16. October 2012 · Comments Off on Grass Lawn Park – Bellevue · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I left work this evening and as I was walking to the car I noticed that above me was the most amazing sky.  Big billowing black clouds interspersed with white clouds and blue sky and as the sun was starting to go down a red glow was spreading across the sky.  I had my camera with me and had to find a place where I could get a picture.

I jumped in the car and decided to try the nearest park.  While the Microsoft Campus is in Redmond, Grass Lawn Park is just down the road on the Bellevue border so off I set.  I parked up, grabbed the tripod and camera and headed into the park.

The park is really beautiful with loads of trees covered in red and yellow leaves but they were blocking out the sky, and really that’s what I wanted to shoot.  I tried loads of different compositions and got some great shots, but not the one I was really after.  Walking back to the car, I came to the basketball courts and they looked great.  The courts were empty (it was about to rain and everyone had gone home) and it had got even darker, the sun was nearly over the horizon and the sky in the distance was red.

Anyway I set up the tripod and took some shots.  When I got home I looked at the images and thought the pictures looked really good.  I only just made it too as the skys opened and the rain came down like you wouldn’t believe.  But I made it and got my cook sky.

Master Chief decided to count his footsteps today and to make sure he got a good number he used more than on Pedometer!

28. August 2012 · Comments Off on Seattle Boat Club – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

I got in from work tonight, had some dinner and hit the road with the camera.  I wanted something new to post and thought a nice sunsety picture would look good.  A place I’ve been meaning to go now for a while is Seattle’s Boat Club.  As you drive over the 520 bridge into Seattle you cross Lake Washington, and the a smaller lake called Portage Bay before you get to Lake Union and Seattle.  Located in Portage Bay is Seattle Boat Club.

It looks pretty cool as you drive past on the free way, so tonight I thought I’d try and grab a picture there.  I found the boat club pretty quickly off Lake Washington Boulevard and found somewhere to park up.  The houses around this bay are really impressive, they overlook the water and are huge (we are talking multi-millions I would think).

Anyway I parked up, grabbed the tripod and camera and went for a walk.  There were 4 pier’s surrounded by boats and some of the boats were massive.  In the end I set up the camera between piers 2 and 3 and captured today’s picture.  The sun had just set over Seattle and the sky looked really cool.

The water reflected the sky and clouds and made I think a really nice picture.  I’d quite like to go back there when it get’s dark as the whole place is lit up and I’m sure will look amazing.  But that’s a shot for another day.

Tonight the guys decided to have some muffin.  Chocolate banana, yummy.

09. July 2012 · Comments Off on Crescent Moon Sunset – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I was in Seattle the other day down by the water front, like you do, and the sun was setting, like it does, and it kind-a looked really cool.  So I thought I’d take a picture, and the pictures looked, well just OK.  I think what grabbed my attention for a picture was the sunset and the moon high above, but in all my pictures I didn’t really get the right shot, principally because I was shooting in landscape, not portrait.  So I turned the camera on its side and captured the shot below.

Now there are advantages and disadvantages of shooting in portrait orientation.  I think the image I wanted (and got) worked really well in this format.  I really like the layers in the image; you have the calm water at the bottom, then that beautiful sunset with fluffy clouds, then above that some darker mottled clouds and finally some clear sky with the waxing crescent moon (I had to look that up).  The layers for me really make this image.

Unfortunately I don’t think portrait images work that well on the blog site (hence I don’t post them very often), but on a positive side, I now have a new phone lock screen image.

Yesterday Master Chief got to meet Carters horse, not to be out done, he got his ride out today.

26. June 2012 · Comments Off on Royal Argosy – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

If you ever visit Seattle and take a trip down to the city water front on Elliott Bay, you may be tempted to take a boat trip out in the bay and do a tour of the city from the water.  Alternatively you might want to jump on a boat, go through the locks at Ballard and get into Lake Washington and do a sightseeing tour there (who knows you may see Bill Gates in his house in Medina, Bellevue).

Well if you want to do either, you will have to take an Argosy Cruise.  This company provides all sorts of cruises out of Seattle and they all start from Pier 55 on Alaskan Way right down on the waterfront.

Now I have done most of their tours over the years (some multiple times as it’s a great place to take friends and family who visit), but I’ve never done one of their Dining Cruises.  They actually have a few different types including a lunch cruise, a dinner dance cruise and even a murder mystery dinner cruise (I’d like that one).  All of these take place on their largest vessel the Royal Argosy.

It just so happens that when I was there shooting the other night, the Royal Argosy was coming into dock after one of it’s dinner dance cruises.  The ship was beautifully lit and when it docked hundreds of people came off all dressed up in the best evening gowns and tuxedos.

I took this picture from the end of the pier looking back at the Royal Argosy which had docked at port with the city skyline in front of it.  Pier 56 to the left in the picture has some restaurants on it that were all lit up providing cool reflections on the water.

It all looked really nice and made I think a lovely picture.

Tonight the guys decided to play “Littlest Petshop” on Abi’s Nintendo DS.

24. June 2012 · Comments Off on Elliott Bay Sunset – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Tonight I’m posting another image from last nights visit to Seattle.  Shortly after I got there I caught a ferry coming in as another was going out.  The sun was really over the Olympics mountain range but the sky was a great orange, red color.

It was getting dark at this time so I had to shoot either with a long exposure or with high ISO. As the ferry was moving, long exposures were out, it would just look like a blur going across the water, so I had to ramp the ISO up on the D4.

Now with my older camera, if I went above 800 ISO the picture had a load of “noise”, this looked like heavy grain in the image, almost like a really old picture from the early 1900s.  Sometimes this looks cool, but only sometimes, so high ISO was kind of useless on my old camera.  But this D4 is amazing.  I pumped up the ISO on this image to around 6400 and managed to get a stationary ferry with a nice exposure with very little noise.

I love the orange sky in this shot and the black clouds, catching both ferries cross paths also get some strong foreground interest.

Carter found a bracelet that he liked and started wearing it around the house.  Not to be outdone, Master Chief did the same.