Park Fountain – Bellevue

25. November 2012 · Comments Off on Park Fountain – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

The Bellevue Downtown Park is right next to Bell Square Mall – which by the way if you haven’t visited is a pretty impressive shopping mall, just ask Lisa!  Just by the Mall where the part starts is this large fountain surrounded by lamps.  I have no idea if it’s here to signify anything but it’s covered in flags.  I was there for the sunset and took this image just before the sun went down.

The challenge with this picture was getting a shot with no people and no wind.  Obviously I failed as you can see by the movement in the flags.  That said I didn’t really do anything to this image in Photoshop, this was pretty much what came out of the camera.

I liked the one tree at the front of the image, it kind of added some nice foreground interest and I liked the leaves and flagstones one the floor.  The sky looked cool too so the picture came out well.  I think this is my last Downtown Park image so don’t expect any more.

I had planned to take a load of images this week as I’ve been off work now for 9 days.  But it’s pretty much rained every day, been really crappy.  So not a good week for photography.  But I plan to get out soon and grab some nice pictures.  I’m still pretty amazed that I started this thing on January 1st, and here I am on November 25th and I haven’t missed a day.  Only 36 days to go and I made it.

Tonight the guys found a new balls game to play, I have no idea what it’s called but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

More Gardens – Seattle

18. November 2012 · Comments Off on More Gardens – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Tonight’s picture is another one from the Japanese Gardens in Seattle.  I caught the lake and the surrounding trees in this one and as this was taken just before all the leaves fell, there’s still some color in the image.

There were quite a few people on the other side of the lake and I had to take them all out in Photoshop.  But I liked the little bridge crossing the lake at the end of the picture.  If it looks like I’m standing in the middle of the water it’s because I kind of am.  At this end of the lake there were these huge stones in the water (and I mean huge), so I just walked out into the lake and took the picture.

For those of you who don’t live in the Pacific North West, you won’t know that it’s pretty green here all year round.  We are called the “Evergreen” state after all.  We have a load of evergreens here so it’s never really that brown, but the oranges and yellows definitely leave us.  We do suffer from pretty grey skies though.  In fact it’s raining outside now as I type this.

I’m actually off work all this week so I’m planning on going out each day to shoot some cool pictures.  I only have 40 odd days to go on this resolution and I’m going to see if I can get a large number of pictures to post while I’m off work (I do have around 150 pictures in my backlog but I don’t like those ones anymore).  So look for something new and different tomorrow night.

Tonight Carter and Master Chief sampled some nice Minty Balls, apparently they were very nice.

Reflections – Bellevue

15. November 2012 · Comments Off on Reflections – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Here’s another shot from the park, this time (again) from before the sun went down.  I’ve already posted one picture that showed the large expanse of water above the waterfall, but I also shot this other shot taken from a different position.

Off to the side of the park is this tall apartment building and it was casting this great reflection in the water.  I just had to shoot this one!  Also behind the building the sun was casting this nice red sky.

As it was early there were still quite a few people walking around so this picture took some time and patience.  Having said that I never would have got a shot with nobody in it (there were too many people) so I had to take a few folks out with Photoshop.  There are a few things in this picture that I’m not that happy with (trash cans, park signs and even ghosts of people moving) and in truth if I spent a lot of time, I might be about to remove them.  But the issues are so small you probably wouldn’t even notice them if I didn’t call them out.

Other than the people in Photoshop I didn’t do too much processing on the final image.  A little sharpening and then a slight blur to provide a nice soft focus.

The boys had a great night playing Bingo.  After several hours they succeeded in winning nothing.

Night Park – Bellevue

14. November 2012 · Comments Off on Night Park – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I have to say I really enjoyed visiting the Bellevue Downtown Park.  Getting there just before sunset and staying until after the sun went down got me so many really nice images.  Tonights picture was obviously taken quite late.  The sun had completely gone down and the park was pretty empty.  The lights around the parks walking path had come on and it looked really pretty.

These scenes really area a gift, you literally just have to point the camera and everyone’s a winner.  In this one I again shot with a wide’ish lens so composed to have one of the big lights adding some foreground interest, I again went for the curved path taking you from just in front of the camera to round and out of the picture.  The tall building in the distance breaks up the sky and kind of gives you something at the end of the path.

My only regret is that I didn’t go to the path a month earlier, getting shots with more leaves on the trees would have been interesting, but then there’s always next year.  The good news is I only have a couple more of these to post and next week I’m off work all week and planning on going on a few trips out with the camera.

The guys found some glass at work to play with today.  Carter particularly liked his extra long arms behind the blue one.

City Reflection – Bellevue

13. November 2012 · Comments Off on City Reflection – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Here’s an interesting picture, again taken in the park just before the sun set.  Just above the waterfall is this large expanse of water which makes a great mirror for the city behind.  To capture this shot I had to set the tripod up on some stairs and I had people walking by looking at me like I was nuts as each leg of the tripod was a different length.  Anyway I composed the shot to get as much of the city reflection as possible.  Whenever I see water it’s all about the reflection.

I really liked the railing in the picture too, the way it get’s smaller and smaller into the distance really shows you how wide this water feature actually is.  The trees and buildings came out great as well in the water, you even get the sky color reflected too.  It’s interesting seeing how the sky nearest the horizon in both the sky and water is lighter and as you move higher and lower they both darken – I think that’s cool.

The only downside of this picture was that there was an ugly crane above the trees to the right of the picture.  This was also reflected in the image and was kind of unsightly.  So that had to go.  Other than that I didn’t have to do much else.  Applied a little tone mapping to bring out the shadows and applied a little soft focus to make it “dreamy”.

Carters got a new perspective on life, something that Lisa fully endorses.

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