Saturday Walk – Redmond

18. August 2012 · Comments Off on Saturday Walk – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Today was a lot cooler than earlier in the week and it felt a little “muggy” out, like a thunder storm was coming.  That said it was still warm  so we decided to take the dog out to Marymoor Park.

Marymoor covers around 640 acres and provides loads of outdoor facilities for Redmond residents.  They have baseball and soccer fields, nature trails, a velodrome for keen cyclists, a concert area where they are currently showing movies at night, a huge area for model plane enthusiasts and an off leash pet area where dogs can run free and play.

We take Roxie there every now and then and she loves running the trails and meeting other dogs.  One trail takes you along a large lake and loads of dogs fetch balls and swim in the water.  While on the trail we came across one dog, called “Ballmer” who was playing with his ball in the water.  We watched as his owner tried to get him to drop the ball for around 15 minutes, I was exhausted watching the dog who wouldn’t give it up.  He kept jumping into the lake and splashing everyone, clearly the dog was having a great time but I really felt for his family, Ballmer needed a lot of exercise!

Roxie on the other hand just watched from the side, relatively uninterested.  She doesn’t like water much, and James’ hobby of holding her over water to watch her “swim in the air” probably doesn’t help.

We were out for around 40 minutes and on our way back to the car I took this picture of Abi and her friend Charlotte.  They were both having a great time and gladly jumped into the long grass so I could take a picture.

It’s a little early to say Summer is over, but things are definitely cooling down, so getting these out door pictures now is kind of a good idea.  We had a great time walking in the park and on the way home got some bagels from Blazing Bagels (definitely worth a visit).

Today the guys spent some time in the garden chasing bubbles

Alfa Romeo – Redmond

16. August 2012 · Comments Off on Alfa Romeo – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

When you go to these car shows it’s pretty hard to get a nice picture.  Firstly there are hundreds of people there and they ALWAYS walk directly in front of you every time you try to take a shot.  Secondly, these shows are never held just before sunset or just after sunrise, so there is usually direct sunlight on the car.  So the cars are surrounded by people and the exposure is horrible (lots of blown out parts of the picture).

So here I was at the Redmond Exotics Car show and I found this bright red Alfa with nobody around it.  The bodywork color just popped against the green bushes and trees behind, so I jumped at a shot.  To try and get over the terrible lighting conditions, I took 5 bracketed pictures each one with a different exposure.  Then I HDR’d the images together in Photomatix to get the picture below.

People were starting to approach so I didn’t have much time, ideally I would have looked for another angle to showcase the car, but in reality I’m just pleased I got the shot.  I tilted the camera to give the image a little “interest” but I may have over done it haha, but what the hell, I really like the picture.

Usually I try to tell you what model the car is but there was nothing on the car to tell me and the owner wasn’t around (I sometimes ask).  But this time no info, so you are just going to have to enjoy the nameless red Alfa convertible.

Tonight I found the guys fighting over a very dangerous toy!  At least I think that’s what they were doing.

Chevy Truck – Redmond

12. August 2012 · Comments Off on Chevy Truck – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

This weekend I went back to the Redmond Exotic’s car show with Regan (my nephew visiting from the UK).  They didn’t have a theme this week and in truth there weren’t that many cars there but we did find this really cool old Chevy Truck.  Now I have no idea what year and model this was, the owner wasn’t around, but I thought it looked great.

Add to that, my brother-in-law (Craig, Regan’s dad) is refurbishing an old Chevy Truck, so Craig, this one’s for you.

There’s a show I love to watch on TV (from the UK) called Wheeler Dealers where two guys (Mike and Ed) refurbish old cars and in season 8 they did a Chevy 3100, they did a great job and this truck reminded me of the show, so if you like cars (and trucks) check out Wheeler Dealers.

It was very very hot when I took this and the sun was pretty much over head.  Two things that (for me) don’t produce that great of a picture.  So the fact that this came out and looked ok was pretty lucky.  There are though a lot of hot spots in the picture where the sun blew out the color and detail, but I don’t think it ruins the image.

Carter got the chance to visit his first Sonic today.  He enjoyed a footlong quarter pounder coney hotdog, and a chocolate shake!

Ford Truck – Redmond

07. August 2012 · Comments Off on Ford Truck – Redmond · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

It’s funny what you see as you’re driving around, every now and then you see something cool and think “that’ll make a nice pic”.  This happened the other day on the way home, I was driving the back way home and I saw this old truck.  It was quite far away from the road but I thought it might make a nice posting.  Next to the property that had the truck was a road with a white picket fence, so I drove down the road, and jumped out to get the shot.

I hand held the camera to take the image as I was concerned that someone may come out and tell me to move on, so I rested the camera on the picket fence on the middle horizontal plank.  From a distance I wasn’t sure if the truck was road worthy or just there for show, but when I got closer, it looked like it was in need of some work and probably wasn’t running.

It was really sunny when I got the shot and you can see the reflection of the fence in the truck’s door.  I have no idea what year and model this is but it had Ford on the hood so I knew the make.  I loved the white walled tires and the running boards.  The grass on the back kind of looked cool too and when I got home I was really pleased with the image.

I used a good lens and managed to get a nice depth of field so the barn behind is starting to fall out of focus.  Ideally the truck would have been further away from the barn and the barn would have been pretty blurred but unfortunately they were quite close together – but then there’s not much you can do about that.

I’ve learnt now that when I see these opportunities I stop and take the picture (if I have the camera with me of course), as if I think “I’ll get it later on the way back” I never get the chance again.  With my luck the truck would have been towed away that afternoon.  But this one I got and I think it looks great.

Today the Halo guys decided to hold their own medal ceremony, where the winner got a gold Cadbury medal.  Somehow Carter won!

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.

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