On May 19, 2012 the Oregon chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers hosted the first PDX Squared photography event. Portland photographers, both professional and emerging, were invited to enter the contest, aimed at documenting the culture of Portland. The ASMP took one square mile of downtown Portland and divided it into forty-nine squares, with each photographer claiming a square as their territory.
On May 19, 2012 the Oregon chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers hosted the first PDX Squared photography event. Portland photographers, both professional and emerging, were invited to enter the contest, aimed at documenting the culture of Portland. The ASMP took one square mile of downtown Portland and divided it into forty-nine squares, with each photographer claiming a square as their territory.
On May 19, 2012 the Oregon chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers hosted the first PDX Squared photography event. Portland photographers, both professional and emerging, were invited to enter the contest, aimed at documenting the culture of Portland. The ASMP took one square mile of downtown Portland and divided it into forty-nine squares, with each photographer claiming a square as their territory.
One of my favorite things to do is to find things happening in Oregon that are well out of my everyday experience. I can’t recall exactly how I came across the Sunset Speedway, but it fit the bill exactly. Last year, I headed out for a gorgeous evening of dirt track racing. I walked among the drivers and their cars, talked with them, took in the heavy aroma of combusted fuel, the roar of big block engines and caught the spray of clay coming up off the track. Between the drivers and their fans, there was a palpable passion for this gritty, unforgiving sport. There is a camaraderie that grows weekend after weekend.
Celebrating twenty years with the creators of Hammerhead and Ruby, Myrna Yoder is one of seven artists who enjoy an unusual and enviable job. Employed full time, and—like modern-day Michelangelos and Leonardos working for Lorenzo de’ Medici and Pope Julius II—they have a benefactor. “Mike McMenamin is our patron,” says Yoder. “But instead of the Catholic Church and illustrating the Bible, it’s Mike’s world.”
In a darkened photographer’s studio on Portland’s Eastbank, Lucas Threefoot is jumping so high, his torso nearly clears a tall backdrop. That athletic artistry is also vaulting his career as a ballet dancer known for his classic and contemporary hybrid style. “I’m riding a wave right now,” Threefoot smiles. “A good wave.”
“I usually go into a trance for twelve straight hours and then I’m done,” he says. The creative urge lasts long enough to produce an image, a facial expression, a memory, or a feeling on the square or rectangle before him. “I never know exactly what the meaning is, but it works itself out.”
Problem solver and potter Douglas Sigstad abandoned aeronautics for classes in clay and glaze at Portland Community College. Since then, he has begun creating and cataloguing a library of stunning glazes that challenge the status quo.
Christopher Marley has become something his childhood fears could never contemplate—an artist who works with insects and other natural specimens to create framed arrangements of preserved bugs. Around this fascination with insects, Marley has built an empire of his own, with works that adorn stylish homes across the world.
