Mount Si – North Bend

08. May 2012 · Comments Off on Mount Si – North Bend · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Over the weekend I visited North Bend, again just looking for things to photograph and found myself driving towards Mount Si.  Now I could have just photographed the mountain (in fact I did a couple of times) and, well, it didn’t look that impressive.  To get the whole mountain into the frame I had to use a wide angle lens and when you do that you get a lot in but distant objects look smaller.  I did want all the mountain in the picture so I needed something in the foreground to make the image interesting.  Then I found this small lake.

I really liked the way the trees reflected in the water and the sky had a great red, warm glow, so while the picture was originally about Mount Si, it kind-a took a back seat in the finished composition.

So what can I tell you about Mount Si?  Well it’s part of the Cascade Range, it was named after some homesteader called Josiah “Uncle Si” Merritt, it has a 4 mile trail going up 3,500 feet and the best bit, if you are old like me, you will have seen it in Twin Peaks!  Yes, Twin Peaks was filmed in North Bend with Mount Si in the background and this is where Agent Cooper had his excellent Cherry Pie.  How educational is my site – Fantastic!

Carter and Master Chief were shocked to find some Halo figurines at work today, I guess it was inevitable that they would find these at Microsoft, but Carter was definitely surprised.

Harbor – Carillon Point

25. April 2012 · Comments Off on Harbor – Carillon Point · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

As promised I don’t want to post tulip pictures every night (even through I have enough for the rest of the year), so tonight I’m having a break and posting this image of the harbor at Carillon Point.  Today has been a rainy day and pretty grey outside, so this image reminded me of the sun we had last week and what’s to come.

Lisa, James, Abi and I drove to Carillon to see if we could get any nice pictures and we did well.  The white puffy clouds against the blue sky looked great and there were not too many boats in the harbor.  You can’t see it but Seattle is on the other side of the lake.

I’m waiting for a clear night as I want to go back and see if those street lamps light up and look any good when it gets dark.  I think a similar shot at night, maybe even with moonlight would look very cool.

However, enjoy this break as tomorrow it’s back to tulips.

Carter and Master Chief got scared by something at work today and I found them running away.

Carillon Boat – Kirkland

13. April 2012 · Comments Off on Carillon Boat – Kirkland · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So last week Lisa, James, Abi and I went to Carillon Point to see what we could photograph.  It was (as you can see in the picture) a lovely day and many of the boats that are normally moored at the harbor where out on Lake Washington.

Right on the water front at Carillon is the Woodmark Hotel.  This is a really nice place to stay and there is a great story about a film I made at this hotel for a team morale event.  But I’ll have to save that for my memoirs (I’d get in trouble at work if I spilled the beans now), but the hotel is really nice.  So nice in fact that they have their own boat that you can use to ferry you across Lake Washington from Kirkland to Seattle.

As luck would have it we happened to see the boat coming back into dock and the boat is really cool.  It’s covered in polished wood and I checked out what the guy who was driving it was doing after he moored up (do you drive a boat? I don’t know).  He was polishing and cleaning the cabin! Very sad.

Anyway I liked this shot of the boat coming in and thought I’d post it as my picture of the day.

Here you can see how Carter and Master Chief have to rough it when it comes to lunch rations at Microsoft!

Carillon Point – Kirkland

06. April 2012 · Comments Off on Carillon Point – Kirkland · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Today was a very odd day.  I actually took the day off work to spend it with the family and we planned on going to the Seattle Aquarium.  We finally got James out of bed at 11am and headed off to Seattle.  It was a lovely day and we arrived in the city without issue, then we tried to park.  It appears that everybody in the Pacific Northwest decided to also drive to town and we spent over an hour trying to park.

Eventually, after much frustration we decided to just give up.  There were road works everywhere and just getting from street to street was a real pain.  So while stationary at some stop lights we talked about somewhere else to go.  As we have never been to Gas Works Park before, we thought we’d go there.  So Lisa punched that into her sat-nav and off we went.  We got to the I5 and headed north and drove right past the exit we needed.  What made things worse was that the traffic on the other side of the freeway wasn’t moving and we had to drive a few miles before we got the chance to turn around!

By now James had decided he was hungry and wanted to go to Taco Bell.  So we pulled off the freeway and started looking for some food.  Eventually we found the restaurant and went in for some lunch where I took a picture of a taco which I very nearly posted tonight!  Of course by this stage we were hysterically laughing, this was turning into a terrible day off!

On the way home I was worried about what I was going to post so Lisa suggested Carillon Point in Kirkland.  It was on our way home so off we went.

It was still really sunny and there was a great blue sky and the clouds looked fantastic.  So when we got there I made sure I captured lots of sky in all my shots.  I actually took loads of pictures and decided to post this one tonight.

This image shows the pier that wraps around the harbor.  The water was really calm and the sky looked great.  In all a nice shot.

Today Carter unboxed his new Nokia Lumia 900, he said he loves it and it’s much better than the cups and string he was playing with the other day.

Lake Washington Waterfront – Kirkland

17. March 2012 · Comments Off on Lake Washington Waterfront – Kirkland · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

James and I had to go to Kirkland today to buy some shelving, and when we walked out of the store the sun came out.  We immediately (after quickly popping into Taco Bell for an excellent Crunch Wrap Supreme) headed down to the waterfront to see if we could get a nice picture for the day.

The sun wasn’t really going down yet but it was right in front of us above the water and there was blue sky above (that’s two days in a row).  There was a little girl playing on the rocks, picture right, so James and I enjoyed the sun until she buggered off.  Then I took the shot below.  Walking back to the car I took several other shots of the sky – I know this sounds lame but when you live in the Pacific North West and you have gray skies for so long, you tend to get a bit emotional when you see blue above you.  Anyway, it will probably be gone tomorrow and I wanted some other pictures to remind me of what it looked like.

A year ago nobody would go out with me if I wanted to take any pictures, apparently I was phenomenally slow and amazingly boring (James’ and Lisa’s words not mine), but since I’ve been doing this “picture a day” thing, I’ve learnt to shoot miles faster.  No longer do I look confusingly at the camera wondering what aperture value or shutter speed I should select, it’s finally become second nature and I can see what I want and get the shot really quickly.  So why mention all this?  Well, firstly James was impressed with me today as I was so fast, but all these learnings mean nothing when you have some snotty kid jumping on the rocks in front of you.  I’m just saying…

Happy St. Patricks Day – ‘nough said.

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