Wooden Boats – Seattle

16. November 2012 · Comments Off on Wooden Boats – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

If you get the chance to visit the Pacifici Northwest you will find in the Seattle area a few large lakes.   Lake Washington is obvioulsy the one most people know about and for good reason.  Lake Washington is 22 miles long (at it’s extreme’s) it has a very large island in it’s middle (Mercer Island) and loads of people live on that, there are also a couple of major floating bridges that cross it, so it does tend to get all the attention.

While Lake Washington is big, there’s another lake between Lake Washington and Elliott Bay, Lake Union.  This lake is much smaller and is probably best know for it’s floating house boats, the subject of which appeared of course in Tom Hanks’ film “Sleepless in Seattle”.  Lake Union also has an official airport for sea planes, and if you go to it’s southern tip you can spend a lot of time watching planes take off and land – trust me it’s pretty cool.

If you do visit the southern point of Lake Union you will find South Lake Union Park (not very imaginatively named) and there you will find the Center for Wooden Boats. This is a small maritime museum that’s dedicated to the preservation and display of (wait for it) wooden boats.  This is actually a really cool place to visit, they have some great exhibits and loads of history and information about the boats on display.  You can also take a free public ride on a boat, learn to sail, rent a classic boat or take a boat building workshop!

While visiting myself I took loads of pictures, one of my favorites being this boat below.   Some of the boats there are in a poor state of repair but this one had been either really looked after or totally refurbished.  Now I’m no sailor but if I was I think I’d like a nice wooden sail boat with all the dark wood on the deck.  They look fantastic.

Carter had something in his teeth and Master Chief very kindly agreed to help him out.

Reflections – Bellevue

15. November 2012 · Comments Off on Reflections – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Here’s another shot from the park, this time (again) from before the sun went down.  I’ve already posted one picture that showed the large expanse of water above the waterfall, but I also shot this other shot taken from a different position.

Off to the side of the park is this tall apartment building and it was casting this great reflection in the water.  I just had to shoot this one!  Also behind the building the sun was casting this nice red sky.

As it was early there were still quite a few people walking around so this picture took some time and patience.  Having said that I never would have got a shot with nobody in it (there were too many people) so I had to take a few folks out with Photoshop.  There are a few things in this picture that I’m not that happy with (trash cans, park signs and even ghosts of people moving) and in truth if I spent a lot of time, I might be about to remove them.  But the issues are so small you probably wouldn’t even notice them if I didn’t call them out.

Other than the people in Photoshop I didn’t do too much processing on the final image.  A little sharpening and then a slight blur to provide a nice soft focus.

The boys had a great night playing Bingo.  After several hours they succeeded in winning nothing.

Night Park – Bellevue

14. November 2012 · Comments Off on Night Park – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I have to say I really enjoyed visiting the Bellevue Downtown Park.  Getting there just before sunset and staying until after the sun went down got me so many really nice images.  Tonights picture was obviously taken quite late.  The sun had completely gone down and the park was pretty empty.  The lights around the parks walking path had come on and it looked really pretty.

These scenes really area a gift, you literally just have to point the camera and everyone’s a winner.  In this one I again shot with a wide’ish lens so composed to have one of the big lights adding some foreground interest, I again went for the curved path taking you from just in front of the camera to round and out of the picture.  The tall building in the distance breaks up the sky and kind of gives you something at the end of the path.

My only regret is that I didn’t go to the path a month earlier, getting shots with more leaves on the trees would have been interesting, but then there’s always next year.  The good news is I only have a couple more of these to post and next week I’m off work all week and planning on going on a few trips out with the camera.

The guys found some glass at work to play with today.  Carter particularly liked his extra long arms behind the blue one.

City Reflection – Bellevue

13. November 2012 · Comments Off on City Reflection – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Here’s an interesting picture, again taken in the park just before the sun set.  Just above the waterfall is this large expanse of water which makes a great mirror for the city behind.  To capture this shot I had to set the tripod up on some stairs and I had people walking by looking at me like I was nuts as each leg of the tripod was a different length.  Anyway I composed the shot to get as much of the city reflection as possible.  Whenever I see water it’s all about the reflection.

I really liked the railing in the picture too, the way it get’s smaller and smaller into the distance really shows you how wide this water feature actually is.  The trees and buildings came out great as well in the water, you even get the sky color reflected too.  It’s interesting seeing how the sky nearest the horizon in both the sky and water is lighter and as you move higher and lower they both darken – I think that’s cool.

The only downside of this picture was that there was an ugly crane above the trees to the right of the picture.  This was also reflected in the image and was kind of unsightly.  So that had to go.  Other than that I didn’t have to do much else.  Applied a little tone mapping to bring out the shadows and applied a little soft focus to make it “dreamy”.

Carters got a new perspective on life, something that Lisa fully endorses.

Park Sunset – Bellevue

12. November 2012 · Comments Off on Park Sunset – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Tonight I thought I’d post another one of my park at sunset pictures.  This image was taken just after the sun had gone down over the trees, it hadn’t completely set yet as you can still see the orange glow in the distance, but the lights in the park had just come on.

As there was no direct sunlight it was a little darker in the park so I put the camera on a tripod and shot the image with a long exposure.  This was a really pretty scene, there were trees to my right leading down the path and the path was covered with fallen leaves.  The lights along the path also added to the ambiance providing a line of lights off into the distance.

At this end of the park, nearly every light had a couple of flags attached.  I really wanted one of these sets in the foreground to provide some near interest but had to take lots of shots as the flags kept blowing in the breeze and showed motion blur with the long exposure.  Then of course I’d get a good image and found someone had walked into shot!  Very frustrating.  But eventually I got the image I wanted.

For the composition I wanted the entire flag in the foreground in the frame and some of the leaves visible on the floor.  I also wanted the path to wind from center round to the left, this is kind of a leading line, so called as it leads the eye.  Hopefully you look at the image and follow the path around the bend and are left wondering where it goes.  Ideally there’s some payoff at the end of the a leading line, something the line takes you to, but the park didn’t really have anything.

The lights around the path threw a nice orange glow into the trees and the blue sky above the setting sun added a nice color to the image.  Ideally the nearest lamp would have been in line with the sun (that would have been cool) but the sun actually set off to the right hand corner.  So quite a lot happening in this image, and I’m really pleased with the end result.

When I started photography a few years ago I’d occasionally get some really nice pictures.  In hindsight this was more down to luck than anything else.  I didn’t consider the composition as I took the shot.  I didn’t look in each corner to make sure there were no distractions and what I wanted in frame was there.  I guess I was so excited about getting the subject in I didn’t look at what else was going on.  So I got some nice pictures but a lot of bad ones too.  These days I take a lot longer composing the image, making sure I think through what I’m trying to capture.  The result is a much higher percentage of nice pictures.  Today’s image is a great example, I walked through everything I have written above in the view finder before I pressed the shutter.

Tonight Master Chief was showing Carter his new winter hat.  Apparently it’s very warm, but visibility is pretty poor.

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