Rainbow Bridge – La Conner

17. April 2012 · Comments Off on Rainbow Bridge – La Conner · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Today’s image was taken in La Conner which sits on the Swinomish Channel.  This large channel separates the Swinomish Indian Reservation from the Skagit Valley mainland.  There are only two bridges that cross the channel, the picture below shows one of them, this is called locally the Rainbow Bridge.

The Channel is pretty wide and while I was taking this picture seals kept popping up to the surface.  Obviously the moment I tried to take a picture they would dive under – question is how do they know I’m trying to photograph them?

The city of La Conner is not very big, it has less than 1000 residents and based on the number of restaurants and gift type shops I would guess one of their main industries in tourism.  While there I had an excellent pint in a local pub with a really nice pizza to go with it.

Something else I thought I’d mention in this posting is that just over nine years ago I moved to the US from England.  To keep my family and friends back in the UK up to date with our activities I created a web site.  On that web site I placed a visitor counter.  Nine years later I have 6,599 visits.  Now by contrast I set up this site back in January (3 1/2 months ago) and I now have 6,672 visits!  Clearly my family site sucks!  So I’ll be shutting that down soon (mind you posting every day definitely helps, the last time I updated the family site was in April 2010).

The Halo guys went to play in the neighborhood park today and found a climbing wall.  Not being guys who turn down a challenge, they went for it.

Raging River Bridge – Fall City

25. March 2012 · Comments Off on Raging River Bridge – Fall City · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Today I decided to head out in the car and see what I could shoot.  I drove to Carnation, then on to Fall City, up to Preston and then down the i90 to Issaquah, then round Lake Sammamish to Redmond and finally on to home.

It was a lovely day for a drive and I had Howard Stern in the car and could probably have driven an extra 100 miles.  Anyway, when the scene caught my eye or the moment got me I’d pull over and take some pictures.

This is normally how it goes.  I rarely have a big plan or target destination, I just go out and see what I can find.  This means that sometimes I’m really lucky and get lots of images, and others it’s a disaster.

Today wasn’t too bad.  I was out for just over two hours and came home with four pictures I really like.  Obviously I took a lot more (70 today) but most don’t come out as I intended or I just don’t like them when I get home.

Today’s image was taken on the Fall City to Preston road.  Following along the road for most of the journey there is a river called the Raging River – cool name.  At one point the river goes under this green bridge and there is a spot by the road to pull over and easy access down to the riverbank.

So I parked up and went down to the river.  The water was moving pretty fast (well it would do I guess I mean it is called the “Raging River”), so there is a lot of motion blur in the shot in the water.  But that actually looks good I think, and gives the impression of water flowing.

To make these pictures look really good you need to slow your shutter down so the water takes on a misty sheen.  To do that you need something called a Neutral Density filter.  This is a dark piece of glass that you put in front on the lens.  It restricts light and lets you take a longer exposure (and consequently blurs the water further).  I don’t have the proper filter to do this yet, but it’s on my shopping list.  When I get one I’ll take more river pics and you’ll see the difference.

Either way this shot turned out pretty good so I thought this would be my first posting from today’s trip.

On the way home, in Issaquah, I passed a Krispy Kreme Donut shop (or Doughnut shop – if you want to spell it properly) and got a box of 12 for the family.  After dinner James went to get one and found the Halo guys tucking in!

Night Bridge – Redmond

22. March 2012 · Comments Off on Night Bridge – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Tonight I went out to the movies (went to see 21 Jump Street – very funny go and see it if you get the chance), so I didn’t get to take my picture of the day until quite late.

I left the movie theater and walked back to the car thinking about what I was going to shoot.  I remembered that when you come of the 520 freeway to enter Redmond, you cross a cool bridge with street lamps along both sides.  So I drove down to the bridge to take some pictures.

At first I shot some images on the main road and while the pictures came out ok (I had some nice head light and tail light lines) they were a little boring.  However by the side of the road bridge was this small foot bridge that also crossed the river.   Photographing this created, I think, a much nicer image.  I shot this with a high aperture so the street lights had a great starburst.

The street lights cast some strong orange light and created some cool shadows through the foot bridge.

Carter and Master Chief also went to the movies with me.  I brought a beer and popped to the bathroom, when I got back I found them both trying to down my pint!

Tolt McDonald Park – Carnation

20. January 2012 · Comments Off on Tolt McDonald Park – Carnation · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So I’m really tied of the snow so I thought I’d post a snow free picture today. This shot was taken in Tolt McDonald Park. There’s this great suspension bridge that crosses the river and on the other side is the park with nature trails and BBQ and picnic areas. The bridge actually sway’s as you walk across it very cool.

I like the cables in this picture that start in the corners and lead up to the top of the first tower. That and the slightly blue sky peeking through looks great.

More snow tomorrow, probably.

Using Bing to find out information is a daily occurrence for me, so when the Halo guys said they needed some information I pointed them there…

Lost my ride

Tolt River Bridge – Carnation

08. January 2012 · Comments Off on Tolt River Bridge – Carnation · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I had the day on my own today – family went out, so I grabbed the camera gear and hit the road.

This image was taken from a suspension bridge at Tolt McDonald Park looking up river to another bridge across the told river.  There were a few people out fishing standing in the river and one guy in his boat.  I liked the scene with the Cascade mountain range in the background and the sky came out red/orange and the tree line as almost blue.  I suspect this was because I had the wrong white balance set in the camera and while I do shoot raw and can easily change this in post processing I didn’t want to.

I love this image.  Lisa came home from shopping in Alderwood Mall with a glitter ball.  I had her hold the ball and my niece Aimee point a gridded flash at the ball.  I also had a small soft box for fill.  The lights on the floor and the reflective Xs were added in Photoshop.

You make me feel like dancing
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