Snoqualmie River – Fall City

03. April 2012 · Comments Off on Snoqualmie River – Fall City · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Tonight on the way home I decided to check out Fall City on the Snoqualmie River.  Now, I come from the UK and there to be called a city you must have a cathedral.  So cities in England are big (and I mean really big).  The next size down from a city is a town and smaller still is a village.  Here in the US everything is a city so when you visit somewhere like Fall City for me (or any other Brit) is seems so small. (We would call this a village).

That said Fall City is very quaint.  You drive into the city and pass the library and a huge totem pole (yes a totem pole), then there is a line of shops and a bar, finally (after around 300 yards) you reach a bridge and your on your way out!  However, the road by the shops is right next to the Snoqualmie River and all along the river bank are blossom trees.  It’s all very pretty.

The grass by the river is called the River Side Park and in the park they have some stone sculptures that I captured in this photograph.  The Snoqualmie River is rich with salmon which is actually a pain!  Why is it a pain?  Well when we get snow we aren’t allowed to put any salt on the roads as it will kill the fish.  So to celebrate the salmon the sculpture is covered with fish.

This evening our Halo hero’s were testing their new communications device – apparently it’s even better than an iPhone!

Union Hill Ranch – Redmond

01. April 2012 · Comments Off on Union Hill Ranch – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Today’s posting is a little different as I had two pictures and couldn’t decide which “version” to post.  Let me explain what I mean.  Every day after work I drive home the same way and pass Union Hill Ranch which is around 3 miles from home.  The Ranch is surrounded by trees and has a large pond at it’s front by the road.  There is also a pond overflow that flows towards the road and looks like a mini waterfall.

Anyway I’ve often thought of pulling over and photographing this scene, as I like the trees and pond and the water run-away.

So the other day on the way home I stopped, grabbed the camera and took some shots.  When I got home and looked at the images they looked OK but not in my opinion great.  As a result I tried one of the pictures as a black and white and I felt it looked better.  After that I did what I do every night, I showed Lisa, James and Abi and asked them what they thought, only this time I showed them the color version and the black and white and asked them which one they liked best.

As you can imagine a discussion ensued that covered the pro’s and con’s of each image, the bottom line the family couldn’t decide which one was best and stated they liked them both.  I actually prefer the black and white but thought tonight I’d post both and let you decide.

I should point out (for those that don’t know) digital photographers typically shoot in color all the time and then post process the image if they want black and white, after in software.  While it’s true that most digital cameras have a black & white option or mode, I don’t like the way they process the image – they always look very flat to me, not having enough contrast.  So I always do this after the fact in Photoshop.

Anyway here are the two images, have a look and let me know which one you prefer, feel free to add a comment and vote or email me.

First the Black and White…


And then the color…


Tonight Carter and his mate decided they wanted to play a game of Chess.

Raging River Bridge – Fall City

25. March 2012 · Comments Off on Raging River Bridge – Fall City · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Today I decided to head out in the car and see what I could shoot.  I drove to Carnation, then on to Fall City, up to Preston and then down the i90 to Issaquah, then round Lake Sammamish to Redmond and finally on to home.

It was a lovely day for a drive and I had Howard Stern in the car and could probably have driven an extra 100 miles.  Anyway, when the scene caught my eye or the moment got me I’d pull over and take some pictures.

This is normally how it goes.  I rarely have a big plan or target destination, I just go out and see what I can find.  This means that sometimes I’m really lucky and get lots of images, and others it’s a disaster.

Today wasn’t too bad.  I was out for just over two hours and came home with four pictures I really like.  Obviously I took a lot more (70 today) but most don’t come out as I intended or I just don’t like them when I get home.

Today’s image was taken on the Fall City to Preston road.  Following along the road for most of the journey there is a river called the Raging River – cool name.  At one point the river goes under this green bridge and there is a spot by the road to pull over and easy access down to the riverbank.

So I parked up and went down to the river.  The water was moving pretty fast (well it would do I guess I mean it is called the “Raging River”), so there is a lot of motion blur in the shot in the water.  But that actually looks good I think, and gives the impression of water flowing.

To make these pictures look really good you need to slow your shutter down so the water takes on a misty sheen.  To do that you need something called a Neutral Density filter.  This is a dark piece of glass that you put in front on the lens.  It restricts light and lets you take a longer exposure (and consequently blurs the water further).  I don’t have the proper filter to do this yet, but it’s on my shopping list.  When I get one I’ll take more river pics and you’ll see the difference.

Either way this shot turned out pretty good so I thought this would be my first posting from today’s trip.

On the way home, in Issaquah, I passed a Krispy Kreme Donut shop (or Doughnut shop – if you want to spell it properly) and got a box of 12 for the family.  After dinner James went to get one and found the Halo guys tucking in!

Food Coloring – Home

26. February 2012 · Comments Off on Food Coloring – Home · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

As I mentioned yesterday the weather outside at the moment sucks, so until it gets better you had better start expecting images from around my house coz right now I’m not changing out of my PJs.

As I spent a fortune yesterday on a new fish tank (that was to be used for “artistic” pictures only – no fish in my house), I thought I’d better use it again.  So today I filled the tank up (again) set up my lights (again) and put the camera on a tripod (again).

This time instead of dropping slightly bruised fruit, Lisa dropped some food coloring into the tank.  You have to move pretty quickly when you do this as once the coloring is in, the water is shot and you have to change it if you want to do it again (assuming you didn’t get the shot you wanted of course).

Lisa actually had a few different colors and got quite excited with the effects she got.  So I took around 30 shots as she was dripping the coloring in and selected the one below to share.  One of the nice things about this is that every time you do it it’s different, you never get the same effect twice.

For Christmas Carter got this 1000 piece puzzle and put the last piece in tonight. To capture the moment I took this picture.

Strawberry Drop – Home

25. February 2012 · Comments Off on Strawberry Drop – Home · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Horrible day today, snow at home and really heavy rain when I went into town.  So I was wondering what should I photograph today.  Then it hit me, I really felt like dropping a strawberry into a fish tank.

I had two problems though, I didn’t have any strawberry’s and I didn’t have a fish tank.  So I went shopping.  I actually brought a new fish tank from Petco ($13 for a 2 foot fish tank – seriously), and got some strawberry’s from Fred Meyre.

I got home and set up this ridiculously complex scene with the fish tank full of water, two speed lights, one on either side of the fish tank and my mac tethered to the camera which was on a tripod.

Then Lisa started dropping the strawberry into the tank, it took us a couple of go’s to get our 3, 2, 1, now system working and the result is below.

I remember when my dad used to say “DON’T PLAY WITH THE FISH TANK”!  I’ll grant you I was 18 at the time, but now I can play with it all I want (That’s what she said!)

Lisa collected 50 boxes of girl scout cookies today.  Then all day we had people coming by to pick up their orders.  It appears that the Halo guys stole their own stash, this is what I found them doing this evening.

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