Increasing Bluesky Post Image Size Limit · bluesky-social atproto · Discussion #4832 The app.bsky.embed.images lexicon currently limits image blobs to at most 1 MByte (one million bytes). @estrattonbailey is planning to increase this to 2 MByte (two million bytes). We will do this ...

Bluesky's image quality will be increasing soon!

Image uploads of 2mb (up from 1mb) and a maximum resolution of 4000x4000 (up from 2000x2000).

A wide, sun-washed view of Bonneville Dam spanning the Columbia River at golden hour. The left half of the sky is almost pure white from the low sun, fading to a pale, cool blue toward the upper right. In the middle distance, the dam reads as a long, low band of industrial geometry: a straight line of concrete and steel with a dense grid of rails and truss-like framing along the top. Several tall transmission towers punctuate the scene, including a slender lattice tower on the far left and a cluster of bulkier, red-and-white towers to the right, with power lines draped in gentle arcs between them. The river fills the foreground, its surface silvery and softly rippled, reflecting the bright sky; near the lower left, darker swells and faint wave texture break the sheen. On the right bank, a strip of trees and shrubs glows yellow-green in backlight, with hints of autumn gold and a few small buildings tucked near the shoreline. Behind the dam, layered hills rise in hazy silhouettes, their edges softened by mist and the warm glare, giving the whole scene a quiet, atmospheric feel despite the massive infrastructure. Bonneville Dam was constructed in the 1930s (1933–1938) and originally included a long spillway, a powerhouse, and a navigation lock, part of a major push to improve river navigation and generate hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest.

Dam Daniel

I used to work for BPA, though at their HQ and not the dam, and sadly never made it out for the employee tours.

Incredible shot.

A wide, sun-washed view of Bonneville Dam spanning the Columbia River at golden hour. The left half of the sky is almost pure white from the low sun, fading to a pale, cool blue toward the upper right. In the middle distance, the dam reads as a long, low band of industrial geometry: a straight line of concrete and steel with a dense grid of rails and truss-like framing along the top. Several tall transmission towers punctuate the scene, including a slender lattice tower on the far left and a cluster of bulkier, red-and-white towers to the right, with power lines draped in gentle arcs between them. The river fills the foreground, its surface silvery and softly rippled, reflecting the bright sky; near the lower left, darker swells and faint wave texture break the sheen. On the right bank, a strip of trees and shrubs glows yellow-green in backlight, with hints of autumn gold and a few small buildings tucked near the shoreline. Behind the dam, layered hills rise in hazy silhouettes, their edges softened by mist and the warm glare, giving the whole scene a quiet, atmospheric feel despite the massive infrastructure. Bonneville Dam was constructed in the 1930s (1933–1938) and originally included a long spillway, a powerhouse, and a navigation lock, part of a major push to improve river navigation and generate hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest.

Dam Daniel

Then my work here is done.

Voyeur-like view through a basement window into Hippo Hardware in Portland, Oregon. The foreground is partially obscured by graffiti painted on the window, forming soft, out-of-focus dark shapes and vertical streaks across the scene. Through the clearer gaps, the interior glows with warm amber light, with gentle halos around bulbs and reflective surfaces. Inside, the room is densely packed with salvaged hardware and architectural pieces. Overhead, mismatched light fixtures hang close together; metal chandeliers with curved arms, glass shades, and bare bulbs; suspended among beams, cords, and shelves. In the middle of the room, a lone white bathtub sits on the floor, its smooth enamel surface catching the light so it becomes the brightest, cleanest shape in the frame. Around it, the floor and tables are crowded with dark metal parts, boxy machines, stacked drawers and bins, and scattered tools. Along the back wall, window frames and doors lean in layers, including one panel with a simple geometric diamond pattern. The overall texture feels like a collage of glossy enamel, dusty metal, rough wood, and chipped paint; an organized chaos of reused building history. Hippo Hardware was established in 1976 and is known for selling both new and salvaged architectural hardware, lighting, plumbing fixtures, and other reclaimed building materials.

Bathing in Maximalism

Golden, late-day sunlight breaks through a thick ceiling of storm clouds over the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon coast. The horizon line runs straight across the middle of the frame, dividing sky and sea. Above the horizon, the clouds are layered in broad, soft bands: deep slate-blue and charcoal at the top, then a brighter opening near the center where the sun is hidden behind thinner cloud. From that opening, pale yellow beams spill downward in faint vertical shafts, like translucent curtains of light. The glow spreads outward into a warm, creamy patch that fades to cooler gray-blue toward the edges of the sky. Below, the ocean is dark and textured, with small choppy waves and rippling ridges that catch occasional silvery highlights. Near the left edge, a low swell crests into a smudge of white foam. The overall mood is dramatic but calm; cool storm tones interrupted by a single, radiant window of light. These visible shafts are called crepuscular rays; alternating bands of light and shadow created when the low sun shines through gaps in clouds.

Horizon

Nighttime street scene in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood during heavy rain. The image is dim and grainy, with bright headlight glare and wet reflections. Rain falls in thick, slanted streaks that become most visible where they cross the beams, turning into a glittering curtain. The pavement shines like black glass; puddles and rough patches catching sharp white highlights. At center-left, a TriMet bus stop shelter forms a dark rectangular outline beneath a leafless street tree. The tree’s bare branches spread overhead like a dense web, each twig glistening with water. Inside the shelter, a man sits hunched forward on the bench, mostly in silhouette. The strongest light comes from the car headlights to the right, which illuminate the rain and edge-light the shelter, tracing the man’s outline and the shelter frame. A large trash can stands nearby, a black garbage bag on top slick with water. On the right, a car faces the camera, headlights flaring into soft halos through the rain. The beams spill across the street, creating a bright, jagged ribbon of reflection along the curb. Farther back, storefront lights and building shapes fade into the misty darkness. Portland’s wet season is long enough that the normal annual precipitation is about 44 inches, with much of it falling from late fall through spring.

Give Me Shelter

🙏🏻

Twilight view from the Historic Columbia River Highway in the Columbia River Gorge, looking northwest from Oregon toward Washington. The foreground is mostly in shadow: dark evergreen silhouettes rise on the left, their needle-filled branches forming jagged, lace-like edges against the sky. On the right, a closer cluster of leaves and branches is softly blurred, creating a dark vignette that frames the scene. Beyond the trees, the Columbia River curves through the middle distance like a wide ribbon of dim silver, reflecting the last light. Low ridgelines and the Washington side of the Gorge stack into layered silhouettes; near hills are deep blue-black, while farther contours fade into softer gray as the air thickens with dusk. The sky is the brightest element: a smooth gradient that shifts from warm peach and orange near the horizon to lavender and then cool blue higher up. Thin, horizontal cloud bands stretch across the upper half, like brushstrokes. The overall mood is quiet and spacious, with the river and sky providing gentle light while the forest remains a near-black outline. The Historic Columbia River Highway was constructed between 1913 and 1922 and is widely considered America’s first scenic highway; designed to showcase the Gorge’s landscapes and waterfalls, earning nicknames like “King of Roads” and “A Poem in Stone.”

Gorge Gradient

Golden-hour view along the deck of the Fivemile Butte Lookout Tower in Mt. Hood National Forest. The camera looks down a narrow wooden walkway that runs beside the lookout cab. Weathered deck boards stretch into the distance in parallel lines, and the low railing on the left, dark, rough-grained wood,creates a strong leading edge toward a corner platform with a wire-mesh guardrail. On the right, the lookout’s exterior wall fills the frame: pale trim and vertical siding, with a row of tall, multi-pane windows. The glass reflects the surrounding evergreens and the brightening sky, layering faint tree silhouettes over the darker interior. Warm sunlight rakes across the deck and window frames, creating long, soft shadows and a honeyed glow on the wood. Beyond the railing, dense conifers drop away, their tops forming an uneven green horizon against a cool, lightly clouded sky. The site was established as a Forest Service lookout in the 1920s; the current structure is a later rebuild (a flat-top R-6 style lookout), and the tower sits at about 4,627 feet elevation.

Golden Hour Memory

Seriously serene.

Wide winter landscape from the snowy southern flank of Mount Hood, looking south toward Mount Jefferson on the horizon. The foreground is filled with evergreen trees heavily coated in fresh snow; branches sag under thick, powdery layers that soften each needle into rounded, lumpy shapes. A smooth, unbroken blanket of snow covers the ground at the bottom edge of the frame. Beyond the trees, the land drops into a dark forested basin where low fog and cloud bands pool between ridges like pale, horizontal rivers. Mount Jefferson rises in the distance as a sharp, triangular silhouette with a broader base and a pointed summit, its slopes faintly dusted and rim-lit against the brighter sky. The scene feels very still, with the mountain sitting centered slightly left of the horizon line. The sky dominates the top half: a cold gradient from deep blue overhead to a thin, warm strip of peach and gold near the horizon, suggesting dawn or dusk. Wispy, stretched clouds form long brushstrokes across the middle of the sky, and a small bright crescent moon hangs high above the mountains. Mount Jefferson is Oregon’s second-highest peak and a Cascade stratovolcano; it’s the only major volcanic center in the U.S. part of the Cascades that hasn’t erupted in the past 10,000 years.

Frozen Beauty

It's such a striking sculpture too.

Really pleased with this shot.

Monochrome, front-facing photo of the Portland Art Museum’s Mark Rothko Pavilion, with a single vivid element in color: a large circular sculpture in shimmering gold. The building behind it is rendered in cool grays; tall glass panels with narrow vertical mullions form a neat grid like ruled paper. Reflections and silhouettes faintly appear in the windows, including a small crowd on an upper level. The gold sculpture dominates the frame, centered like a halo. It’s a rough ring made to look like thick tree limbs bent into a circle; its surface uneven, knotted, and cracked, with short branch stubs and splintered nubs sticking out at irregular angles. The gilding catches light in bright highlights and duller, brushed patches, emphasizing the bark-like texture. Inside the ring, at ground level, a family stands at the pavilion’s revolving doors, their coats and figures small beneath the massive circle. Through the glass entry, more people are visible inside as soft, dark shapes. On the right side of the entrance, a sign reads “THE MARK ROTHKO PAVILION.” In the lower foreground, wet pavement and scattered outdoor café chairs and tables sit empty, their thin metal frames forming a low tangle of lines beneath the golden arc. Ugo Rondinone’s “the sun” (2018) is made from tree branches arranged into a ring, cast in bronze, and then gilded; installed on the pavilion’s west plaza as a signature outdoor work.

Sun Portal

Thank you! It’s a great city and has always felt like home to me.

Elevated rooftop view of Portland’s Union Station on a wet, overcast day. The station’s red, metal-tiled roofs dominate the lower half of the frame, forming a patchwork of steep triangles and ridgelines. The surfaces look slick from rain, with faint highlights along the seams and skylight panels. At the far left, the square clock tower rises above the roofline; its upper section is trimmed in dark wood and painted details, with bold white letters reading “UNION STATION” wrapped around the tower. A round clock face sits below the sign, and a flagpole tops the steep, red roof cap. Beyond the station, Old Town and downtown buildings stack into the distance in muted grays and browns. The skyline fades into low cloud and mist from an atmospheric river: edges soften, windows lose definition, and the tallest towers appear partially erased. Near center, “Big Pink” (the U.S. Bancorp Tower) is visible but dissolving into the cloud deck; its upper floors paling until the top disappears. Union Station opened on February 14, 1896, and its landmark clock tower is about 150 feet tall with a four-sided Seth Thomas clock.

Winter Union

Same Paula, I appreciate your presence here.

Happy New Year! 🎊

Thank you! Happy New Year to you too. 🤘🏻

Close-up of Viburnum farreri blossoms against a dark, velvety background. Three small clusters of flowers stretch across the center like a loose garland. Each bloom is tiny and star-shaped with five rounded white petals, slightly cupped, and a pinpoint center. Many flowers sit on slender, pale pink tubes, and several unopened buds are deeper pink, shaped like little beads at the tips. The blossoms in the middle are sharpest, while the cluster at the lower left and a faint cluster high in the background blur into soft bokeh, giving the image a quiet, floating feel. The surrounding branches and leaves are mostly lost to shadow, appearing only as muted brown-green smudges. Overall color is cool and subdued; white petals and blush-pink stems hovering in front of a charcoal-gray backdrop. Viburnum farreri is prized for its strong fragrance and for flowering very early; often in winter in mild climates, with pink buds opening to white blooms before the leaves appear.

Viburnum farreri

A quiet restaurant interior seen through a wooden partition in the foreground, which blurs into warm brown streaks along the top and right edges like a soft frame. Tall, floor-to-ceiling windows line the left wall in a grid of dark metal mullions; outside, the street looks damp and gray, with faint reflections and a yellow pedestrian crossing sign visible through the glass. Near the center, a man sits alone at a table, head tilted down in focused thought as he studies an open menu held in both hands. He has light hair and a full beard, and wears a pale, cream-colored sweatshirt. On the table are clear water glasses that catch window light, a tall glass bottle, and small dark condiment bottles; the tabletop reflects a dim sheen. The background recedes into a darker dining area with many empty chairs and tables arranged in rows. Two large white dome pendant lamps hang overhead, glowing softly, with a smaller round light behind them. A few other diners sit farther back, out of focus, contributing to a calm, contemplative mood.

Choices

Yes, via the Lower Macleay Trailhead.

Moss-covered stone ruins known as the Stone House (often nicknamed the “Witch’s Castle”) in Portland’s Forest Park. The photo is centered on a short flight of wet concrete steps that climb toward a low, triangular stone facade. Thick green moss and lichen blanket the rocks like shaggy carpet, rounding the edges of the walls and growing in tufts along the sloped top edge. At the top of the steps, the central wall is painted with bright graffiti: a square, cartoon-like face with two spiral blue eyes, a blocky yellow-and-white forehead, and a wide red mouth. Other spray-painted marks; teal, red, orange, and black, scatter across the surrounding stones. To the left is a small square window opening with a rough stone sill; to the right is a large arched opening, dark inside, with wedge-shaped stones radiating like a fan around the curve. Ferns and damp leaves cling to the lower right wall, and the surrounding forest presses in with dark conifers and bare branches. Despite the spooky nickname, the Stone House was built in the 1930s as the Macleay Park Shelter/comfort station (restroom and related park facilities). After the 1962 Columbus Day Storm damaged it and destroyed the water line, the city chose not to repair it, and it was left to weather into the mossy ruin seen today.

Temple Run

I am grateful for it. Love you brother Void.

A silver lining is that the universe keeps synchronistically putting the right souls on my healing path.

Made a new photographer friend on December 24th and went on a spontaneous Forest Park photowalk.

Photowalk with a friend at the Rhododendron Gardens tomorrow morning.

I could use some hope in this moment.

Going through a dark time of my soul.

Three friends stand under the covered entrance of Pioneer Place mall in downtown Portland, framed by dark structural columns and a deep overhang that creates a sheltered pocket from the rain. Above them, large brass letters spelling the mall’s name hang suspended near the ceiling line, catching faint light and reading as warm metallic shapes against the dim structure. Outside the overhang, the day is wet and gray; the brick sidewalk looks slick and slightly reflective, and the street beyond is damp. Two of the friends wear red-and-white Santa hats with fluffy white trim. The person at left wears a deep maroon sweater and light jeans, with a black backpack slung over their shoulders; they stand in profile, angled toward the group. In the middle, a friend wears a bright patterned holiday sweater dominated by red, with bands of white shapes and green accents; they hold a phone at chest height as if checking directions or a message while making an excited facial expression. The third friend stands with their back mostly to the camera, wearing a navy jacket, vivid red-orange pants, and a large black backpack; they face outward toward the rain like a lookout. Across the road, the background falls softly out of focus: a strip of green lawn, dark evergreen trees, and pale building walls, giving the scene a quiet, wintry feel. The image emphasizes the contrast of festive reds and knit textures against the cool, rainy city tones. Pioneer Place is a major downtown shopping center that occupies four city blocks and originally opened in 1990.

🎅🏻

Good eye.

That’s a vibe read for sure.