25 November 2013

[liff] More Views From the OryCon Crow's Nest

2951.
A couple of days ago, in this post here, I shared a view I snapped of downtown Portland from the 15th Floor of the Doubletree Hotel, site of OryCon.

I'm addicted to the downtown Portland cityscape and skyline, so this, of course, isn't the only one. The Hospitality level is a great crow's next, as shall be demonstrated.

Two years ago, during that OryCon, and this was when +Occupy Portland was about to be broken up down in the Plaza Blocks (a/k/a Chapman and Lownsdale Squares, between the Federal Courthouse, City Hall, the Multnomah County courthouse, and the Justice Center), the weather was a bit more unstable and chaotic than your usual Oregon November. The view from the 15th was a bit more exotic:


The clouds over the West Hills were directly southwest of city center. The semicircular building you see in the bottom center is the south end of the +Oregon Convention Center , the twin glass spires hiding behind the building at stage left there.

I don't think I have to point this out, but the clouds seemingly held back by the bulk of the hills backing up the west side of town are exquisite and speak eloquently of Oregon weather (well, most of the time, anyway) as a beast who's just too darn mellow to mess with anyone much.

The Tualatin Mountains form the physical western barrier to the city, and extend northwestward from just west of the center of town all the way toward the town of Saint Helens where they more or less merge into the Coast Range. This is the home of our world-famous Forest Park. And the clouds were trying to get round that rampart too … and just weren't getting the job done. To a very beautiful effect.


The bow in the center-left distance is the arch to the Fremont Bridge. The short tower in the middle distance is a retirement community called Calaroga Terrace; that tower on the left is the Lloyd 700 building (7th and NE Holladay) and the one on the right is the even-more-functionally-named Lloyd Center Tower.

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody takes pictures of it, except with digital photography, everyone does now. And even though we are there for OryCon, this causes us pauses and we think outside ourselves for just a moment.

Of course, there are snacks to be had just down the hall. So we come out of that reverie perforce.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stage right. Stage left is right from the audience perspective and vice-versa.
You're going to make me a personal 2014 calendar of your Portland photos for Christmas, right?

The Wife™

Anonymous said...

Stage right. Stage left is right from the audience perspective and vice-versa.
You're going to make me a personal 2014 calendar of your Portland photos for Christmas, right?

The Wife™