Day 48

We finally got some sun this weekend!

Day 47

This is an old wind mill in front of Maltby Cafe. Although this looks like an illustration it is a photo with some heavy post processing in Lightroom. And for some reason it really reminds me of the movie "Jaws". I took a ton of photos today and a lot of them were pretty good.  It was hard to choose just one but I really like the feeling of this one.

Day 46

Michele went with me to get a haircut this morning and on the way back we stopped and had some lunch. It's been raining here in the Seattle area for what seems like all of May and Michele is very depressed about it. I was shooting some self portraits while we were waiting for our food when Michele struck this pose. It looked so natural I had to take the shot. I had to put in some time in Lightroom to pull off the hand colored look but it turned out pretty well. I'm getting to the point where almost every photo I capture needs some post in Lightroom to make it work. Image captures right from the sensor just don't do it for me any more.

Day 45

A friend of mine is leaving Zipper for greener pastures. Best of luck to you JT!

Day 44

Another overcast day so I went looking for textures and and a nice comp. I remembered seeing a spriral stair case at the farm park over in Redmond so I headed over there with a tripod. The tripod didn't work out because there was no place to set up at the top of the stairs. I had to hand hold this with my IS on, seems to work OK. I guess I'm on a "Split Tone" kick right now in Lightroom. Maybe it's the overcast days we're having but I really like the warm and cool contrast in this photo. I could turn up the saturation a little but I didn't want to overstate it. The comp is base on the golden mean...look it up :)

Day 43

I set up a tripod on the bridge in the drizzle to grab this one. Had to do a little work in Lightroom to make it work.  Lots of good responses on Facebook. It's great to hear the positive responses to this one. I really didn't think it was working when I got home and looked at the RAW file so I started shooting some other things around the yard. Because of the overcast day I wasn't liking anything. But when I came back this image and and flipped a couple of switches it started looking better. So I flipped a couple more! :)

Day 42

Nothing earth shaking today. Just nice to be out walking around in a park. It was overcast so I took advantage of some soft light.

Day 41

I saw this guy on the walk back from lunch with Victor. I thought of taking a shot when Victor said the same thing....well then I had to take the shot. I walked over and asked him if I could take his picture and he nodded. I snapped a couple after fumbling the camera. I need to get used to shooting strangers. This is a good first step.

Day 40

This is a portrait of my neighbor Noah. Although I shot this late Saturday night, I'm claiming it as Sunday. I did all of the post processing today and that took a lot more work than just snapping the picture so I feel justified. I'm playing with split toning in Lightroom with this. The combination of his pose and the split tone gives this a photo epic feeling which is fittting for Noah.

Day 39

Hike up to Bridal Veil Falls. Get day to take photos!

Day 38

I never seem to remember that it's self portrait Friday until I get out into the field and start shooting. So as usual I was out at lunch looking for something interesting and nothing was looking good. Then it occured to me that it was Friday! I set my camera's manual focus to arms length and started shooting. I was looking for some interesting backgrounds that would produce some nice bokeh and kept my aperture fairly open but not all the way, I was looking for the sweet spot on my 50 prime. I really like the rim lighting of this shot. I didn't have to do much in post other that a high contrast Lightroom preset and then added a little grain to make it easy to look at.

Day 37

I saw this rainbow on my way home from work. It was near the Redhook Brewery-San Michele bridge over the bike path. It was hard to find a good place to get a picture of it because I was on the road and there were wires and obstructions everywhere. As it started to rain I walked down a little hill where the bike trail was and shot up at the rainbow, trying to keep the wires out of the frame. It works well enough but I was hoping for something better, I just couldn't get what I wanted in the rain.

Day 36

When you're given lemons, make lemonaid! I'm not much of a flower photographer but this was too good to pass up. I saw this from the truck as I was driving in this morning and had to turn around. I really like the backlighting! One thing that I've learned is that if you don't shot what you saw right away, it will be gone later. I did a little work in lightroom to make this work. I darkened the sky to set off the flare and adjusted the whitebalance. I wish the flower in the foreground could have been sharper but that's the best this lens will do, I'm afraid.

Day 35

After a long day at work I tried to take advantage of the light as I was driving home. I didn't have a tripod so I had to back up the truck and use the back as a platform. I had to spend some time in Lightroom to pull this one off.

Day 34

I was walking past the Trader Joes over in Downtown Redmond during lunch and saw this stack of watermelons. It had just rained so these has a little water drops on them.

Day 33

Michele. Ollie and me went on a hike today. This was Ollie's first hike and he did really well for a little dog. It seemed weird to go hiking without the other dogs but we left them home to rest as this was a steep hike back to the car.

Day 32

Victor's cool roadster made me forget about self portrait Friday so I made it up today. This just goes to prove that a good photographer can make anything look cool. I'm enjoying playing with different film types in Lightroom. I worked up two different images in Lightroom but couldn't make up my mind which one I liked better so I uploaded this one here and uploaded the other one to my facebook account. This one looks like an album cover from the 70s.

Day 31

Victor brought in his new car today and we went for a ride at lunch. This car is really low to the ground but a blast to ride in on the freeway. I originally uploaded a little different image but after working on the image in Lightroom I'm much happier with this.

Day 30

Took a quick walk outside and found a couple of freinds taking a break. I'm trying to give this a candid film look like something you see from the 70's. The crop matches the strangness of the look on his face while still framing it with the darker area in the background. I also added some film grain to make it feel like an Ilford 200 Pan film (what we shot in college).

Day 29

Nothing much to say here, just shooting during lunch.

Day 28

The sky looked promising so I went down to the North Creek Park to take some panoramas.  This was one of the first shots I took on the walk out to the center area. This was before I set up and actually it looks pretty good but there's some better shots that just need more processing to be great so I'll hold off posting them for now.

Day 27

Shooting at a dogs eye view not only makes the viewer feel like part of the scene, it also hides the messy counter tops :)  Today we found out that Mischu has lymphomia which in many cases would be tragic but in this case it was good news. I can't say that we are back to life as normal because when cancer touches a family in any way, it changes their lives and it will never be normal again. We are just thankful to have out little Mischu for a little while longer.

Day 26

Mischu was feeling pretty good today. Her belly was not as yellow and almost back to her normal pink. She's eating well and we are enjoying her life right now. We spent a beautiful Seattle day in the garden and ate lots of treats!

Day 25

We brought Mischu home from the hospital today. We were really glad that she was eating and looking good. She's really glad to be home!

Day 24

A shot from inside the fridge.

Day 23

I took some photos today but I can only think about Mischu.....we found out today she has cancer.....so I posted this picture from a couple of months ago.  She is the sweetest dog ever and I will miss her with all my heart.  Hopefully we can be with her for a little while longer.

Day 22

We spent most of the day at the vet with Mischu. It's been rainy and dreary all day so there wasn't much more to do but take a nap when we got home. I can hear her snoring as I type this. I set the camera on some books and set the 2 second timer.

Day 21

After I got rained out yesterday I had to go back to Farrel- McWhirter Farm Park in Redmond because there was a slight window for some clear skies during lunch. I actually didn't know they had animals there but it was a a nice surprise. I held the camera down near the ground and this wonderful animal struck a pose, easy as that. The camera was a about 8 inches from it's face, good thing it didn't want to snort on my camera! I got lucky with the composition as I wasn't looking thru the viewfinder when I tripped the shutter. But sometimes it's good to let the medium take control.

Day 20

It was rainy again today and although I went outside to try and shoot something, it was just too wet. I actually drove over to a park on the other side of Redmond with lots of tree cover but I didn't get far from the car when I got totally soaked. I didn't want to take a chance on damaging the camera so I took my shooting indoors. Back at work, I walked around the office to see if there was anyone willing to pose for a portrait. This a programmer here at work who was willing to take a pose. His pose just reminded me of an old baseball card so I tried to play that up. David is a great sports fan so it's seemed fitting to go this route with his portrait too.

Day 19

It was rainy day outside today and we were spending alot time taking care of Mischu so had to grab a couple of quick shots from the yard.  Sometimes the best shots are just a few feet away!

Day 18

I had to go down to Kenmore Camera to pick up something to clean my sensor with and a polarizer for my 50mm.  On the way home I saw this truck on the side of the road with a forsale sign on it.  I really liked the color against the foilage and it was a great chance to try out the new polarizer.  I started reading a book about Black and White landscape photography and thought this really lent itself well to B&W but the green on green was too nice to pass up.