Northwest Trek – Eatonville

10. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

This morning (which is a Sunday – I don’t know when people will read this blog), I got up at 5:30am to drive to Eatonville in Washington with a photographer friend (Chris) to visit Northwest Trek.

Northwest Trek is a Wildlife Park for animals that are native to the Pacific Northwest.  So no Lions and Tigers, but definitely some bears – oh my!  The park offer a Photographers tour but you have to get there at 8am and it’s around 70 miles from where we live.  I’ve been before and remember the roads as being pretty crappy so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.

I picked up Chris at 6am, and at 7:10 we arrived.  I was well annoyed!  I mean I could have stayed in bed another 50 minutes!  That said we were not the first photographers there, and we were let into the park a little early.  In all there were 14 people on the tour and it started at 8am on the dot.

The wildlife park is 723 aches and was founded in 1971 by David and Connie Hellyer.  Dr. Hellyer purchased the original 500 aches for $4.95 an ache after a big fire damaged a lot of the woodland, and initially built himself a summer home.  In the early 1970’s he wanted to open a park to all but needed the backing of the state park.  In the end he gave away the land and even contributed his own money to pay for the parks opening.  Dr. Hellyer owned a house in the center of the park and stayed there for free until the day he died.

The photographer tour involved a Tram Tour around the 435 ache “free-range” area where all the herbivores live.  We drove around for two hours before the park officially opened stopping whenever we wanted taking load of pics.  I took over 900 and will be posting animal pictures for some time to come.  So lots of shots of bighorn sheep, bison, mountain goats, black-tailed deer, moose, Roosevelt elk, white-tailed deer, woodland caribou, barren-ground caribou, and trumpeter swans (in case you asked).

However I thought I’d start with a picture of the entrance to the park – here you go…

Carter and Master Chief have found a new way to relax, they call it Bitch ‘n Stitch.

Night Skyline – Seattle

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

You have to be careful going out after dark with a camera as you can get overly addicted to these kind of night shots.  I drove to Seattle to get a neon image of Pike Place at night and decided to drive around town after to see what I could find.  I went down to the waterfront to shoot some of the piers and went looking for somewhere to park.

Across the road from the waterfront is the Seattle Alaskan Way Viaduct.  This carries the SR 99 from north to south Seattle and is soon going to be torn down.  Under the viaduct (or really just past under the viaduct) is a car park.  I pulled in, to park the car so I could go and shoot the piers and thought the city buildings looked great.  So I grabbed this shot.  As it was pretty late there weren’t too many people walking around but as you can see there were still some cars left.

Ironically, I liked this shot more than the piers I photographed, so I thought I’d post it tonight.

This is a long exposure with a small aperture which gives me the star looking lights and brings out the night blue sky.

Had to do some home improvements this weekend, the Halo guys stepped in to help out and stopped for a picture!

Bears – Redmond

08. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: ,

In the middle of Redmond Town Center is this seating area that surrounds a couple of fountains.   On the brick tiled flooring are three bear statues.  I took this picture quite late at night and nobody was around (no security guards either).  I wanted to bring out the texture in the brick floor and statues so this is an HDR image (what a surprise).

Obviously as this is late at night it’s a slow exposure, so you get to see the water almost frozen in time.  When I composed this I wanted the bears to be the primary subject, so I made them quite big in the frame.  In hindsight I wish I’d pulled back a little and showed more of the seating area.  As a result I didn’t post this image.  However someone saw this the other day and commented on the picture so I thought, what the heck!

This area always makes me smile.  My son James is almost 15 years old but I remember him running through these fountains getting soaking wet with his cousins, and then stripping off totally naked in the car park to change clothing.  Of course he wouldn’t be seen dead doing that now.  I reckon in another 5 years and after some time at college and he will once again be stripping off and running though fountains.

This weekend will be interesting.  On Sunday I’m off to Northwest Trek, which is a wildlife park for animals that are indigenous to the Pacific North West.   However it’s looking like it’s going to rain so I may end up with lots of pictures of empty wood.  Time will tell, so keep your fingers crossed for a dry weekend.

Tonight the guys decided to play BopIt! – They didn’t do too well though.

Post Alley – Seattle

07. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

If you go to Pike Place Market you typically go into the main food, flower and craft area and walk around that, this is called the Main Arcade.  If you are feeling a little adventurous, you may find the stairs or ramps to go down stairs and find the stores below in the area known as “Down Under”, but that’s not all there is.

Pike Place is the road the Main Arcade is on (I know what a surprise), and the market is on both sides of the road.  Across the road from the Main Arcade is Post Alley.  Here you can find a number of retail stores, restaurants and cafes.  In fact it’s the best place to get a bite to eat in the market.

When I visited to take this shot the market was deserted (very rare) so I captured one side of Post Alley without any people in shot.  Most of this area is lit with neon signs and it’s amazingly colorful.   At first I thought I’d post a color shot as there is blue neon round the sign and red neon on the buildings and everything is lit up.  But the problem is the picture was overly bright and a little sickly.  Then I tried a black and white and added a copper tone.  I really liked this so chose this one instead.  Lisa liked this one with some color peaking though but I’m off those sort of shots these days – so this is what you’re getting.

Anyway, great part of the market, if you get the chance check it out, and also a nice place for a picture.

Apparently Master Chief is worried about his weight, so Carter told him to get some Saran Wrap on and sweat the weight off!

White Tulips – Mount Vernon

06. June 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

It’s been a while since I posted any tulip pictures and quite frankly I still have hundreds left so tonight’s image is of some white tulips and was shot at Mount Vernon during the tulip festival.  This was one of those shots where I got out my black bin bag, laid it in the mud and got down on the floor.  Passers by looked at me like I was nuts but I’m used to that now.

I wanted a shot of a tulip row disappearing off into the distance with a nice sky above.  This is what I got.  The dark pink tulips behind added to the image by making the white ones stand out a little.

Fortunately this was one of the few times when nobody was in my way stomping around the field, so absolutely no Photoshop here.

I haven’t posted any black and white for a while so tomorrow I’ll look for something to shoot that will make a good black and white image.  I also need to shoot more people so I’ll look for some subjects there too.

Carter found a can of crazy string and went a little mad today – poor Master Chief!

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