Gas Works Park – Seattle

29. November 2012 · Comments Off on Gas Works Park – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I’ve been to Gas Works Park before and photographed and posted pictures of the kids play barn full of painted machinery.  It’s a pretty cool place to visit, it’s right on the edge of Lake Union over looking Seattle’s skyline.  They even have this huge kite flying hill (yes that’s what I said) and you can climb to the top and catch some pretty impressive wind (that sounds a lot worse than I intended).

Anyway, they also have the old gas works plant still there, all the old gas containers and pipes etc.  These days it’s fenced off as people kept adding graffiti, but it looks great.  All the pipes are copper colored and on top of the green hill under a blue sky (ok a cloudy sky) is impressive.

So I had to capture a shot.  When I took this image it was quite cloudy but there is a little blue poking through.  Fortunately nobody was there when I took the picture, but they must have been there recently as someone had added a little graffiti.  Didn’t spoil the picture fortunately.

Carter wanted a coffee today, so Master Chief helped him get one.

More Gardens – Seattle

18. November 2012 · Comments Off on More Gardens – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

Tonight’s picture is another one from the Japanese Gardens in Seattle.  I caught the lake and the surrounding trees in this one and as this was taken just before all the leaves fell, there’s still some color in the image.

There were quite a few people on the other side of the lake and I had to take them all out in Photoshop.  But I liked the little bridge crossing the lake at the end of the picture.  If it looks like I’m standing in the middle of the water it’s because I kind of am.  At this end of the lake there were these huge stones in the water (and I mean huge), so I just walked out into the lake and took the picture.

For those of you who don’t live in the Pacific North West, you won’t know that it’s pretty green here all year round.  We are called the “Evergreen” state after all.  We have a load of evergreens here so it’s never really that brown, but the oranges and yellows definitely leave us.  We do suffer from pretty grey skies though.  In fact it’s raining outside now as I type this.

I’m actually off work all this week so I’m planning on going out each day to shoot some cool pictures.  I only have 40 odd days to go on this resolution and I’m going to see if I can get a large number of pictures to post while I’m off work (I do have around 150 pictures in my backlog but I don’t like those ones anymore).  So look for something new and different tomorrow night.

Tonight Carter and Master Chief sampled some nice Minty Balls, apparently they were very nice.

Wooden Boats – Seattle

16. November 2012 · Comments Off on Wooden Boats – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , , ,

If you get the chance to visit the Pacifici Northwest you will find in the Seattle area a few large lakes.   Lake Washington is obvioulsy the one most people know about and for good reason.  Lake Washington is 22 miles long (at it’s extreme’s) it has a very large island in it’s middle (Mercer Island) and loads of people live on that, there are also a couple of major floating bridges that cross it, so it does tend to get all the attention.

While Lake Washington is big, there’s another lake between Lake Washington and Elliott Bay, Lake Union.  This lake is much smaller and is probably best know for it’s floating house boats, the subject of which appeared of course in Tom Hanks’ film “Sleepless in Seattle”.  Lake Union also has an official airport for sea planes, and if you go to it’s southern tip you can spend a lot of time watching planes take off and land – trust me it’s pretty cool.

If you do visit the southern point of Lake Union you will find South Lake Union Park (not very imaginatively named) and there you will find the Center for Wooden Boats. This is a small maritime museum that’s dedicated to the preservation and display of (wait for it) wooden boats.  This is actually a really cool place to visit, they have some great exhibits and loads of history and information about the boats on display.  You can also take a free public ride on a boat, learn to sail, rent a classic boat or take a boat building workshop!

While visiting myself I took loads of pictures, one of my favorites being this boat below.   Some of the boats there are in a poor state of repair but this one had been either really looked after or totally refurbished.  Now I’m no sailor but if I was I think I’d like a nice wooden sail boat with all the dark wood on the deck.  They look fantastic.

Carter had something in his teeth and Master Chief very kindly agreed to help him out.

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!

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