Category: Photography

This morning’s photographic foray was Pike Place market. I have a lot of trouble with Pike Place. The colors and patterns of the fruit, flowers, vegetables and other goods for sale should be easy, even with the tricky lighting. But I walk out with three or four weak pictures every time.

Which was the case today. Except that I decided to stand by the fish packers for an hour and try to capture them tossing fish back and forth. I think the picture below works very well.

My photography workshop in the Olympics is only a few weeks away. After moving/painting/packing, WoW, work and a lot of rain & clouds, I’m rusty. Hell, I barely became familiar with my new camera in Guatemala. I still feel like I could better predict my pictures using the old, entry-level Canon Rebel SLR my family bought for me a decade ago.

So, I’ve been out every weekend for the past month with my camera, getting back into shape for the Olympics.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I started out with waterfalls, but, of course, I realized pretty quickly that what the book listed–big, gushing, pouring waterfalls–is not very photogenic. This shot to the right (click to enlarge) of a nameless little creek I found on a hike with Katie last weekend is far more compelling than, say, this picture of Snoqualmie falls.

Last weekend, I went after my favorite subject in San Francisco: urban decay, grafiti and industrial grit. Seattle still has an active light industrial base, however, so I couldn’t find the collosal abandoned factories and buildings that were just down the street from me in Potrero Hill.

But grafiti can be found anywhere. I spent 1.5 hours last Saturday cruising around SoDo and Georgetown (an area south of downtown and the ballparks which I insist on calling South of Market due to its similarity with that neighborhood), and found some interesting specimens, like this angry face to the left (click to enlarge). Lots more are in my Industrial Seattle gallery.

And today? Today, I started out at Volunteer Park just a few blocks north of home in Capitol Hill, and landed some interesting shots of some cacti–maybe euphorbs–in the Conservatory. There are more of the park in my Seattle gallery.

After that, though, I just scooted around, drove all the way to Seattle’s southern border, then up the coast through West Seattle and home. It was a gorgeous day, cool but not cold, sunny. A beautiful day for a ride. 

I never seem to notice when the light is right for portraits. But it was right at one point this past weekend when Ellie was sitting on the couch in Chanel & Trish’s living room in Portland.

I just love how pensive she is. It captures her quiet, gentle nature, I think.

Which one do you like more?

We’re bracing for another winter storm, this one is all rain and high winds. Rain, like two inches in an hour, and wind gusting about 70mph. I have never seen rain this fantastically heavy (photo right).

This rain also proves the weather seals on my 1d work. The rain was pounding on my camera, and it functioned without a hitch.

Here are a few pics.

Manholes turned geysers
Gutters turned into raging creeks	I-5 under Olive was a pond

It was snowing lightly early this morning when I rode off to the gym. It didn’t really count as snow: it all melted  as soon as it touched the ground.

On the ride over, a few of the roads were closed except for local traffic. I didn’t get why until my curiosity overcame me in the gym: this one fellow kept looking out the window down at the street. It was the Seattle Marathon.

Scheduling a marathon in November at the heaviest part of the rainy season seemed a distinctly Pacific Northwest sort of thing to do. While eating breakfast at home and mulling this cultural oddity, I got this idea in my head. I needed to find a way to take a picture of the absurdity of a marathon in freezing rain.

My first thought was of a big puddle reflecting the Space Needle, with a runner’s shoe splashing into it. Needless to say, it’s difficult to get a crystal clear reflection of something in a puddle when someone is stepping in that puddle. As for the runners, even after 25.5 miles, they still managed to avoid all the puddles. I mean, they were already soaked, why bother avoiding the puddles?

Anyway, not sure how impressed I am with the photo above, but it captures the essence of it: ripples from rain drops, a reflection of the Space Needle, the flat colorless sky, and the dashes of blue from a runner’s shoe.

Over two months ago, I was headed off to Alki Beach to take photos of the setting sun reflecting off the mirrored glass of Seattle’s skyline. I didn’t get very far: a teenage driver in an SUV (with three of his teenage friends) made a left turn directly in front of me, totaling my Vespa.

I decided to head back yesterday afternoon, despite some superstition-inspired nervousness. Much to my relief, no dumb kids tried to kill me this time.

It wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d hoped: While the sun had burned off the fog in Seattle, it hadn’t made much of a dent in the fog to the west, softening the light smacking into the skyline. The most interesting picture I took was this one of two kayaks dwarfed by the skyscrapers.

I was also quite pleased with myself at recognizing the mistakes of two other photographers. The two had set up their tripods and were camped out maybe 15 feet from each other. Maybe they were waiting for the sun to completely set to photograph a midnight blue sky, but I think they were hoping to get a little bit of sunset color over the skyline. Unfortunately, color from a sunset tends to be concentrated close to the sun. I left 15 minutes before the sunset, which only touched the sky directly behind them.

Anyway, the second mistake was not fully exploring angles for the shot. They were both too far north to catch any reflections off the mirrored glass, leaving them only shadowed buildings. They only had to walk another 50 or 60 feet to the south to catch the sun’s glow on three skyscrapers with reflections stretching over the entire bay. Still not all that exciting, but I think this shot of a kayaker following a seagull is about as good as one could get this afternoon.

There was some nice sunset color during the ride home, but I had managed to forget the shoe that attaches my camera to the tripod. Otherwise, I would’ve pulled over to get a shot or two.

After running home to get that shoe, I decided to head up to Kerry Park in Queen Anne, which has an almost unobstructed view of the downtown skyline to the south-southeast. My little Seattle Photo Guide Map [created by local photographers! Available from viewit.com and tomhaseltine.com] claims this viewpoint "is often used by film and TV crews." By this time, however, a few wispy, low clouds had rolled in over the skyline, reflecting back the yellow light and washing out the midnight blue of the sky. I’ll have to go back again to get a better shot.

Ultimately, I decided that the shot below, of another photographer silhouetted against the midnight blue sky with the skyline as a backdrop was the most interesting shot I could take (I had to do quite a bit of post-processing to get rid of the yellow). I noticed, again, that the four or five other photographers there were rooted in one position, snapping off another shot every few minutes.

It’s not like anyone is reading my blog for photographic advice, but if someone DOES come here for some help, just remember, for stationary objects, walk around and experiment. Use all of your lenses (and at a variety of focal lengths). Try to find a frame, like a branch or
sculpture or streetlight. Find something else to include in your picture, like a couple kissing, or, in this case, another photographer. If you stand in one place using the same lens, not only will you only get the one photo (with different light, I’ll grant you), but you may also miss other, more interesting shots.

I have this vision in my head of the perfect jellyfish picture. Actually, it’s not just in my head. I’m not sure exactly where I saw it first, but I know it’s a picture from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It’s a single jellyfish with a long tail trailing off the edge of the picture… a solitary golden jellyfish on a royal blue field. I can’t find an example of that exact picture, but this shot by Declan McCullagh (website) gives you the idea.

I’ve wanted to take this picture ever since I learned of the jellyfish exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Unfortunately, the dim lighting utilized by these artistic jellyfish exhibits requires a tripod, and the rules on bringing a tripod are rather strict. You can only use one when it will not get in the way of other guests. Considering that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is packed weekdays during the school year with field trips, weekdays during the summer with tourists, and weekends year-round, it’s nearly impossible to find an appropriate time.

But the Seattle Aquarium has no such restrictions. I discovered to my delight this past weekend that tripods are allowed at any time–there’s no way I could have taken this shot without a tripod [click to enlarge]. I wouldn’t have discovered this for months if it weren’t for Heather’s trip up to Seattle this past week. With Sunday’s weather forecast for rain, we needed some kind of activity indoors. Since she has always wanted to see me take pictures, I thought the Aquarium would be a perfect Sunday morning destination.

[I have no idea why she wants to see me take pictures. It’s boring. I can sit in the same place for hours waiting for the right shot. In Guatemala, I spent two hours one afternoon taking pictures of a troop of spider monkeys in the trees directly above me. I only stopped because the pain in my neck from having a 6+ pound camera resting on my face became overwhelming. At the Seattle Aquarium, I spent 20 minutes taking pictures of the jellies. Heather stuck around for about five minutes before heading to the tidal pools to touch a starfish. She also blogged briefly about the trip.]

And the Seattle aquarium has jellies. It’s a small exhibit, and the lighting scenario wasn’t quite as breathtaking as those at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The light bulbs were painfully obvious behind the red gel; it was the only jelly exhibit in the place, limiting my photographic flexibility; and the exhibit was designed as a walk-through, meaning my tripod camera was inconveniencing other guests who didn’t want to block my shot (making me feel guilty for sitting there for 20 minutes).

None of that mattered, of course. What mattered was light. For that exhibit, the ideal picture would be a black background with a glowing red jellyfish. The shutter speed for that picture was far too slow, however. Even the slow drifting of the jellies came out as a red blur. My only option was to include the illuminated red band in the picture.

I snapped 90 frames. They’re in a new Aquarium gallery on my photos site. They’re not perfect, but they look pretty damn cool.

I took a swing past several maritime sites in Seattle yesterday. I needed a break from stressing out about finding an apartment–which I had been handling by sitting in my temp housing watching TV for hours on end. Yeah, I shouldn’t be getting sucked in by TV, but I felt paralyzed–finding an apartment should be my number one priority, so I shouldn’t waste time on photography. Anyway, I forced myself out of it, and took some interesting, if uninspired pictures (gallery).

First stop was the Center for Wooden Boats, which is a tiny little point on Lake Union where hobbyists restore and maintain classic old wooden boats. There were some nice, brightly painted boats that made interesting photo subjects (although I didn’t quite get the repeating bow patterns I had hoped for).

Second stop was Fisherman’s Terminal, where Seattle’s commercial fishing fleet docks. Or, at least, where the smaller boats dock. Most had for-sale signs on them. I don’t think the industry is in that good shape. But the nets and ropes and anchors made for interesting patterns.

Last stop was the Hiram Chittenden Locks between Lake Union/Washington and Puget Sound. The interesting bit here was the fish ladder. One part of the ladder is equipped with windows, so you can see these 25-35 pound salmon swimming in circles, trying to get the strength up to leap the next step of the 20-plus step ladder to Lake Union on the way to their spawning grounds.