Super Moon – Redmond

06. May 2012 · Comments Off on Super Moon – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Now I can tell you here a load of “stuff” about the Super Moon – trust me I looked it up.  But you probably won’t understand it (I know I didn’t) and of course it’s crashingly boring.  All you really need to know is that last night we had one and it’s really big.

Anyway I was sitting in the bonus room last night watching TV when Lisa came running in and said “wow the moon is big – you should take a picture”.  By now of course I had already posted my picture of the day, but I thought what the heck, how long can it take to photograph the moon?  So we paused our program and I went outside with the camera and tripod.

Well apparently, if you have never photographed the moon before it actually takes quite a long time.  The problem is that the moon is very bright (in the black sky) so the camera exposes for the moon and everything else is black.  Actually even the moon itself is blown out so all you see is a big white ball in a totally black sky.  Which is actually pretty crap!  So you have to under expose for the moon, but then you can’t see any clouds.

So you end up standing outside for around 40 minutes figuring out that the only way to get the picture I’m posting tonight is to HDR it (or really double expose it).  Basically you take two pictures, one of the clouds, and one of the moon and then you blend the two together.  And this is the result.

All I can say is thank goodness for Tivo, I didn’t miss a thing.

Greek mythology states that Atlas a Titan supported the heavens on his back.  This is Carters attempt – with a moon.  He looks good don’t you think?

Train – Snoqualmie

05. May 2012 · Comments Off on Train – Snoqualmie · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

During in the week a work colleague (Jan) suggested I check out the trains in Snoqualmie, he told me there was a flatbed trolly cart with a single tree growing on it. (At least I think that’s what he said).  So today I drove to Snoqualmie to see what I could find.

I’ve actually visited Snoqualmie before to take pictures but that was at the beginning of the year and it was a lot colder.  So it was nice to go back and walk around the trains in a t-shirt and enjoy the sunshine.

I parked in the town center and walked all the way back to the bridge and didn’t see Jan’s flatbed.  But in the process I got some great shots of the trains so it was a good day out.

Some of the trains have signs near them telling you all about them but for the yellow train in today’s picture I couldn’t find anything.  Now I should say here I’m definitely no train enthusiast but it was fun to photograph them.  Most of them are rusty and falling apart and I got some great shots of decaying metal (sounds odd I know but you’ll see what I mean when I post those images).  But today I thought I’d start with something that looks like a working train – even though I think it’s been a while since this train rode the rails.

Even though it was a nice day there weren’t too many people around so I got some cool shots without unwanted distractions.  Jan, I hope you like this picture, sorry it’s not what you wanted but hopefully you think it’s cool.

Carter decided tonight to give his friend a makeover, they started by painting nails.

Requests & Ideas

04. May 2012 · Comments Off on Requests & Ideas · Categories: General

Over the last couple of weeks something interesting has started to happen.  People have started coming to me with requests and ideas for pictures.  Some are ideas for serious pictures and some people suggest scenarios for the Halo guys.  This really couldn’t come at a better time – as I’m running out of ideas 🙂

I created a blog page to provide a location for you to suggest “Stuff” and give you guidance on what would be helpful.  You can go to the page here: http://blog.tonyseeley.com/?page_id=676

If you don’t know what to suggest today but come up with an idea in a weeks time, you can find this link under the Pages section on the right hand side of the blog.

So don’t be shy, make a suggestion, you never know, it may end up on the blog (and you’ll get all the credit).

Fruit – Pike Place Market

04. May 2012 · Comments Off on Fruit – Pike Place Market · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Pike Place Market is of course a food market and while it’s probably most famous for it’s fish, they also sell a lot of fruit, vegetables and flowers.  Most people tend to hang around the fish store by Rachel the pig waiting for that elusive shot where they guys throw the fish.  Trust me you can wait all day.  The people who work there actually get a little angry if you ask them to “perform”, they will just tell you to buy some fish (which I guess is fare enough)!  So instead I go the for other stalls to get some pictures.

They also have a number of clothes and art/craft stalls where you can by anything from woodcarvings and paintings to clocks and hats!  But these stalls are very small and I always feel a little uncomfortable standing there with a camera pointing at the sellers.

So that just leaves flowers, fruit and veg.  You can get some nice shots here, as the stalls are very big and well lit.  The food also looks fantastic, very appetizing with examples of food types cut open so you can see the quality of the produce.  A great example is below in today’s picture.  What’s more the people at these stores don’t mind you taking pictures, they sometimes even pose for you too.

Here I wanted to get in nice and close and used a very big aperture that had two benefits.  Firstly I it gave me more light into the camera (which is always good) and secondly it gave me a very narrow depth of field (so the fruit in the center is in focus and the edges around the fruit are not).  All in all a successful picture.

At work today I sent the guys to the stationary room to get some stuff.  Took them a while but they got me a new pen!

Pike Place Market – Seattle

03. May 2012 · Comments Off on Pike Place Market – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

You really can’t go to Pike Place Market without taking a picture of the famous market sign.  Most people take a shot facing Rachel the pig with the sign above them.  And in truth I took one of those pictures too and it looks great (you’ll probably see that later in the year) but I wanted to do something different for my first “Pike Place posting”.

So today’s image is a shot of Pike Place Market (and the sign) from the left hand side (next to the magazine and paper shop).  I liked the road going down to under the market and the fact that the cover on the right over the sidewalk leads the eye directly to the sign.  I think it would have been nicer if the car and the “dude” wasn’t there but you can’t have everything.

Of course having a blue sky helped this image but I think capturing the market from a different perspective hopefully catches the attention.  It was funny though that while there I tried several different angles.  One was from the floor outside a fruit and vegetable store.  I was lying on the floor (honestly) trying to compose the shot when someone knocked over a bucket with flowers in the store and the water started to run towards me.  There were loads of people shouting “Look out, you’re gonna get wet”.  Watching me rush to get up with camera bags and gear… I must have looked a right wally!

Carter found some moisturizer in the office and decided to make Master Chief’s body nice and soft!  I have no idea how he convinced Master Chief to let him do this.

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