This week those of us in the Northwest have the joy of Hillary Younger visiting from Tasmania. Not only is Hillary a fantastic person who is a blast to hang out with, but she's an amazing photographer. She won grandprize in the photo contest I hosted last year, and her adventuresome work and artistic eye never fail to amaze me.
Hillary asked me to meet her atop Flag Mountain last night for sunset along with the great northwest photographers Gary Randall and Darlisa Black, both of whose work I have long admired. There is nothing I love more than getting out photographing with a fun group like that.
Hillary Younger
Gary Randall
I got delayed driving out of Portland and was racing the clock to sunset. The road is very narrow, steep and rocky. I was driving it as fast as I safely could while counting the minutes to sunset when I encountered a truck headed down. NOOOOOOO!!!! It took about 20 minutes for us to find a safe way around each other on the dirt track.
By the time I reached the top, my friends were hard at work shooting the sun rimming down. I had about 5 minutes to find the composition at the top of this post before loosing the smoky sun to the night. After giving Hillary a quick hug and shouting a quick introduction to the others, I got straight to work.
I love nothing more than getting creative and collaborating with other passionate photographers. It is a rare and special joy to find friends like these that I can converse, laugh and have fun with unobtrusively as we all work without getting in the way or distracting each other. After a few post shoot pints, we began planning another outing this Thursday before Hillary heads north to Seattle. I can't wait!