Seen on the street, No. 2, one of my favorite Portland fountains

Unofficially titled "The Car Wash," this fountain always captures my attention, especially in this sort of  profile view. I've read on the City of Portland Web site that during its hours of operation--8 a.m-10 p.m., spring, summer, fall--a wind gauge shuts it off fairly often as a precaution for the safety of pedestrians. The sidewalk is glazed tile which can be slippery when wet, more so than concrete. The wind gauge only lets it flow during very calm conditions, shutting off the water if the wind speed exceeds 2 miles per hour. The fountain is made of steel, and as best I can tell, created by Carter, Hull, Nishita, McCulley & Baxter, installed in 1977 at SW 5th Avenue and Ankeny Street. The red and white seen through the evergreen hedge is on the roof of the gas station on West Burnside, between SW 5th and SW 4th--I often catch my last bus home from Portland Trail Blazer games in front of that gas station. I took this photo while I waited for the bus to the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival on July 3.

Sunny smile

Sunny day, May 23, 2009. I took this photo at 4:50 p.m. The young woman on the right smiles broadly. While I don't know what brought that smile to her face, I have to say that, in general, her smile reflects how all Portlanders feel when the sun returns. A close look makes me think that the young woman on the left has said something which caused the other young woman to break out in that sunny smile.

Along the west bank of the Willamette River, No. 3

I heard the lady in the maroon jacket say, as they approached the single bubbler while I leaned over and took the photograph, "What's she doing?" The man in the jacket with the green stripes answered, "She taking a photo of the water fountain."



Little did they know that I'd also taken a photo with them in focus. I stood up as they came abreast and asked, "Do you want to see the photo of the water fountain?" They stopped and looked and gave their approval. We agreed that it was a beautiful early evening to be out for a walk, enjoying the sunshine and the cherry blossoms. I chickened out and only showed them the top photo where the two of them are not in focus. One of these days, I'll be brave enough when I make eye contact with the subject of a photograph to say something along the lines of, "I've taken this great photo of you and plan to put it on my blog soon. Here's my card with the blog's address so that you can check it out, if you'd like." What do you other photo bloggers think about my plan? OK? Pitiful? Unnecessary? What would you do? What do you do?

By the way, how about that man with the purposeful stride, balancing his brimmed, cloth hat on his right fingertips? I caught him there in the center of the photo in mid-step, the entire sole of his left shoe visible. I love it! And I love that tiny bit of the sky visible between parts of the Steel Bridge, there in the distance. The tiny bit I'm talking about touches the top of the striding man's hat and looks as if it's a feather coming out of the hat, practically the exact color!

Busy Sidewalk, No. 1

A family of four, out for a stroll on a Friday evening. Sunny, cold in the shadows, thus the jackets, those thick boots on the older daughter, and Dad's hands in his pockets. I imagine that the shopping bag with the red design on it came from the City Target, not too many blocks west and south of the intersection where they crossed West Burnside. You can see a portion of a sign there above the top of the red umbrella. Berbati's, where Lamont first worked when he moved to Portland in September, 2000. I'm not sure if it was this corner or another one; back then the establishment took up more square footage than it does today.

I took this photo on March 21 at 6:45 p.m., then I caught the bus on home. I had lasted as long as I could at Tom McCall Waterfront Park among the blooming cherry trees and folks out enjoying them. Nature called, don't you know.

Seen downtown, No. 4

Not your everyday headwear for sunny Saturday in May. Naturally, once I saw the young man and his hat through the viewfinder, I had to keep clicking.
  Oops. Busted.
 

He turned to his friend, no doubt explaining that there's a crazy woman over there on the corner taking my picture.
 

His friend smiled and they continued walking south across West Burnside.

Seen on the street, February 16, 2013, No. 8

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The man's hooded jacket has not been streaked with watered-down white paint. Those streaks are the falling rain, better visible after I altered this photo with PicMonkey's HDR. I wanted you to be able to see the rain. I took this photo downtown a block east of Pioneer Courthouse Square.
 

This is the unaltered image--very little rain visible. Rest assured, at its original size at Flickr, you can see rain drops in more parts of the image than his jacket.

Seen in downtown Portland

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After I had walked over the Hawthorne Bridge on January 8, I continued towards the bus stop at SW 2nd Avenue and SW Main so that I could catch my first bus of the two it takes me to get home. Before I got to that bus stop in the next block, I noticed the lights of a bus which had stopped behind this lady on the bicycle, shining on her. Naturally I had to take a photo, then when the light changed, I hot-footed it for the next corner because the bus behind her was the one I wanted to catch!

You can see how prepared she is for our usual rainy winter weather, with her hooded, bright green rain coat and her tall rubber boots. It alarms me that she doesn't have a helmet--mothers get alarmed by stuff like that. I'm glad to see that she has a light on the back of the bicycle--there near where her raincoat is reflected in the red bike's aluminum (I suppose) fender. What do you think about the angle of the handlebars? Pointed straight up, it seems to me. I hope I come across here again some time so that I can take another photo to compare with this one. 

Once I saw the photo on the iMac, I decided that it had turned out much better than I had expected. Here are the reasons I believe that to be true:

• The headlights shine into the intersection, making a slight shadow of the lady and her bicycle.
• The dashes that outline the bike lane follow the angle of SW Main as it departs the Hawthorne Bridge and continues westward up  the street. I'm usually up in a bus and don't get to see the street like this.
• Also, it's neat that the trees still have lights on them--something left over from the holidays.
• Finally, I like the pedestrians who've crossed at the intersection. I imagine each one feels as good as I remember feeling about no rain on that particular evening. The last woman in the group on the left of the intersection wears stiletto-style black boots. Amazing that anyone willingly puts those on their feet and heads out to work all day in them. Even when I was young and slim, I couldn't bear the thought of doing that to my feet.