Picnic Shelter – Rosario Beach

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

When I was in Rosario Beach I walked past this picnic shelter.  The tour guide suggested taking a shot through the window turning the window into a frame for the beach outside.  I actually tried this but wasn’t overly pleased with the end result.  But before I left I thought I’d try one last picture.

The building was made up of large wooden logs and there was a rustic slightly weathered look to the interior.  There was a lot of sunlight streaming in the the window and a stone floor and fireplace.  I figured it would make a good HDR image as it was really dark in the roof and corners and very light by the windows.

So I placed my camera on it’s tripod and took the shot below 5 times and used Photomatix to create the end result.  The completed image captured the wood grain and color really well.  Fortunately everyone else had just left the building so I didn’t have to remove anyone in post processing.

The Halo guys found some sand and a digger and decided to try some construction.

Daffodil – Mount Vernon

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

This is the last Daffodil image I will post from my Mount Vernon trip – I promise.  This picture was the last one I took that day, we had just left a winery and were on our way to an ice cream store.  We stopped by some amazing yellow fields and I captured this image.

There were quite a few people there taking pictures so by getting really low and shooting up, I managed to get a clean shot of just the flowers.  So this is a rather simple image but the deep blue sky and yellow flower work very well together.

I was thinking of going back to the tulip festival again this weekend but Abi wasn’t too well so we decided to stay at home.  Needless to say I need to go next week or I will miss the festival.  So next Saturday I will either go with the family or head up really early on my own.

The halo guys wanted to get some fresh air outside this evening, Master Chief found a place to stand in the shade but I think it was a bad location.

Tulips – Roozengaarde

12. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

As you know last week I drove up to Mount Vernon to photograph some tulips, but the fields and fields of tulips I went to see hadn’t come into bloom yet.  What’s interesting is that I found out today that the flowers have all come out, right now it’s beautiful up there!  So I only missed it by 5 days – typical.

However, there were a few tulips starting to come out in gardens in some of the places we visited.  One example is below, I shot these flowers in Roozengaarde.

I think there were around 50 out – how funny is that!  And as you can see they were really just starting to open.  Anyway, I’m going back this weekend to get the pictures I wanted, only this time I’m taking the family with me.  Now this is always a challenge.  Lisa, James and Abi are all OK at first, they know I want to take pictures and for the first 10 minutes everything is fine.  But after that the complaining starts “Why do you take so long”, “you took that one already”, “what are you doing now”, “this is really boring” … you get the idea.

So I have to keep moving so they don’t turn on me.  Trouble is one part of me wants to go on my own and the other part really wants them to go with me.  Who knows I may even take some nice shots of them in the flowers too – we’ll have to see.

I think the Halo dudes where bored at work today, I left my office for 10 minutes and came back to find Carter trying to microwave Master Chief!

Water Wheel – Tulip Town

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

While in Mount Vernon we visited “Tulip Town”.  This is the commercial wing of a huge farm that owns acres of land and is one of the largest tulip farms in the country.  Tulip Town is a pretty cool place to visit, they have fields of tulips you can walk around, tractor trolley rides for the kids, kite flying demonstrations an art and flower shop and cafeteria.

The farm is owned by the De Goede family who came from Holland and moved to the states in the 1950’s and settled in Skagit Valley and started farming flowers.

Obviously when I was there they didn’t have any tulips!  Well it’s me and I’m just not that lucky.  They hadn’t come through yet so I had to find something else to shoot.  Actually that’s not completely true.  They had about 8 rows of tulips that had come into bloom, but every man and his dog was standing round them taking pictures.  I tried but just couldn’t get close enough to get any good shots!

There are signs everywhere saying don’t walk down the flower lanes, just stand at the end of the rows.  But of course it’s chaos there nobody seems to follow the instructions and there were people stomping all over the flowers!

There were a couple of cool buildings to shoot, one was a huge windmill (I’ll post a picture of that someday) and the other was this cool wooden hut with a water wheel.  I liked that more as it didn’t have loads of people round it, so I took some shots and the one I liked best I’m posting tonight.  It had a little garden around the hut with some of their tulips growing in it.  I thought it looked cool.

After a busy day at work with lots of meetings, Master Chief and Carter decided to go out and climb some trees.  So they did!

Daffodils – Mount Vernon

09. April 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Ok, so I told you that I went to Mount Vernon, and I also told you that there were no tulips, but if you remember I said that there were some daffodils.  Now the term “some” here is probably not strong enough to describe exactly how many daffodils were there but hopefully tonight’s picture gives you an idea.

As you drive around the valley, you see a number of fields like this, they are just completely covered in yellow flowers.  With a blue sky above it really is quite something, throw in some fluffy white clouds and mountains in the background and the scene becomes truly amazing.  Imagine what this looks like when you have fields and fields of colored tulips – that’s why I’m going back!

So I think I mentioned before that these were my mum’s favorite flowers, so mum, this one is for you.  I think she would have liked to see this.

Today is actually a special posting as it’s my 100th picture of the year (actually it’s 200 if you count the stupid ones I do with the Halo dudes).  I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I would get this far, but it just goes to show that anything is possible.  (Just got to do this 2.5 more times and I can give up photography for ever).

If you ask James and Abi they will tell you that there are somethings you just have to learn how to do if you are going to live in the Seeley household.  One of the most important, is learn how to make a good cup of tea.  We may now all be American, but I’ll never give up my PG Tips tea.  The Halo guys have been living here long enough now that it’s time for that right of passage, time to learn the art of tea making.

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