Welcome!

Hey friends, thanks for stopping by!  For those of you who don’t know who I am, glance through my posts and begin to catch a glimpse of how I see the world.  Yeah, I’m a photographer, and although I do weddings, portraits, and other sessions by day, I continue to take pictures when I’m off the clock becuase I love photography.  Professionally, I’m a destination photographer based out of the Portland Metro area.  I’m currently booking for 2009, so if you like what you see please feel free to drop me a line.

I also use this space to share some of my personal work in life, as well as some of my photojournalism revolving around social issues.  Because of this, some my posts might not have photos as I am relaying information to the various situations I’m involved in.  I hope you enjoy what I have to share, and thanks again for stopping by.

Joel Bock

Oh, homeward bound…

That’s right folks.  It’s a steady pace I’m keeping at the Newark International Airport before the 2nd leg of my homeward journey.  Luckily I have the Brothers K to keep me company, and the chance for a decent internet connection to let me at the blog action once again.  The wedding last night went a wee bit late…and our return to Chris’ place in Lisburn was to the tune of 2am, with a 7:30 wake up call for the return flight.  We woke to typical Northern Ireland weather: gray skies and rain.  Luckily we only had a few intermittent showers yesterday that didn’t completely destroy the wedding day, and the day was a glorious and fun one indeed.  As we said, it was “good crack!” meaning good fun.  And it was.  From the traditional unprogrammed meeting for worship and marriage, to the Ceili dance that carried us late into the night (though sunset there was typically around 10:30!!!).  Brilliant.

But, prior to the wedding I had the chance to take a great trip up the northern coast with a good friend, Nigel, to both the Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, the Dunluce Castle, and pit stops for fish & chips and ice cream.  It was a brilliant day, complete with weather warm enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt, hike steep hills along the coast line, roll down the window to let the salty air coarse through the flanging fingers, and neither get too hot or cold.  On top of that Nigel let me drive his car, giving me my first opportunity to drive on the left side of the road!  Altough the Antrim coastline is amazing and world renowned, driving on the left side of the road had to be one of the major highlights of my trip!!!  If anyone knows me they know that I consider driving to be an art form, and take every chance I can to continue developing my love of the practice.  So, thanks Nigel, it was great!

And, now on to some photos from the trip:

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Above you can see the rope bridge, which we walked across and looked below…

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…and took a bit to enjoy the view of the Northern coast

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I was surprised by how green and clear the water was.  I think I was assuming it would be similar to the Pacific, but was way off! (below)

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Above is part of the Giant’s Causway.  The formations are from lava that tumbled into the sea, and there are similar formations across the sea on the coast of Scotland.  Thus it is believed the landmark was formed by a giant.  Below you can see the afore mentioned castle.  The story goes that (back in the day) a dinner party was being hosted one evening, when the folks in the dining room heard a rumble in the kitchen.  As it turned out, the floor gave way and the back half of the castle tumbled into the sea, leaving one cook in a window ledge overhanging the ocean while sharpening a knife.  Although the rest of the structure had given way, ht

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For a free 5×7 of any of my photos, what song does the title of this post reference, who is the artist, and what town was it written in?

Belfast engagement…sneak peak

Along our walk we found this very old wall with a ladder for crossing…more coming soon!

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Northern Ireland…images from a NW photographer

Here is the first installment!  Due to very low internet locations the posts are not as often as I thought they would have been, but that’s not to say that the time here has been without adventure!  We’ve had a great time so far touring Belfast, the eastern seaboard, climbing among some of the mountains, and connecting with friends not seen for quite some time.  The engagement session will be coming later, but it was one of the only no-cloud sunny days in Ireland (they said you can count the number of days this nice on one hand!).  However, the light was harsh (as all you photographers can imagine), so we worked with what we got!

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Waiting for Bruce to pickup his rental car, the groom (Aidan) and I have a rest on the LEFT side of the road!

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Above, we had a picnic before hiking around Silent Valley in the mountains, and directly before the engagement session.

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Here we are sitting down to a great meal of Indian food at a Belfast restaurant called Indy.  This kicked off a small bachelor party for Aidan, of which a “clements-crawl” for coffee ensued directly after.

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And tonight a took a walk up the CRAZY NARROW road to see the sight from the hill above Aidan’s house in Dundonald, just outside of Belfast.  It was beautiful, but I did have to cut the walk short as we had to head out.  I’ll post more soon!

Going International…..images from a NW photographer

That’s right.  I leave (way too early) for Belfast.  This will officially kick off my debut as an international wedding photographer.  I’ll be posting as I go, and there will be a “late” engagement session the day after I arrive, so be watching for some fun photos!

Quaker Skate…

I’ve been having way too much fun with some good friends around town over at the Newberg Skate Park.  In some of my spare time I put together a quick video for fun, and thought I’d offer it for folks to see that I do more than photography.  You can watch it here.  You might want to let it fully load before beginning, as the file is large due to being HD video from my Canon 5D Mark II.  Enjoy!