Bridge – Monroe

22. December 2012 · Comments Off on Bridge – Monroe · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

There’s this road that takes you from Carnation to Monroe that winds you around a very rural area of farms and big fields.  The road actually follows the Snoqualmie river and at some point the Snoqualmie river goes off and is replaced by the Skykomish river (don’t just love the names or our rivers?).  Anyway the Skykomish then takes you all the way to Monroe.

When you approach Monroe you have to go over this large bridge (and across the Skykomish river).  The bridge in itself isn’t that impressive I guess but once you cross it you can turn off the road and go down to the river under the bridge.  This affords you a great picture of the river and bridge above you.

I actually got another image from this location at the beginning of the year.  If you look back to my first week you can see a fisherman in a small boat, that was taken here looking up river, so I guess it’s only fair that I should another shot in my last week from the same location.

I realized today just how many HoHo ornaments we have around the house!  Carter and Master Chief found another one to pose next to for today’s picture.

KeyArena – Seattle

17. December 2012 · Comments Off on KeyArena – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

Today I was pretty angry.  I’m sitting at my desk at work and I looked out my window and saw a beautiful afternoon.  Yes it was cold, but dry with a blue sky!  If you saw the state I was in yesterday after my photo trip out, you’d understand my frustration.  I was so wet it was ridiculous!  Yet one day later when I’m stuck at work, it’s a lovely day outside – it’s just not fair.  It’s kind’a hard to really show you how wet it was as I can’t really take nice pictures of rain, so you are just going to trust me that it was miserable.

Anyway, while out I walked around Seattle Center and found myself by KeyArena.  This is a large general purpose arena in Seattle and was the original home of the 1962 world fair (when the space needle was first opened).  It used to be the home of the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team but we sold them to Oklahoma City back in 2008.  Since then the arena is the home of concerts, visiting circuses, ice shows and professional wrestling.  It seats just over seventeen thousand people and this year it was the location for the Microsoft company meeting.

Outside KeyArena is this huge fountain.  In summer it’s literally full of kids running and playing in the water, but yesterday there was nobody there.  But surprisingly the fountain was on. So I walked out to the fountain (in the pouring rain), set up the tripod and grabbed the shot below.  People were running past me in the rain giving me funny looks.  One guy asked me if I got a nice picture but I was pretty much left alone.

I decided last night that I don’t care how bad my pictures are for the rest of the year, I’m NOT going out in the rain again.  Just saying…

Last night Lisa made burgers for dinner and after doing the dished James left the griddle and press out.  When I got home I found this sight!  Not sure why this happened but Master Chief and Carter were trying to “Press” Red.

Row Boat – Seattle

11. December 2012 · Comments Off on Row Boat – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So I did tell you that I would be posting some “boats” over the next few days.  Well, what did you expect, I mean I went to the Center for Wooden Boats, I kind-a have to do it.  Tonight’s boat is, well, a blue one.  OK I admit it, I don’t know anything about boats, but this one is made of wood, it’s blue, oh it’s a row boat and it looks like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing rowed it last – hence the broken front bit.

So why this picture?  Hell why this boat?  Well I really wanted one shot with a shallow depth of field, the bow of the boat really sharp with the focus falling off towards the back.  I even had this composition in mind, one of the oar’s visible and lots of water in the picture.  There have probably been thousands of shots like this, but never one from me.

I’m not sure why I like this picture, I mean it’s basically a mainly out of focus boat, but for some reason I find the image calming.  Probably not everyone’s cut of tea but I like it.

Today the guys decided to carry out a box climb.  This involved scaling a pretty high stack of boxes that Lisa got out for Christmas.

Center for Wooden Boats – Seattle

10. December 2012 · Comments Off on Center for Wooden Boats – Seattle · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

So this weekend I went out with the camera and found myself back at the Center for Wooden Boats.  This place is pretty cool, you can learn how to fix boats (they have classes), you can hire a wooden boat (they will teach you how to row or sail) or you can just check out all the exhibits they have.

This shot tonight was taken of the center’s main information building.  The wooden structure is actually built on a floating platform and you get to it by walking over a number of pontoons.  This is all well and good and fun to visit but it’s a pain in the neck when it comes to photography.  You set up the tripod and try to take a picture and very slightly everything is moving.

I liked this shot for a number of reasons.  The wooden building is quite nice to start with, and while it was dry there was a lot of cloud cover and it definitely gave me an interesting sky.  I also liked the boats and the purple gazebo on the back of the biggest boat in the center of the picture, finally the reflections in the water added to the image nicely.

They had loads of row boats all around the pontoons and I took LOTs of pictures, so you had better expect some wooden boat pictures over the next few days.

I’ve taken a few pictures of the guys like this!  What can I tell you?  It cracks me up.  Here Master Chief is showing Carter his new shinny balls.

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.

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