People always ask me why I love the rain in Portland so much. Well, it’s because I love showing dramatic skies in the portraits I photograph! Here is a photo I shot in the rain yesterday afternoon. What do you think?

Yesterday I headed north to Seattle to cover the Seahawks vs Cardinals NFL game. I’ve shot a ton of football games, college and high school and a ton of professional sports events, but I think this was the first time I’d ever been to an NFL game, as a fan or a photographer. I could be wrong about that, but I don’t remember shooting or seeing a live NFL game before yesterday. The weather forecast was for rain, and it poured in the first series of the game, but then the sun came out and it was a really nice day with great light. Above was the shot of the game…Arizona QB Kevin Kolb lost his helmet as he was sacked late in the game.

This was a another one of my favorite photos. Marshawn Lynch was picked up and brought down for a loss in the third quarter.

From left: Tarvaris Jackson runs for a touchdown, giving the Hawks a 13-10 lead, Chris Clemons and Raheem Brock celebrate a tackle for loss and Kam Chancellor celebrates his interception late in the 4th quarter that sealed the first win of the season.

Rather than drive to Seattle and back in a day, I took the train, which was very nice. It dropped me off right in the parking lot of Century Link Field. I don’t think I’ll ever go to Seattle for work again and not ride the train. Loved it and it was cheaper than gas there and back too!

Last night I shot the US Women’s team play a friendly against Canada at JELD-WEN Field for US Soccer. I love shooting for them, it’s always a lot of fun no matter what the event. This game did not disappoint. Forward Abby Wambach scored two goals in the second half and forward Alex Morgan added a third in stoppage time to put the home team up 3-0. I got lucky and Abby ran in my direction both times she scored. Here is my take from the game. Great sellout crowd, but a very different atmosphere from a Timbers game.

Great game by the Timbers last night. I don’t know what it is, but I get these gut feelings sometimes about games where I can just predict what is going to happen. All day I felt like they would win this game big. Darlington Nagbe was all over the place. He was playing at forward for the first time this year and had just missed a couple of shots. At halftime, I told my colleagues that he would score a goal in the second half. He did. And luckily he ran right towards Kalif Alhasan, who provided the great assist and was standing in front of me. Thanks D for running towards me . You can see more photos from the game on the Timbers Facebook page.

Yesterday afternoon Dustin came into the studio for his senior photos. I love shooting kids who have a cool hobby that we can incorporate into the pictures. Dustin is really into wakeboarding so we wanted to include that somehow. At first, the idea was to go out on the boat and shoot some action stuff, then we though maybe we’d just shoot portraits on the boat. But in the end, it was decided to leave the boat home and just shoot some stuff near the water. The river is just a few blocks from the studio and the rocks on the shoreline made a great backdrop as well. Since we are in Portland, we had some nice clouds of course. Here are a few other photos from his shoot, the others were photographed at my Milwaukie studio. I had a great time shooting these photos. Let me know what you think. Thanks for coming in Dustin!