"Radiance of the Gorge" Gallery Image

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"Radiance of the Gorge" photographed April 21 2021 at The Hook, Columbia River Gorge, Hood River, Oregon

"Radiance of the Gorge" was photographed one year ago today on April 21 2021 and I’m happy to share more of the story and behind the scenes images from this once in a lifetime moment captured on the Columbia River Gorge! We have the most wonderful memories from this day as it was such a gorgeous warm spring day so we grabbed our friends and headed out for some boat and beach fun on the river. Ahh, those first 80 degree days in early Spring- nothing quite like it! We had the best of times that day and at the end of the evening my family was hungry, tired, and ready to go home! While loading the boat up the sky just absolutely lit up with incredible cloud colors and texture. I had no choice but to rush and try to capture it and “The Hook” ended up being the perfect spot. With not a second to spare the boat and family were along for the ride- like it or not 😜 Arriving to the location I setup the tripod and camera as fast as I could and was able to capture one 30 second exposure with the color intensity before the light and color changed and faded in an instant. Perfect (quick) ending to a wonderful day spent with friends playing and creating 🤩

Here’s a collection of some other images and captions from that incredible day!

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Snippets of what earlier in the day looked like- fun on the river with lots of happy kids!

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A quick shot from the boat while cruising back into the marina. There was a little color in the sky but it was pretty dull and a bit eerie feeling. Still had no idea the sky would “flip a switch” and be ablaze with color in just a few moments!

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Boat is out of the water and color in the sky is unbelievable! Now I’m panicked with a completely insane sunset and no plan of where to capture it!

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Camera & tripod setup at The Hook, this is just moments after the image was captured and the light and color had already rapidly left the sky!

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Yep- my wife Bethany and our 4 kids are in the van and I’m sure she’s pulling out every trick in her book to keep them calm and not killing each other. Snacks are long gone by now! Bless her heart 😜

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Otis is happy to see me back at the van and heading home ♥️

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"Radiance of the Gorge" has been a very popular print in our gallery in all sorts of sizes small to HUGE! This is the largest print I’ve ever produced. A framed 48x96” Metal Print! Finished size is roughly 5x9 feet! Turned out perfectly and customers LOVE it! 🙌

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"Radiance of the Gorge" has been a very popular print in our gallery in all sorts of sizes small to HUGE! This is the largest print I’ve ever produced. A framed 48x96” Metal Print! Finished size is roughly 5x9 feet! Turned out perfectly and customers LOVE it! 🙌

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"Radiance of the Gorge" framed 48x96” Metal Print at the photo lab before loading into a U-Haul trailer for delivery to my customers home. Thank you for the impeccable craftsmanship HD Aluminum Prints!

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Another metal print about to head off to a very happy customer! This one is a 35x70” panoramic to fit the customers wall space just right 👍

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"Radiance of the Gorge" framed 40x60” Metal Print currently on display in the gallery. $1,800 un-framed or $2,800 framed with Dark Coffee frame & black linen liner

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A panorama view of our Gallery and Mylan Wines tasting room in downtown Hood River, Oregon. Love this space 😊

Checkout "Radiance of the Gorge" online or in person at our gallery and let us know if we can assist with a beautiful print for your home or office! Thanks for following along, all the best!

Blaine Franger
http://www.blainebethanygallery.com/

Recent Sales from Blaine + Bethany Gallery

Happy to report it's just our first month "in business" we're off to a great start! It's been so fun to take our first orders in person and online. We absolutely love it when our customers share information with us like what connection they have to the work, how it makes them feel, and how/where they'll display it. Here's handful of recent sales we'd like to share! 

Hood River local Dana came to our First Friday event on May 1st to check out the work. "Gorgeous Expanse" caught her eye, along with a few others! Her husband Jeff's 40th birthday was coming up and she wanted to gift him a beautiful print, so she arranged to come back to the gallery and make her final decision. She even got to bring her mother-in-law Meleanna along to help who was visiting from Hawaii. Dana ended up going with her gut and chose the large 20"x72" Panoramic Metal Print we had displayed in the gallery.

Dana said "This picture was especially meaningful to us because it shows the whole valley, river and mountain. Jeff is part of the Crag Rats and has spent many days and nights climbing Mt Hood for rescues and for fun, I've worked for WyEast vineyards in the valley for about 3 years now, and both of us love to play on the water, so it really encompasses everything we love about the Hood River area!"

Thank you Dana!

Dana and Meleanna excited about deciding on "Gorgeous Expanse" 

And here it hangs in their home  :) 

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Our first official order on the website was from a family friend, Laurie Jones. Laurie expressed interest in purchasing this image when it was first published to Beautiful Hood River in July of 2014. Laurie's husband Chris Jones and 2 others tragically died in a small plane crash in 2005. When Laurie first messaged us what this photo means to her, it filled our hearts with gratitude and was so humbling that an image could mean this much to someone. Shared with permission, here are Laurie's words:

"The day after my husbands plane went down I was on my deck looking at Mt. Adams and hoping they would find our plane with 3 survivors. I saw the exact image you captured and I thought of it as a halo of peace. At that moment in my heart I knew that God had called them home. A few minutes later I received a call from Sheriff Wampler telling me they had spotted the crash and their was no sign of life..... I would love to hang it in my bedroom. Brings me peace!"

Wow, what an incredible honor that this image brings you peace. We can't wait to see a photo of the beautiful 20"x30" metal print hanging in your bedroom. Thank you, Laurie!

Mt Adams Lenticular Cloud Sunset

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Our second order from the website was quite exciting too! Jason & Melissa from California learned about our work after a mutual friend had shared it on Facebook, and kindly shared this with us: 

"We had been looking for fun pictures to decorate our kids bathroom. We loved the underwater shots so we picked a few and asked our daughter (4) and our son (2 1/2) which ones they liked. They chose the two we ordered. They will be displayed on either side of the kids sink so they can look at them every night. I also was so excited you guys offer metal prints because I think the look is stunning. The other point I wanted to make was the site is very well done. Being able to see what the piece will look like hanging on a wall is awesome. Well done."

Wow, so very cool the kids picked the images! Love it. We are very excited about adding more animal & underwater images to our site in the future, and adding a whole section dedicated for kids rooms as well, so stay tuned. Thank you, Jason & Melissa! 

Here are the two images they ordered, both as 12"x18" Metal Prints. PS- Metal Prints are PERFECT for humid environments like bathrooms, kitchens, etc. The scratch resistant surface is also waterproof and they're not bothered a bit by water and high humidity environments! 

"On Defense" - Porcupine pufferfish in Baja California, Mexico

"Sally Lightfoot" - Sally Lightfoot Crab poses in Baja California, Mexico

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Another recent sale on our website was to Jacqueline who lives in the Portland area. Her husbands birthday is on July 4th, and they often spend that holiday in Hood River. When she saw this image on Beautiful Hood River, she knew it would make a perfect birthday gift and decided on a 20"x30" metal print. And yes, he loved it! Thank you, Jacqueline! 

Hood River Fourth of July Fireworks with Mt Hood 

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One last recent sale to feature was to Adam, who lives in the Portland area and just built a new house. He loves to day trip away to Hood River, and stopped in at River Daze Cafe for a bite to eat. He noticed our work on the walls and decided a couple pieces would look awesome on the walls of his new home in Portland. After a bit of discussion we sold him one off the wall at River Daze, and made another custom framed & matted print to match the other. Here's the two pieces ready to go and be delivered. Thanks, Adam! 

Mt Hood Aerial, and "Beautiful Hood River" framed & matted photography (sorry about the terrible iPhone snapshot)

Anyway, thanks so much everyone for your interest in what we're doing and we look forward to hearing from you with any questions & inquiries about what photos you love and want on your walls!  :) 

Visit our shop here, and remember if an image you've seen and want to order isn't on the site, no problem! Just use this product to place an order of any image not seen on the site. 

First Friday Gallery Show, July 3 2015

A big thanks to everyone who came out to our First Friday event last week! Even though It was announced very last minute on Facebook (here and here) we had a steady stream of folks coming in for a solid 3 hours from 5-8:30 or so. It's nice to see so many friends, and meet lots of new people who follow our work online. Thanks again everyone for your interest in what we're up to! 

One thing I never anticipated about doing these First Friday events is how heartwarming it is to have people come into the space, and not only be able to see some beautiful photography, but also see friends, meet new people, and just be able to have conversation and mingle in a creative environment. I love seeing this happen! It actually makes me a bit envious of my friends who own restaurants! How satisfying that must be to own a restaurant and day after day get to witness people enjoying themselves in your space. Of course I'm sure it's not all fun & games, but that part would be awesome  :) 

I'm always so busy at First Friday, I never get to take many photos, but here's a few we managed to get!

First Friday at Blaine + Bethany Gallery, downtown Hood River Oregon. 

My Grandma (left) was visiting from San Diego and was able to come! We even managed to snap a quick photo with family who were there. 

My Mom Therese (center) and good friends Cathi & Eleanor. 

It was such an honor to have our good friends from Mt. Hood Organic Farms Brady & John Jacobson stop by! They are some of the busiest people we know, accomplishing the most amazing projects on their property (farming, gardening, hosting weddings, building, & much more) and this was maybe our second time seeing them away from their farm, haha. Thanks for coming Brady & John! 

I had to sneak a quick iPhone snap of John checking out the work! 

Next First Friday (August 7th) we'll try to give a bit more notice on Facebook! In the meantime, make sure you "like" these two pages (here and here) where we'll make new announcements and also join our email list, on the top right of this blog. Thanks again everyone!!! 

- Blaine Franger

Introducing Blaine + Bethany Gallery!

Whew, our first blog post at Blaine + Bethany Gallery! It's been a long and exciting journey expanding our wedding & portrait business (Blaine + Bethany Photography) to now include Blaine + Bethany Gallery. We've been keeping VERY busy with wedding & portrait photography for the past 10 years but have also been doing ton of landscape, nature, and underwater photography all over the world. Only a very small percentage of this work has been edited and published, but countless amounts of people have been saying "I want this on my walls! How do I buy your work?" and we've never had a good way of displaying and selling the work, until now! We're honored that people from all over the world want to hang our work on the walls of their homes and offices. 

The website Blaine + Bethany Gallery will be the main outlet for viewing and ordering our work, but in addition to this we have created a beautiful gallery space in downtown Hood River, Oregon. We'd love to have you visit our gallery, so please check out the VISIT THE GALLERY page for more info, directions, and to make an appointment.

Downtown Hood River Gallery

Slideshow of our first "Sneak Preview" show on First Friday May 1, 2015