Suspension Bridge – Bellevue

06. August 2012 · 1 comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

So yesterday I visited the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.  In hindsight this was a silly day to go as it was over 95 degrees outside.  I also very cleverly chose not to put on any sun screen and I have one of those bodies that burns really easily.  So like I said, dumb idea.  The gardens themselves cover 53 acres in the middle of Bellevue city and contain cultivated gardens, restored woodlands and natural wetlands.

As it was really hot I kept away from the open gardens with all the flower beds, I suspect that the direct sunlight would have been pretty harsh in the pictures and wouldn’t have looked good (it very rarely does) so I kept to the woodland trails.

As I was walking around I saw a sign for the new “Ravine Experience”.  I had no idea what this was but as I was walking under huge firs and cedars I figured it was safe to check it out.  The trail took me down a number of hills and I won’t lie, I was dreading the walk back to the car as it was going to be up some pretty big hills.  And remember I’m walking with a pretty heavy camera bag and a tripod.

Along the way I passed a few other hikers who said hello, but pretty much the gardens were empty.  Eventually I found out what the “Ravine Experience” was.

The gardens had added a really cool suspension bridge over a ravine.  The bridge was 150 feet long and about 5 feet wide.  The ravine was around 100 feet deep so you are relatively high up.  Of course once I reached the bridge I grabbed the camera and got ready to take some pictures, and then the masses arrived, family after family appearing from nowhere started crossing the bridge and the whole thing was swinging.  I don’t mind that really as you have to have patience for this hobby, but then a couple stopped on the bridge, looked at me and just decided to make me wait 10 minutes!

Eventually everyone left and I had the area to myself.  I took a number of different shots, some of the whole bridge, some from the front getting everything in, some from the side getting a different perspective and they all looked nice.  But my favorites were shots like the one I’m posting below.  For this one I focused on one of the suspension cables and selected a very narrow depth of field so a majority of the bridge fell out of focus.

I loved this look when I got home, it’s kind of different but you know what you’re looking at.  I’m sure I’ll post others of the bridge in the future so this was definitely worth the walk and heat, although I was a total mess when I got back to the car, fortunately I have no picture of that!

Carter saw Abi on the trampoline yesterday and got all jealous, so today he did a straddle jump too.

Abi – Home

05. August 2012 · Comments Off on Abi – Home · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I had a really good day today, we had a lazy Sunday and again it was really hot (over 95 degrees), and I got some great pictures.  First I decided to go out and see what I could shoot, but I didn’t want to go to Seattle as the I90 bridge was closed as the Seattle Sea Fair was on today and the Blue Angels were flying across Lake Washington.  As a result I thought I’d go to the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.

I got there around 3pm and it was incredibly hot.  Fortunately there weren’t too many people there so I got to walk around the garden trails taking pictures without people in the way.  I found a really cool suspension bridge and got some great shots.  They also have a lot of rock gardens and flowering perennials but they were in direct sunlight and wouldn’t have come out that well.  So I’m definitely going back one evening after work when the sun is lower in the sky, I should get some great shots then.

That said I still got lots of really nice images that I’ll be posting in the days to come.  On the way home I saw a really cool old Chevy truck so I pulled over to shoot that, and then in my own neighborhood there were some wonderful trees covered in red berries, so I shot some of them too (against a lovely blue sky).  So I got home quite excited with lots of pictures to pick from for tonight’s image.

Then, Abi decided to go into the garden and play on her trampoline.  Now for those who don’t know, Abi is a very keen gymnast.  She trains 3 times a week putting in nine hours in her gym.  Then she comes home and spends hours on the trampoline and her own floor beam and mats.  She starts to compete in October and I’ll be going along to cheer her on and take lots of pictures.

Anyway she was bouncing up and down and doing back hand springs and flips, so I thought I’d take a picture.  I’ll be honest I didn’t think the image would come out that well but the D4 camera is just amazing.  We got the picture below after around 15 attempts, she was doing amazingly well but I had to figure out timing and wait for a shot when her hair wasn’t in her face.

I’m really pleased with the end result, she looks beautiful and I’m going to print this one out and put in on the wall.

Tonight, Carter and Master Chief decided to play a little basket ball, here you can see Carter’s basket and Master Chief’s attempt to block.

Watershed – Redmond

04. August 2012 · Comments Off on Watershed – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Today was probably the hottest day of the year.  We hit 91 degrees in our garden and it was so hot that Lisa couldn’t sit outside and sunbathe.   The skies were a beautiful blue color and I wanted to capture a picture that showed you all what a lovely day it was in Redmond.  I can honestly say, that when the weather is nice the Pacific North West is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

So I grabbed my camera and tripod and jumped into the car and headed off to find some inspiration.  As it was really, really hot, I didn’t want to do any hiking, I needed to find somewhere I could park the car, leave the safety of the air conditioning and run (or walk briskly) to a photography viewpoint, take a picture and get back in the cool car quickly.  At least that was my plan.

On the way out of Redmond Ridge where I live I stopped by the side of the road to shoot some berries against a blue sky, they came out well but didn’t convey the magnificence of the day.  So on I went.  Eventually I found myself in the Redmond Watershed which covers acres of land that’s preserved for wildlife.  I parked up and got my gear and started to walk.

After 5 minutes (which incidentally was far to long as I was starting to sweat), I found this small lake.  The trees on the other side of the lake were really grand and topped by the blue sky and there was this great reflection in the lake.  The lake itself was a bit messy with logs and “stuff” floating on the surface, but there was nothing I could do about that so I set up the tripod and took some pictures.

I think the image came out really well and Abi sat with me this evening while I processed the image and posted it to the site.  She also contributed to this posting making suggestions on what I should write (she wanted to say I was sweating like a pig but she wasn’t there so how would she know?)

Today we had a barbeque and Lisa made some corn.  Carter and Master Chief wanted some too and pinched it when we weren’t looking.

Fort Ward State Park – Bainbridge Island

03. August 2012 · Comments Off on Fort Ward State Park – Bainbridge Island · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I’ve posted a few pictures from Fort Ward State Park over the last couple of days but I haven’t really shown you what the beach looks like.  This image was taken by the wooden poles in the water picture that I posted a few days ago.  You can see the stones on the beach, not a grain of sand to see anywhere.

The things that caught my eye when I composed this image were the trees falling over towards the water, the large bolder in the water and the state of the clouds.  The wind was blowing while we were there so these clouds didn’t stick around and as you have already seen on the way home the sun came out and the clouds parted to give us blue sky.  But here it looks almost gray.

Where the trees were falling there were some uprooted trunks and I got one call picture of the very bottom of a tree, looking at it’s roots.  It’s a little odd as you can’t really tell what it is but I may post that in the future.

In the far distance you can just make out the mainland.  You can’t see Seattle from here as it’s kind of round the corner to the left, but you can see Bainbridge is not that far away from Seattle.

Well the weekend if finally here and I’ll try to get out tomorrow to shoot something new.

After watching Gabby Douglas last night the guys were inspired.  Here’s Carter practicing his beam routine.

Blackberry – Bainbridge Island

02. August 2012 · Comments Off on Blackberry – Bainbridge Island · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

Today is my birthday and despite requests for a birthday cake picture, I decided to post this shot of some blackberries.  I took this picture on Bainbridge Island by the water in Fort Ward State Park.  There were blackberry bushes all along the waterfront and the berries were just starting to come through (as you can see).

I have a really nice lens that I take out with me that I used here (for the technical amongst you it’s a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR II) and it can capture images with really nice bokeh.  Bokeh is the creamy out of focus background you see in the image below and usually appears as circular highlights.  What the lens really does is take a picture with a very narrow or shallow depth of field, this means only a small part of the subject I’m shooting is in focus and everything in front and behind is out of focus.  It’s nice for taking pictures that concentrate on the subject without having distracting backgrounds – very big in portrait photography.  As I take a lot of landscape pictures I don’t do this very often as for landscape you want everything in focus.  Here it’s really great at capturing the blackberries.

When I got home and looked at the images my first reaction was, Oh no, there are cob webs all over the bush, but after a while I decided I actually liked that about the image, it gave it for me a rustic, wild look.

Anyway I hope you like my image.

So anyway, back to the birthday, what did I get?  Well Lisa got me a fantastic color printer that prints out professional 17″ x 22″ photographs (again in case your interested it was an Epson Stylus Pro 3880).  Over the coming weeks I’m planning on printing out and displaying some of my images around the house (and maybe at work too).  I’m quite excited about this as creating really good prints is something I know little about.

The kids got me some great books on photographing locations around Washington State and Oregon.  The books are brilliant and have some wonderful locations just a drive away.  I actually wish I had these at the beginning of the year, but they will help me capture some really cool images for the rest of this year’s picture a day resolution.

I should point out that Lisa also made me a fantastic birthday card.  She’s really into the craft thing and makes cards for everyone but mine was something she has never created before, a DSLR Camera.  I think it’s brilliant and will be pinning it on my wall at work. (You can see the card below in the Halo picture).

Here we have Carter and Master Chief posing by my cool birthday card (of a camera) – made by Lisa, and a birthday balloon.

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