Randy Kashka - Photography

Whale Watching on the Oregon Coast

admin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:02:46 +0000

On our 22nd wedding anniversary, Alicia and I spent the day at the coast. At one point we pulled over at a Boiler Bay and spent some time whale watching. You have to be very patient whale watching on the Oregon coast, we spent about an hour and saw a couple whales. When I say “saw” we actually saw the water spout and the gray shadows of the whales. No jumping out of the water or tails wagging in the air. Only sign of a whale is a water spout like the one below.

Whale off the Oregon Coast

Another Oregon photographer out on the rocks.

Whale watching boats from Depoe Bay, watch the boats, they are near the whales.

Another water spout off a Boiler Bay.

Whale and water spout

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Cheers!

Evening at the Alberta Rose Theatre

Randy — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:49:26 +0000

We need to get out more often. Thursday night Alicia and I went to the Alberta Rose Theatre to listen to some good Portland music. Some friends were playing and that’s was drew us there that night. I have known Sarah’s mom longer than I have known my wife of 20 some years. We worked in the same group and I sat in the cubicle next to her and remember the telephone conversation she had with her high school daughter. Tim is one of if not the best bass player in Portland. A Kansas kid (I was born in Kansas) I only met Tim a few years ago when he move to Portland. My Uncle came to town to visit him and gave me a call and we all hooked up.

Every now and then Tim plays with Sarah in venues around Portland and I try to get out to see them both. They are great at what they do and I have enjoyed their music every time I have gone to see them play albeit only twice — once at Hamburger Mary’s on New Years eve (a whole another story) and now at the Rose Theatre. We do need to get out more often.

There were three bands playing that night – Miss Michael Jodell, A Simple Colony and Sarah King; and for $8 bucks it was very reasonable entertainment. Below are some photo’s I took from the night. I really didn’t have the right equipment and I was just trying to see what I could get with available light – which was horrible. I set my camera at the highest ISO (3200) for all the shots making them very grainy which is why a lot of them I processed into black and white. I opened the aperture to the widest I could with what lens I had on – one at f2.8 and the other around f4 or f3 depending on how far in I zoomed. The lights were low so I shot mostly at a very slow shutter speed and hand holding it – not the sharpest results. But it was fun trying.

The night started out with Michael Jodell and her band.

The next band that played was A Simple Colony.

And then Sarah King took the stage and rocked the house the rest of the night…

.. with Tim Huggins — the best bass player in all of Portland…

Let me know what you think – leave a comment…

Cheers !!!!

Nikole — Senior Pictures Class of 2012

Randy — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:39:09 +0000

Here are a few shots from a session I did with a senior high school student that lives down the street. We spent some time in the late morning in the Pearl District by Tyson park and then headed up into the country by Haag Lake to complete the shoot with some back country type photos.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think….

Cheers

Distinguished Young Woman of Oregon 2012

Randy — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:13:15 +0000

Alicia and I have known Bethany since she was born and now here she is in final’s of Distinguished Young Woman of Oregon 2012. It’s a scholarship program where the competition starts at the local level, then to the town, then cities, state and then the national competition. Bethany made it all the way to the state competition and all though she didn’t win we are all proud of her accomplishments to have made it this far. She did a great job this night playing a piano piece she wrote and doing a great job at all the other events.

Of course I brought my camera to try out some low light event shooting. We were seated about in the center of the auditorium at Chemeketa Community College in Salem. The lighting was really low so I bumped up the ISO really high - in 2000 to 3200 range and opened the aperture all the way - was shooting at f2.8 or on my 50mm at f1.4. I tried to keep the shutter speed around 60 to 100 to reduce blur. With those setting and the light I got what one would expect – lots of grain and not much sharpness.

The contestants arrive on stage and introduce themselves.

Some of the competitors doing their routines.

Bethany performing her routines during the final competition.

And the winner is …… #1

The after pageant glow when all the pressure is history.

A few family shots.

The very proud parents.

Hope you enjoyed the photos and don’t forget to leave a comment……

Cheers !

Sunday Drive to the Coast

Randy — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:59:33 +0000

Sunday was one of those days with no real plans, chores all caught up and we just wanted to get out of town – so, we headed to the Oregon coast. We wanted to see an area we haven’t seen before so we decided to head towards Tillamook, then over to Ocenside and follow the Three Capes senic drive to one of our fav coastal towns, Pacific City.

Our first stop was Cape Mears and the Cape Mears Lighthouse.

Stopped here for lunch, great place with lots of specials featuring fresh seafood.

Homes, mostly rentals, tucked away in the hill side at Oceanside.

The photo below is of a spot where a well known hang glider would launch from. This is looking north towards Netarts Bay on the right and Cape Lookout / Oceanside in the distance.

Facial Hair Removal???

Randy — Wed, 18 May 2011 21:57:29 +0000

Last year I shot some of our neighbors and their friend’s prom photos before they headed out for the evening. This was a quick studio type session using my “new” seamless white background set up in my garage with a couple of speedlights and umbrellas. Nothing real fancy. You can see a web album of those shots by Clicking Here.

I post processed one of the photos and put it on my FLICKR site to share and for comments. One of the comments challenged me to remove the glare at the hair line on the right side of the face. I checked out some photoshop tuts and found many methods on how to do remove glare from a photo. So – I cleared up the glare and decided to post how I did it to a FLICKER group called “The Portland Post“, a group that is geared to sharing before and after techniques of editing photos.

Today, while googling my name (everyone does it, right?) I came across that “before” and “after” prom photo on a WEB Site for hair removal. I don’t really have a problem with them using one of my photos, I guess. It’s kind of fun to see my work being used and shared. After all, under the creative commons license they can use it as long as they don’t alter or change the photo and give me credit.

But really, a prom photo for a facial hair removal web page – really?

“Scary” Snow Shoot at Mount Hood

Randy — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 19:22:05 +0000

I was invited to spend the weekend at a lodge at Government Camp at the foot of Mount Hood to do a snow shoot with a bunch of photographers that I have been shooting with over the last couple of years. The theme for the weekend was “scary” with the Living Dead Girls as models. We had about a dozen photog’s and a hand full of models lined up to spend the weekend doing various sets in the snow. They also lined up a couple of make up artists that they have used for past shoots.

Turned out that the weather was not cooperating and a lot of the models, who planed to show up Saturday, bailed out due to bad weather. It was snowing a little Friday night when wearrived but by Saturday night I would think we had a foot or two of new snow – it was a lot. The wind was blowing and it seemed to snow off and on all day. Made it challenging to shoot out side.

The models – Kelly, Janie and Mindee Jo, all did a great job. We had the privilege to have a couple of the best MUA’s in Portland – Matt and Jessie, help out over the weekend.

Friday evening we went out in the snow for the first set. Kelly and Janie were the models we had to work with, real troopers. They braved the cold weather and all the wild sets we came up with all weekend. As it turned out Kelly, Janie and Mindee Jo were the only models that showed up that weekend due to the bad weather.

Saturday it snowed and the wind blew most of the time but we did manage to do a couple of set’s outside in between flurries.

We also did some inside shooting with various themes and lighting setups. The over all theme for the weekend was “scary” but not sure how well that worked out with some of the shots.

One setup that was a lot of fun was a cave woman shoot. We dug a cave into a snow bank large enough to fit Kelly in. We back lite the cave with a blue gelled speedlite and used a strobe for the key. Everyone got some great shots with this setup.

Thanks to Jeff for the invite and putting this weekend together. Other photogs that showed up included Luke, Ben, Nuel, Pip, Ken, Heather, Shane and others all helped with creative ideas, getting the lighting set up and all making for a great shoot with some amazing results.

You can see more of my shots by CLICKING HERE.

Cheers – and don’t forget to leave a comment!!!!

Corporate Portrait

Randy — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:26:33 +0000

Last weekend my neighbor asked if I would take a picture of her, she just joined the chamber of commerce and needed a good shot for them to use. I set up a portable background I got off of Amazon, set up my new Einstein 640 through a large softbox as a key light and a Speedlite as a hair light and got the shots below.

Leave a comment, let me know what you think…

NW Glamour Shoot – Mardi Gras Carnivale

Randy — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:54:17 +0000

I got hooked up with a Meet-Up group called NW Glamour Photography. Its a group that requires membership so the members are serious about photography but are fun to shoot with none the less. This was a Mardi Gras theme with a lot of MAU’s to help get the models set up. I was really impressed with the organization of the shoot, they had 4 different stations set up and shoots going on at just about all of them.

It was faster paced than what I’m use to shooting. We all had pocket wizards for triggers. We were assigned a number between 1 and 4 and that’s the group we shot with. When the model was ready, the shooting begun with one photog popping after another.

If you weren’t fast enough someone would steal the flash and you end up with a black photo or under exposed at best. During some setup’s I just shot ambient light and gave up on the strobes.

But, once you got use to this method of shooting it wasn’t all that bad. I took my time, got some one-on-one time with some models as time permitted, and was able to adjust light position and power. This group had an emphasis on glamour and the results reflect that with the type of editing – skin softening, brightening the eyes, etc., that was expected.

All and all, it was a fun shoot and I really did learn a lot on this type of shooting and picked up some editing skills that I would never had tried had I not had these types of expectations set. I would highly recommend the NW Glamour Photography group if you are looking for this type of skill.

Cheers — and leave a comment, please…

Kelby and McNally talk shop

Randy — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:37:15 +0000

Here is a short video interview with Scott Kelby and Joe McNally without the interviewer, they just talk shop.

Click on the image above to go to the Nikon Pro Spotlight web site that is hosting this video.