures are not that good since they were taken from an iPhone. I was also busy flying the plane while trying to press the shutter button! :) Hope you enjoy.

Today was my beautiful wife’s birthday, so we enjoyed dinner at a local restaurant with incredible landscaping. In between our order and the food arriving we did a quick photo shoot as the light began to fade. Later we strolled through the garden, hoping our pictures captured the magical feel of the evening. (Click the first image to scroll through them larger and to see captions.)

For the last few days we had planned to hike up Dog Mountain since the weather has been great and the flowers are in bloom.  We hear the carpet of wildflowers at the top are the best they’ve been in years. We packed our camera gear, trail snacks, and our “new”  baby hiking backpack. Unfortunately, we had a late start and made it to the trail head after 5PM. Instead of hiking up the mountain, we decided to drive a little east to the Dog Creek Falls. It was a short hike from the freeway to the base of the falls. We set up for some time-lapse shots with an off camera flash to illuminate a large rock in the middle of the creek. After a few shots of the waterfall, we crossed back into Oregon and headed west toward Cascade Locks to scout out some future hikes (Wahclella Falls and Mitchell Point).  We ended our trip at the Mitchell Point Overlook where Patrick took the sunset shot below while Theresa and Siena dealt with quite a diaper. We warmed her up with the heater as she had fun climbing on the steering wheel of the truck! We grabbed a couple snapshots with the cell phone before heading home.