Outside Workshop – Seattle

14. December 2012 · Comments Off on Outside Workshop – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

It’s weekend time again folks so tomorrow I’m off out to get some new pictures.  But for tonight we have another shot from the Center for Wooden Boats.  If you go there you can sign up for a workshop and learn how to fix your own wooden boat.  If you attend a class, this is where you go.

They have this shed area where you have the lessons and stay undercover when you do – what ever you do when you fix boats.  I took this shot as it was quite dark under the roof and I wanted to see if I could get the interior to come out.  This picture was heavily processed but it was only one shot.  I managed to bring out the shadows in the ceiling and still now blow out the outside.

I really liked visiting this place it was pretty cool.  If I wasn’t completely allergic to exercise I might even be tempted to take a row boat out, but lets not go nuts!

Tonight the guys decided that one of them should sit at the top of a tree.  They rock, paper, scissor’d for it and Red won.

Another Boat – Seattle

13. December 2012 · Comments Off on Another Boat – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I really hope you like boats, as I still have some more to post.  One of the challenges around this “post a picture a day” resolution is that I visit somewhere, take a load of pics, and then don’t go out again until all the pictures are posted.  So you tend to get all the images from one location together.  What I should have done, is visited a few places and rotated images from each location, so it’s not so boring.  Maybe next time I do this I’ll try that.  WHAT AM I SAYING – I’m never doing this again and only have 18 days left – I’m SOOOOO excited.

OK, so about the image.  I was at the Center for Wooden Boats (obviously) and saw this boat mored against the jetty.  What caught my eye was the reflection in the water.  It was so clear (almost like a mirror) that I couldn’t take the shot quick enough.  I also loved the fact that the colors appeared so well in the water.  You can see the blue sky and blue and yellow flags and white posts.

I composed this so that there was more water than land deliberately, but of course Lisa on seeing this said “but you can’t see the reflected things above”!  I actually liked this composition and had another one where you couldn’t see the real boat at all.  But that just looked like an upside down slightly blurry picture so I didn’t select that one for posting.

Anyway, if you get the chance to visit the The Center for Wooden Boats I really recommend it.

Master Chief decided to visit Carter’s new house today, it’s very cool and rather festive!

Boat Workshop – Seattle

12. December 2012 · Comments Off on Boat Workshop – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I was walking around the Center for Wooden Boats taking pictures and some girl walked past me who obviously worked there.  So I asked her if it was OK to shoot and grab some shots (I know it is ok, they don’t mind – but it never hurts to ask).  So she said “Yes of course, thanks for asking” with big smile.  I guess people don’t usually ask her.  So them she asked if I wanted to shoot a picture in their main workshop.  I’m not sure if people are allowed in there but she was all friendly and offered so I jumped at the chance.

The workshop was very cool.  It was a wooden building with a long wooden bench against the wall that was covered with tools.  There was also a boat in there that they were working on  and there were sails hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the room was some guy working on something small at his desk.

I set the camera on a tripod in the corner and composed a nice shot to include the boat in the foreground and the tools and bench at the back.  This picture was five exposures all one stop apart.  (Basically I took 5 pictures starting with a very dark one, and subsequent shots with double the amount of light in each).  When I got home I put the 5 pictures into Photomatix and “tonemapped” them into a single high dynamic range picture.  You have probably heard of this as HDR.

So why do this?  Why is HDR interesting?  Our eyes are just amazing, people think their eyes have enormous field of vision which is kind of true (it’s almost 180 degrees), but really you only focus on about 5 degrees at a time everything else is blurred.  We overcome this by moving our eyes around a scene all the time.  Your eyes also manage dynamic range this way too (how much light and dark we can see), by moving our eyes, we can see in shadow areas and bright areas at different times, but you walk away remembering everything.  Unfortunately, cameras dynamic range sucks.  When you take a picture the camera try’s to expose for as much as possible, but in scenes like this where there is bright light and dark shadows, the camera will fail, there will always be areas you don’t see.  By creating an HDR image you really get to “see” what you would have seen if you where there.

That’s why I LOVE HDR.  It can turn a boring image into an amazing one.

A couple of the guys were trying to move a present today, but something was stopping them – or at least making the job much harder.

Row Boat – Seattle

11. December 2012 · Comments Off on Row Boat – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So I did tell you that I would be posting some “boats” over the next few days.  Well, what did you expect, I mean I went to the Center for Wooden Boats, I kind-a have to do it.  Tonight’s boat is, well, a blue one.  OK I admit it, I don’t know anything about boats, but this one is made of wood, it’s blue, oh it’s a row boat and it looks like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing rowed it last – hence the broken front bit.

So why this picture?  Hell why this boat?  Well I really wanted one shot with a shallow depth of field, the bow of the boat really sharp with the focus falling off towards the back.  I even had this composition in mind, one of the oar’s visible and lots of water in the picture.  There have probably been thousands of shots like this, but never one from me.

I’m not sure why I like this picture, I mean it’s basically a mainly out of focus boat, but for some reason I find the image calming.  Probably not everyone’s cut of tea but I like it.

Today the guys decided to carry out a box climb.  This involved scaling a pretty high stack of boxes that Lisa got out for Christmas.

Center for Wooden Boats – Seattle

10. December 2012 · Comments Off on Center for Wooden Boats – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So this weekend I went out with the camera and found myself back at the Center for Wooden Boats.  This place is pretty cool, you can learn how to fix boats (they have classes), you can hire a wooden boat (they will teach you how to row or sail) or you can just check out all the exhibits they have.

This shot tonight was taken of the center’s main information building.  The wooden structure is actually built on a floating platform and you get to it by walking over a number of pontoons.  This is all well and good and fun to visit but it’s a pain in the neck when it comes to photography.  You set up the tripod and try to take a picture and very slightly everything is moving.

I liked this shot for a number of reasons.  The wooden building is quite nice to start with, and while it was dry there was a lot of cloud cover and it definitely gave me an interesting sky.  I also liked the boats and the purple gazebo on the back of the biggest boat in the center of the picture, finally the reflections in the water added to the image nicely.

They had loads of row boats all around the pontoons and I took LOTs of pictures, so you had better expect some wooden boat pictures over the next few days.

I’ve taken a few pictures of the guys like this!  What can I tell you?  It cracks me up.  Here Master Chief is showing Carter his new shinny balls.

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