Night Skyline – Seattle

09. June 2012 · Comments Off on Night Skyline – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

You have to be careful going out after dark with a camera as you can get overly addicted to these kind of night shots.  I drove to Seattle to get a neon image of Pike Place at night and decided to drive around town after to see what I could find.  I went down to the waterfront to shoot some of the piers and went looking for somewhere to park.

Across the road from the waterfront is the Seattle Alaskan Way Viaduct.  This carries the SR 99 from north to south Seattle and is soon going to be torn down.  Under the viaduct (or really just past under the viaduct) is a car park.  I pulled in, to park the car so I could go and shoot the piers and thought the city buildings looked great.  So I grabbed this shot.  As it was pretty late there weren’t too many people walking around but as you can see there were still some cars left.

Ironically, I liked this shot more than the piers I photographed, so I thought I’d post it tonight.

This is a long exposure with a small aperture which gives me the star looking lights and brings out the night blue sky.

Had to do some home improvements this weekend, the Halo guys stepped in to help out and stopped for a picture!

Downtown – Bellevue

28. May 2012 · Comments Off on Downtown – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Last night Lisa and I went out for dinner with some friends without kids.  Oh it was lovely, no telling people off, being worried about bad behavior or getting frustrated with James and Abi, just a nice dinner and drinks and then some people watching and some very bad pool at “The Parlor” (a posh pool hall, bar and comedy club).

Maybe I’m getting old (well OK I’m definitely getting old) but some of the sights we saw were just hysterical.  It would be inappropriate of me to make fun of the afflicted (and I mean the worst dress sense I have ever seen) but some people just should not wear belly shirts and low cut tops – you know who you are…

Also I learnt that to be trendy I need to get a hat, as most of the “young dudes” that were going clubbing had a hat on.  Of course I could chose to not wear a hat and be untrendy, which is where I’m leaning as, the guys with the hats on looked ridiculous!  I mean what is it the 1950s?

Anyway I’m drifting again.  While we were out we were talking to our friends (Cameron and Kathryn) about the picture a day postings and how we spend all our time looking for something interesting to shoot.  And here we were standing on this foot bridge overlooking Bellevue town center with a great view.  Somebody (it wasn’t me) said “what about taking a picture of that” pointing to the crossroads.  So tonight I went back with my camera and grabbed some shots.

I really love the sky in these pictures, it really was that blue (no Photoshop honest).  There was a little traffic on the road so I took a number of shots with long exposures to capture some of those light trails (Lisa likes those).  And I think the image came out OK.  Needless to say I’m now gonna be driving around at night looking for interesting intersections, so if you see me wave.

It was Abi’s birthday party today and she wanted cupcakes instead of the big birthday cake.  They went down well with Carter and Master Chief.

Lake Union – Seattle

09. May 2012 · Comments Off on Lake Union – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Lake Union is a fresh water lake that sits between Lake Washington and Puget Sound.  On the north shore of Lake Union is Gasworks Park which provides a fantastic view of downtown Seattle which is directly opposite on the other side of the lake.

I guess the thing that Lake Union is most famous for, is that this is where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed.  In fact the house boat that the male lead Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) lived in was on Lake Washington.

When you visit Seattle you can go on the “Duck Tours” which are amphibious World War II vehicles that take you round Seattle showing you all the local sites and end up going into Lake Union.  They actually take you past the house boats and tell you that after the film these homes became supper popular.  One reason being they don’t pay property tax (as they are classed as boats).  Apparently the city of Seattle was concerned they were losing money so now there is a limit on the number of house boats on the lake.

Today’s picture was taken from Gasworks Park right by the waters edge.  There was this small wall that had graffiti on it – something you don’t see much around Seattle.  Anyway I thought it looked cool with the painted wall in the bottom of the picture, the choppy water in the center and the Seattle skyline at the top.

Today Carter was caught enjoying his secret passion – reading “Reality Weekly”.

Seattle Skyline – Seattle

03. March 2012 · Comments Off on Seattle Skyline – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Late posting today but I just made it (by 12 minutes).  Lisa and Abi went out this eventing to see a friend complete in the Miss Seattle Pageant and James and I were left at home.  I figured if the girls can go out and have some fun, then the boys can too.  So James and I jumped in the car and went to Seattle.  I grabbed the picture below and we went for dinner at the Metropolitan – fantastic steak if you ever get the chance.

This shot is taken overlooking downtown Seattle in a rather “dodgy” area.  James and I forced marched from a car park to the spot where I took the shot, took the picture real quick and ran back to the car – how sad is that!  Anyway it came out ok (especially as it was a rush job).

On the way home we drove past Pike Place Market and it was all lit up, I’m definitely going back to catch a night shot of that.  Anyway here is todays picture.

Carter found some bubbles tonight and I caught him playing with them, here is the shot.

Seattle Skyline – Alki Seattle

30. January 2012 · Comments Off on Seattle Skyline – Alki Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Not a great day for a picture.  Still raining with grey sky’s etc., so I thought a black and white skyline shot was in order.

For this I visited Alki Beach in West Seattle.  Alki is on the peninsular that’s directly opposite Seattle Down Town on the other side of Elliott Bay.  This is a great place to roller blade or bicycle and is scattered with coffee shops and restaurants.  (Our favorite place is Salty’s that overlooks the water).

This shot was taken right by Salty’s and as there was a lot of traffic in Elliott Bay I had to wait for an opening to get the city.  That said you can see the Ferry coming in from Bainbridge Island.  As it was just getting dark the city lights are starting to come on and it adds a nice collection of lights to the image.

Abi has hundreds of these “Littlest Pet Shop” Toys (and I mean hundreds) here they ganged up on our Halo heroes.

Surrounded
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