Entertaining friends

The guitar is the most popular musical instrument on the Square. I’ve seen hundreds of guitar players strumming away over the last year. They are usually sitting alone, playing music with nobody listening. The guitar player I saw today was different. He did something very cool. He brought his own audience. I joined them for a while and listened. His music won’t be hitting the charts anytime soon, but I enjoyed listening.

Farmer's Market at the Square

On Monday's through the summer, nearly 60 local farmers and food artisans take root in downtown Portland, 'bringing the best of the country to the heart of the city.'

Hop-on, Hop-off

Gray Line has a new Portland tour originating at Pioneer Courthouse Square. It’s called the Hop-on Hop-off Portland Trolley Tour. Purchase tickets at the Square and board the bus. It takes you to twelve stops. They include Washington Park, Oregon Zoo, Convention Center and OMSI. Passengers can hop-off at any stop, and hop-on when they want to move to the next stop. The trolley’s run from 9:30 am until 5:20 pm. Phone 503-241-7373 for reservations.

"Square People" is one year old

To help celebrate the anniversary of “Square People,” I invited Karen I. Westphalen to join me today for a cup of coffee. She was the first person I photographed and featured on this blog, on June 22, 2010. When I got to the square that day, I had no idea what to expect. I knew the Square was a really fun place and I wanted to do the blog, but I wasn’t sure if there were enough things going on to keep people interested. The first person I ran into was Karen. She had a kooky sign and a microphone, and told me she was there to record people’s answers to a “Question of the Week,” and post the responses on her website. She said it was her first day at the Square. I thought, wow, this is a cool story and asked if I could photograph the first person she interviewed. She said yes, and I photographed the interview, and published her story as my first blog post. When I saw the post on the Internet, I realized that I would have no problem finding interesting happenings at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Over the past year, Karen has completed several other recording projects. To see Karen’s post, click this link. http://squarepeople.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-person-showed-up-today.html

First day of summer

Canada didn't sell

As the sale of flower countries all over the globe wound down late Friday afternoon, the majority of Canada hadn’t sold. Workers were boxing it up and preparing to remove it from the Square (top photo). This really surprises me, because it’s such a beautiful country. Square People photo-blog gets a lot of page views from Canada, and I want to apologize for not selling their entire country. On the other hand, the United States nearly sold out, all that was left was put on a pallet (middle photo), and donated to someone. In the end the only thing left to do was sweep up the last few pieces of the world and wait for the next event. Goodbye, Festival of Flowers. People from all over the world had a terrific time viewing and photographing this beautiful floral design.

Countries for sale

There’s a gigantic land grab going on at the Square. People are buying pieces of countries all over the world, on a first come, first served basis. The eastern half of the United States was already gone today by 12:30 pm. I saw a man buy all of Panama for $16.60 [just kidding]. Seriously, the only part of the world that will be left in a couple of day’s, will be the Sahara Desert. Get down there before it’s too late, and get a great deal on all those beautiful plants from your favorite country.

Flowers on Facebook (Part 2)

There are a couple of things about the Festival of Flowers that amazes me. First, this year’s design, You Are Here, created by local artist Bill Will is stunning to look at. It features the continents of the world, with the various countries in brilliant colors. The more you look at it, the more fascinating it gets. Second, is the number of people, shooting photographs. We all know about the explosion of photography on mobile devices. What’s different about this event; is the number of photographs being taken. Thousands of these photographs and videos are being posted on Facebook and viewed all over the world. It is mind boggling to think about.

Flowers on Facebook

I’ve never seen so many cameras on the Square, as I have since the opening of the Festival of Flowers. The ten photos in this post were shot in less than thirty minutes. Many of the people I talked to say they were posting them on Facebook. When I got home I did a few simple mathematic calculations. Based on the two weeks the festival runs and my estimate of the number of photos taken, I came to this conclusion. By the time the festival ends, 46 million friends, friends of friends and friends of friends, friends will see photos of the festival on Facebook. Wow that’s impressive!

Thanks South Korea

I’m honoring South Korea on the blog today. Since I started the blog, people from over forty countries around the world have viewed it. Second to the USA, South Korea holds the top spot with 125 page views. Since the continents of the world make up the design of this year’s Festival of Flowers, I decided to search out and photograph South Korea to thank the people from that country who have viewed Square People. Thanks, South Korea!

Life is good

After a few warm days on the Square the “lunch bunch” is back in force. Since they have plenty of leftover food, the pigeons have joined them. Life on the Square is definitely getting better for everyone, especially the blogger!

Festival of Flowers

This year’s Festival of Flowers design, You Are Here, created by local artist Bill Will, encourages visitors to look beyond our own geographic borders with the installation of a colossal map of the world using more than 20,000 colorful potted flowers. The two-week display at the Square will culminate with the annual flower sale kicking off June 15th offering a wide variety of plants including salvia, impatiens, lobelia, begonias, vegetables, herbs, grasses and more starting at only $.83 each!