The other day I posted an image of the Suspension Bridge at the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.  You find this 150′ bridge if you follow the “Ravine Experience” nature walk through the park.  Usually I take wide angle shots of structures like this so you can see the whole thing.  But lately I’m trying to find an alternative perspective (that’s a posh photography or “arty” way of saying a different or interesting view).

With modern cameras anyone can take a correctly exposed picture that’s in focus, in fact it’s quite hard not to.  But the difference between a holiday snap and a beautiful picture is all about reading, understanding and manipulating light and learning how to compose scenes that draw the eye in and either tell a story or leave the viewer with a strong emotion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting I’m good at this or know how to create those strangely compelling images that you can’t stop looking at, but I’m trying.  What’s funning is as I’m a total geek and cameras have so many knobs and buttons, sometimes I go so excited about the technology I forget the composition.

If nothing else, this New Years resolution has got me out of the house and forced me to take a LOT of pictures and I *think* I’m getting better.

I really liked this image.  You can clearly see this is a suspension bridge and you can see it’s surrounded by forest.  I liked the texture of the brick in the base pillar and to draw your eye to it I kept that in focus and made the rest of the bridge slowly fall out of focus.

Tonight Carter and Master Chief decided to do some ironing and we witnessed a terrible accident!