Koi Carp Gardens – Maui

25. July 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

I’ve mentioned (a few times now) that the Grand Wailea Resort was really big facility.  One of the areas of the hotel I haven’t really talked about are the gardens.  Directly below our hotel room are these amazing Koi Carp ponds that are surrounded by beautiful gardens.  Each morning I’d go down to the gardens to take pictures and I got quite a few that I really like.

I spent a lot of time looking for little geckos to photograph that would come out in the morning sunshine to warm in the sun.  I had one successful morning and got a gecko sitting on a huge green leaf, I’m sure I’ll post that in the future.

There are paths that take you through the gardens that cross the ponds that the are linked together and the water is full of huge Koi Carp.  The little wooden bamboo bridges you walk across and bamboo stairs that take you to different levels within the garden are really cute and there are also several little water falls joining different pools and levels together.  Also every now and then you come across a thatched roof gazebo.  These provide lovely places to chill out and avoid the direct sun in the afternoon and enjoy the serene atmosphere of the gardens and I’ve even seen people enjoying breakfast in the gazebo’s in the mornings.

A lot of the palm trees (at this time of year) have really small coconuts which are the size of a small potato.  In the evening we’d swim in the pools and find these baby coconuts at the bottom.  The kids called them potatoes and used them as dive targets to retrieve from the bottom of the pool.  The naughty thing we did with them however was take them to our room on the 9th floor at the end of the day, and throw them off our balcony into the Koi ponds – this was completely Lisa’s doing (nobody is going to believe that) and I spent lots of time suggesting it was a bad idea.  Fortunately she never hit a fish and nobody saw us or kicked us out.

Today’s picture was actually taken on our last day.  I wanted an image that had a bamboo bridge, part of a pond, a fish and a thatched gazebo in it, and ironically this was the only one I got.  I even got a tiny waterfall under the bridge.  The vibrant colors really capture the gardens and hopefully help you appreciate just how beautiful this place was.

When we got to the airport, Carter and Master Chief spent a lot of the time looking out the (very dirty) airport windows at the plane that was going to take us home.

Hanging Fuchsia’s – Redmond

16. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

A couple of weeks ago Lisa and I went to Redmond to the weekly farmer’s market.  I think it was the first one of the year so there were a lot of people there milling around checking out all the fresh fruit and vegetables, flowers and crafts.  We didn’t have any intention of actually buying anything we were just wandering.  However we saw some fuchsia hanging baskets and thought they would look lovely on the porch.

So we brought two baskets and struggled with them back to the car – they were massive.  One was still wrapped in paper but the other was opened up and hanging so we had to carry it up in the air.  Fortunately none of the fuchsia blooms had opened up so it was all stalks and leaves.

When we got them home we hung them up and inserted our sprinkler system hoses into the baskets.  I also turned on the sprinkler system so they would be watered every day.  Unfortunately though the water wasn’t coming out!  Lisa called the landscape guy who put the system in and arranged for him to come over and fix it.  It took nearly two weeks for him to get to us and I had to periodically manually water the baskets when I got home.

However once the water was back on the baskets started to get the sun and water they needed and these beautiful fuchsia flowers came into bloom.  I thought they’d make a great subject for a daily posting, so today I put the macro lens on the camera and went outside with a tripod.

Now these baskets were hanging from the porch roof and it was windy today and they were swinging and spinning around.  I tried to get a shot but my lens choice needed a long exposure with a small aperture and every shot had motion blur.  I really wanted the flower with a green background but it wasn’t happening out front.

So I cut one of the stems and took it into the back garden and pinned it to a light stand.  I had the trees behind as a nice green backdrop and tried again.  Once again the wind was killing me, I really needed the flowers to stay motionless for around 3 seconds so this wasn’t working either.

As a result I tried plan three.  I pulled the light stand into the house, shut the patio sliding door and tried again.  Now the flowers were not moving, but the ambient light meant that the flowers were dark for the outside exposure, or the green trees outside were blown out for the inside exposure.  ARRGGGGHHHHH!  So out came the lights.  I put a small softbox on the flowers to the right and some fill light off to the left and captured the picture below.

I’m sometimes asked how long I take on a picture.  Some are really quick, you walk up to the subject and away you go.  Other times you have to go out of your way to find the subject, and others like today you just have to work it until you get the shot you want.  I’d like to say that most times it’s quick, but that’s not the case, it’s usually a lot of work.

Even halo guys like a good sucker!

Rose – Carillon Point

15. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

I wanted to post something different tonight so I waited until the sun went down and hit the road.  At first I was looking for something interesting to shoot in Redmond Town Center, but the security guys don’t like me there (you’ll have to read an earlier post to find out why) so I kept driving.

In the end I found myself in Carillon Point in Kirkland.  This is a private harbor for local residents who clearly have some money – you should see the size of the boats.  They have lots of lights along the water’s edge and piers that head out and around the harbor, these piers are also lit up.  On the water front there are loads of bars and restaurants and they were all full of people.

So there I am walking around with a camera bag around my neck and a huge tripod and camera in my hand – everyone is looking at me like I’m nuts.  I took lots of shots and got some really nice images – it’s very pretty there.  I even bumped into a friend from work and stopped to talk to him and his wife for a bit.  When I was done I started walking back to the car.

Just before I reached the car I noticed these huge pink roses in a massive bush.  There were three roses and they bigger than both my hands together.  Just by the roses there was a large group of people standing outside a bar drinking.  Anyway I thought a close up shot of the rose in focus with the boats in the background in soft focus may look nice so I set up my tripod and took a few pictures.

When I got home I showed Lisa all my shots and she fell for this rose image so that’s the one I’m posting tonight.  This was taken with quite a long exposure so while it looks pretty light outside it’s really not.  The sun had set and the sky was dark.  Anyway I think it came out well, hope you like the image.

The guys found a mouse trap today and started to play with it, big mistake!

White Tulips – Mount Vernon

06. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

It’s been a while since I posted any tulip pictures and quite frankly I still have hundreds left so tonight’s image is of some white tulips and was shot at Mount Vernon during the tulip festival.  This was one of those shots where I got out my black bin bag, laid it in the mud and got down on the floor.  Passers by looked at me like I was nuts but I’m used to that now.

I wanted a shot of a tulip row disappearing off into the distance with a nice sky above.  This is what I got.  The dark pink tulips behind added to the image by making the white ones stand out a little.

Fortunately this was one of the few times when nobody was in my way stomping around the field, so absolutely no Photoshop here.

I haven’t posted any black and white for a while so tomorrow I’ll look for something to shoot that will make a good black and white image.  I also need to shoot more people so I’ll look for some subjects there too.

Carter found a can of crazy string and went a little mad today – poor Master Chief!

Yellow Tulip Field – Mount Vernon

11. May 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Yeah yeah I know I said no more tulip pictures, but I like this one so suck it.  This picture was taken in Mount Vernon at the tulip festival (now that’s a surprise).  Can you see all the people walking in the field?  No?  Well that’s the magic of Photoshop!

I liked this one as the tulips looked beautiful and the leading line of the row on the right going off to the distance draws your eye to the trees, hills and mountains behind the flowers.  That white peak “poking” over the hill top to the right of the barn is Mount Baker.  I also liked the barn behind the tulips.  It kind of provides a feature of interest between the flowers and the sky.

When I took this picture I actually took several versions all with varying depth of field, some had everything in focus, others (like this one) had the flowers at the front in focus and the focus dropped off into the distance.  I liked this look most of all so I picked it for today’s picture.

Obviously this wasn’t taken at work as that would be quite naughty, but the guys found a bottle of scotch somewhere!  (My Dad will like this one).

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