Night Market – Seattle

09. November 2012 · Comments Off on Night Market – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I was looking through my picture back log this evening looking for something to post and came across this picture of Pike Place Market at night.  Now I’ve never posted this one before (duh) and I can’t remember why!  When I took this I did take a tighter shot of the Public Market sign and posted that, but this one is the whole market with nobody in the image – and you never see that!

I actually drove into Seattle just to take some pictures, it was just after 9pm (as you can see from the big clock) and the place was pretty deserted.  There were a few people out and about going to restaurants and pubs etc., and some where even there with cameras doing the same as me.  The nice thing was that I could drive right into Pike Place and park on the road (in fact I’m parked directly behind where I stood when I took this picture).

There were a few people in shot and cars kept going down the street so I had to time the picture to get it empty and I think it was really worth it.  The neon signage looked great and I loved the purple lights on the wall of the building above the market.  Of course a beautiful blue sky helps as well.

For post processing I just popped this into Photoshop and gave it a little sharpen, then applied a little targeted blurring to give it that glamour glow look and added a vignette.  The finished image came our really well.

Carter lost Master Chief today so went looking for him.  Eventually he found him sitting on a Totem Pole!

Alki Pier – Seattle

08. November 2012 · Comments Off on Alki Pier – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Tonight I’m taking you back to sunrise at Alki.  The sky was really pretty and we had taken loads of pictures of the cityscape I was looking for something different.  Just further up the beach was this little pier hanging out over Elliott Bay.  There were actually a few people standing on the pier when I took this and they kind-a ruined the picture. So I hit Photoshop and now they’re gone.

This image was all about timing.  I really wanted the ferry in the right of the picture to have a counter point to look at (so it just wasn’t only about the pier) and I had to bide my time for the ferry to get in the right place.   I was lucky that the other people on the pier weren’t moving around too much so I got the shot.  There are so many things that make this picture nice, I love the sky, the reds are really pretty.  The boat and the pier are great (they were the things that attracted me to the shot in the first place) and I love the rocks under the pier and the waves lapping against the shore.

All in all I like this one and feel getting up at a stupid hour on a day off was actually worth the effort.

I think the guys were watching some Disney films today and insisted on both sucking the same spaghetti, it’s kind of Carter and the Tramp!

Japanese Gazebo – Seattle

07. November 2012 · Comments Off on Japanese Gazebo – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Today’s image was again taken at the Japanese Gardens in Seattle.  I was walking around the lake looking for interesting subjects and I came across this rickety gazebo built against a tree and standing in the water.

I immediately thought this would be interesting as the texture on the tree and the bamboo used to build the gazebo looked really good.  So I started taking some pictures.  Unfortunately it was pretty dark under the gazebo, there was a lot of shade so this wasn’t really a surprise, but i really wanted to show the latice work in the roof.  So I again resorted to HDR (I love this).  I captured three images each with a different exposure.  One was correctly exposed, one was over exposed by two stops and one was under by two stops.  Then I used Photomatix to merge the three images together to get the picture below.

This came out really well.  The shadows were brought out and you can really see the roof of the gazebo and the texture in the wood.  The water looked nice too and I even got some of the stones in the picture in the bottom left corner.  So I’m quite pleased with this one.

After too much candy the guys decided to just enjoy some gum today.

Japanese Garden Lake – Seattle

06. November 2012 · Comments Off on Japanese Garden Lake – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I’ve mentioned that the Japanese Gardens in Seattle have a lot of water, well today’s image is a shot of the biggest lake in the gardens.  The water is a pretty dirty color in the picture and in truth it looks kind-a yucky when I was there.  All around the lake are paths that take you past the water and manicured trees and bushes.  You can see that this was a lovely time to go to the gardens and the fall colors are really beautiful.  I love the reds, oranges and yellows in this image.

I wanted to take this picture but there was a group of kids standing on the bridge at the far end of the lake.  They were laughing and messing about (pretending to throw each other in etc.,) and taking their own pictures.  So I just took a seat and waited.  While I was there a number of other people came by and took a picture and I heard them complaining about the kids on the bridge, but at the end of the day you just have to be patient.  The kids weren’t doing anything wrong, they were just enjoying the gardens and eventually they moved on.  That’s when I took this picture.

The challenge with pictures like this is that I wasn’t allowed to take a tripod into the gardens, so I had to raise the ISO (sensor sensitivity) so I could get a decent (fast) exposure.  Then when I got home I had to de-noise the images and that add’s image artifacts (artifacts are digital errors that appear in the image).  However as my camera is so AWESOME, the noise wasn’t too bad and the image looks great.

Master Chief and Carter were super excited tonight as their copy of Halo 4 arrived.

Snoqualmie River – Fall City

05. November 2012 · Comments Off on Snoqualmie River – Fall City · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Today’s image was taken the other day on the way home from work.  I say the way home, I did go on a little detour (about 10 miles) to Fall City.  I say City, but it’s pretty small (I don’t think it’s really a city but that’s it’s name).  In the UK we have little villages, bigger towns, and then there are massive cities.  I think to be a city in the UK you are suposed to have a cathedral.  Fall City has a mexican restaurant and a bar – but no cathedral.

Anyway I was driving over a bridge at the end of the high street and I saw the sky above river.  It looked really good.  The river was running pretty fast the water was framed by fall colors.  So I turned around and parked up.  Grabbed the camera and waled into the center of the bridge and started taking pictures.  Traffic was going past pretty fast and I think I was annoying the drivers, but you gotta do what’s necessary sometimes to take a nice pic.

Totally unrelated to today’s picture, today is November 5th, which in the UK is Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes night.  For my American friends, this is the annual celebration when children create a full sized effigy of a man called Guy Fawkes who lived in the early 1600’s and tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.  They then walk around their town and ask complete strangers for money saying “penny for the guy” and then spend the money of fireworks and burn the effigy on a large bonfire.  How cute is that?  This is my favorite stupid annual event.  I really miss November 5th int he UK.

Master Chief made some new friends today.  He was sitting at home waiting for Halo 4 to arrive.

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