Today’s image is not going to be to everyone’s taste, but I like it (and so does Lisa) so up it goes.  This shot was taken in the Train Museum in Snoqualmie.  There were loads of trains there – all shapes and sizes and I took lot of pictures.  But there was this one wagon that was really in bad shape.  It was obviously very old and weathered.  The sun, rain and every other element had hit this wagon hard.

So I took loads of pictures including the close up one below.  Some of the things you should look for in “interesting pictures” is texture and this train had plenty of it (in fact it was falling off the thing and all over the floor).  I really liked the peeling paint and rotten wood (keep with me here I’m being sincere) and the orange and blacks looked great (I thought) so this was one I was pretty pleased with.

But I’ve been holding off posting it as it’s not what you normally see from me – and I appreciate that most people wont “get it”.  Lisa asked me if I liked it and I said yes, I love it!  So she said them post it, the site is for you not for readers.  (She clearly had a bad day).

So here you are, a close up of rust and rotten wood on a decaying old train that literally is falling to bits.  Enjoy…

What with the nice warm weather outside Cater decided to play ball in the yard.

Last night we all went out for dinner (we have an excellent Thai restaurant called Silver Spoon near by) and when we got home we noticed that outside the house one of the bushes had a single pink flower.

Now this is not something we normally get excited about but we figured that this was possibly a sign that Spring is almost here.

So I could share the joy, I thought I’d photograph our single flower for your pleasure.  It’s not particularly exciting, and as you can see it was raining earlier, but hopefully it means that color is returning to the Pacific North West (we are getting a little bored of green, brown and gray).

Incidentally I have a good feeling about this week.  I think I should get my new D4.  If it doesn’t arrive, expect pathetic complaining and tragic depression.

After a relaxing day off and a few green beers, our Halo heroes get back to their circus training.  Tonight it’s acrobatics.

I’m still looking around the house for “stuff” to shoot – it’s just too cold to go out and play – especially when I don’t get in from work until 7 at night.  Tonight I decided to pull out the macro lens and see what I could shoot close up.

I ended up cutting a kiwi fruit and getting in nice and close with a ring flash.  The hair around the edge of the fruit looks good, and the deep green of the flesh is great.  There’s a little too much flash reflection to make it perfect but I think it’s a nice shot.

Lisa said the center was almost heart shaped which I kind of see now she mentioned it.

When I got home Lisa was fighting the coffee machine (well really it was the grinder), which was not working.  So I got that working and the Halo guys jumped on to make a coffee.

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.