The Return

Well, its the end of a week that went by way too fast. I can't believe it is Friday night already.

Yesterday I headed to the outdoor art exhibits down on Dock Street in Tacoma with one of my good friends. (Don't worry, we were both armed with ninja tripods... but we didn't need 'em anyways, this place has changed)

It was wierd to be there; we had visited this same spot about two years ago. My, what can change over two years. The artwork is still beautiful; timeless even. However, the landscape and feel of that place was completely different. Plus, my friend and I were different. The last time we went there, I was still shooting with my little canon and he had *just* purchased his first dslr.

I am amazed at the progression that we've both made over the past two years. I am also amazed at how many details two virgos can find in a tiny area. We spent hours exploring and goofing around this somewhat small area.

The pics below are my favorites from the trip. I will expand more on them later; I am too pooped to fill in all the details now.

OH! One last thing... the other cool thing is that I used all three of my lenses on this trip. Pretty cool, huh?

gonna miss ya

Sad news... my dear sweet little cousin, Tyler, is moving down to Bend, Oregon, on Thursday. I went up to Stanwood on Sunday to get some pics of him with his good friend Kyle (they've been friends since they were wee little guys) and one of our other cousins Jim (we have many, many cousins, but Ty & Jim are pretty close - he's like a big brother to Ty).

I was honored that my uncle asked me to take pics for them; I only wish I had better skills to offer. The pics below are just a handful of the animated shots I captured; they are blurry because, dang it, those kids don't ever stop moving! Even through the blurs you can see what a sweet kid he is and how much he is loved.

I'll miss ya.

macro superhero attempt

For today's adventure I found myself at the Volunteer Park Conservatory. I wanted to test the macro features of my new lens and figured this place would be juuuuust right. It did have plenty of gorgeous flowers AND the seasonal display featured some especially lovely gardenias that reminded me of my house in Tonga. I forgot though, how cramped it is in there... no room for a tripod! I tried to steady my camera on random poles to avoid blur, but still ended up using a high ISO.... resulting in some unfortunately rather grainy shots.

I've just posted the flowers & plants here without any details... they were all in the high ISO range, low f-stop at around 300mm using the "macro" feature on the sigma. enjoy.

... after my hour or so of macro work I headed out to take a spin around the rest of the park. I found a couple of ducks in a very tiny fountain... this is my first attempt at "wildlife" photography with the 300mm. I kinda like this pic. btw, the other 9 shots were blurry. very blurry.

I drove home the long way. Partly because I needed some time to think and partly because hey, why not, I had the day off! I ended up on Martin Luther King, Jr., Way and figured I would look for a cool shot from there, as a tribute to MLK's b-day. I found a dog park that overlooked the city (kinda) and an old school building that has been converted to a museum. None of these really inspired me, so I looked toward the hillside and looked for a pic that would help me understand "compressing spatial relationships." I still need to google this term & learn more about it, but I think this pic is a good example... the houses look so smooshed together.

that is all I have for today! I am looking forward to trying out my new lens at the Tulip Festival this year... should be able to get some great shots... they'll be in crisp because I'll be able to use a tripod, and will have excellent bokah (because, well, that's how i roll).

Fog-na

Not so bright, and way too early Saturday morning I headed up to the Conway to try to get some sunrise shots of the Skagit Valley. I figured it would be the perfect spot to try out my new lens; I always wish that I could get closer to the mountains and wondered what the 300mm could do.

Well, it was foggy. And not the artistic "ooh it will add some morning mist" kind of fog... it was the pea soup kind! I figured I could try to find something interesting in the foreground and found this beautiful tree along the side of the road. I used my 18-55 mm on this one.

Then I kept driving. It was actually a nice way to start the day; a nice warm car, a delicious cup of coffee, exploring a pretty much deserted place. I rarely encountered other cars on the side roads and was able to capture these flooded fields while parked on the road.

Eerie

This is a view of one of the flooded fields. Isn't it eerie? You can't even tell where the horizon is. I used my new 70-300 for this one.

The Fence

This pic is from the same field. I liked the look of the fence and set my aperture at 4.0 to make it look like it was disappearing into the fog. I was impressed with how much I was able to fit in the frame...

Abstract 1 & 2

This piece of farm equipment caught my eye; it would have made a cool subject in the foreground of a sunrise picture... if it weren't so darn foggy. I took a pic anyway, just to test the powers of 300mm.

Then I had some fun with the editing of this pic. I pushed the contrast up as high as it would go. Normally, when I do this I end up with Andy Warhol-type pics, but the foggy skies actually worked in my favor this time. Instead of a bunch of extreme/bright colors, I had a sharp black & white.


Last Pic
My new lens is heavy. I was glad to see that the images I took with my camera on a tripod worked out, but I hoped I would still be able to get some hand-held shots. After my skagit valley expedition, I headed to my sister's house in A-town. I snapped this quick pic of one of their many, many vehicles. I set the ISO to 400, and used aperture priority at 4.0. It was a 1/125 of a second exposure.



The rest of the weekend was pretty hectic, so I don't have any other pics to share. Thank you for checking out my pictures! I hope that you are having a lovely day :)

i'm wimpy

good news... my new lens arrived yesterday! I am now the proud owner of a Sigma 70-300 mm F4-5.6 DG Macro lens. I haven't had much time to really see what this thing can do, so I only have a few shots to share.

Mmmm Coffee
What can I say.... Holy Cow. I stood at my computer desk, zoomed out to 300mm and switched the lens into macro mode to take a picture of this coffee cup on my counter. Yeah, its noisy, but I took it at night, hand held, in my apartment. Not bad... considering that this thing is HEAVY...well, heavy for me, anyway. Like the title of this post says... I'm wimpy ;)

f-u-n

When I came home for lunch today, I noticed that one of my neighbors has had some fun recently. The entire truck is covered... covered... in mud. Fun :) I again, zoomed all the way out, then I cropped it in Digital Photo Pro.

Sentrizzle
Normally, the Sentra isn't especially photogenic. But I felt weird zooming into the office buildings across the street, so I aimed down and snapped a few of my car. I am impressed with the clarity! Again, handheld. holy freakin cow.


I remember being frustrated up on Rainier because I wanted to macro some flowers but had to get sooo stinkin close to them. I'm looking forward to exploring the macro action of this new lens. Maybe I really will be a macro supergirl?

Juanita at Twilight

After work today I headed straight to the beach!

The pics below were taken at Juanita Beach in Kirkland. I am (UPS-willing) getting a new lens tomorrow, so I wanted to be sure to get one last shoot in before it arrived. My goal was to set a benchmark; to take pictures from a place where I could take some pics with the gear I have now, noting the strengths and limitations of the equipment. After I am comfortable with the new lens I can head back to this spot and see what new adventures my shutter will uncover.

Starting Point

There were a ton of ducks enjoying the gentle waves of the lake today. I didn't want to scare them away, so I started back a bit, took some pics, messed with my filters, took a few steps closer, realigned my horizon, a few more steps, monkeyed with the tripod in order to put my camera in landscape mode, and dawdled my way up to the shore. Dawdling comes naturally to me, you know.

I converted this one to sepia & brought the saturation down a few notches.

Ducks at 50mm

I zoomed out almost as far as I could and this is what I found. I am looking forward to the 70-300 :) (Similar to the pic above, this one is in a subdued sepia)

Noisy Ducks

oh gosh... noisy ducks. I mean "noisy" because of the grainy pic rather than them actually squacking. They were pretty chill, just floating around. I was surprised at how fast they float, though! I ended up going into the ISO 1600 range in order to get a shutter speed fast enough to get a clear outline of a duck. I enjoyed watching them bobbing in and out of the water, especially with the reflection of the dock light near by.

For this one, I set the picture style to monochrome, added (I think?) a yellow filter, chose a purple tone, then brought the saturation down. The actual picture is very blue, kind of like a dark royal blue. Oh, and I did a bit o' cropping.

The Dock

Its funny; I didn't even go out on the dock tonight. I wasn't sure what time the parked closed and didn't want to get locked in! I love the way this one turned out... I like the movement in the sky and the reflection in the puddle. I am feeling kind of so-so on the starry lights. I had a low f-stop in order to keep the exposure under 30 seconds.

Shall we picnic? A Last Look Photo

Doesn't it always happen... just as you are headed back to the car, you take one last look at the beautiful place you've just visited, drinking in the wonders of nature, when.... OH! another shot! The pic below is my "last look photo" for the day.

The first pic is very minimally edited. I applied a standard tonal adjustment and cropped out some unnecessary black space at the bottom of the picture.

The bottom pic is the result of a bit of reflection and editing. I tried my favorite black & white. nah. I tried my new fav sepia. nope. So, I went the other direction and brought the saturation to the extreme end and increased the contrast, too.

It felt great to be on the lake tonight. I walked on sand, I tippytoed through mud, I breathed that cool lake air. The wind was calm and wasn't bitterly cold either. In some ways it felt like a chilly summer night. As I drove home I felt content; it reminded me of the feeling I get after a nice hike... that feeling of clear thoughts, fresh air in your system, and general balance.

Thanks Juanita.

Not quite 40 days and 40 nights

So, last week, while I was in Olympia, my dear sweet home town was receiving a ton of rain. I had heard stories from my sister that the roads out of town in several directions were flooded... a quick google search later (stillaguamish flood january 2009) and I have a Seattle Times story & video to prove it.

I ran up to a little place off the Espe road today then swung by a local park to check out last week's wrath. When I compared the pics below to the one published in the Seattle Times, I noticed that the river has already receded quite a bit. The river is still high and dangerous though, and the park is littered with branches and tons (tons!) of mud.




Just for fun
This was my second trip to the park in the past year. Last time I was there, I was surprised to see that the same toys that I enjoyed as a kid were still in use (they at least looked like the toys I used to play on...). They caught my eye again today, and I chose this happy little blue seal as my subject du jour (du jour means ...).

It was a drizzly day, so I didn't want to change lenses and risk getting moisture inside the body of my camera, so I tried something new! I zoomed out to 55mm and set my f-stop in the 5something range. Awesome Bokah... just what I was hoping for! I never think to use my zoom lens this way; usually I reserve it for far away objects (and then get annoyed when the 55mm doesn't zoom out far enough). I tried a few more views of this fun little piece of my history, but my CF card was full, the drizzle was turning into rain, AND I don't think I was actually supposed to be in the park (the parking lot gate was locked), so I just headed out. I do have a new interest, though... using the 18-55mm like my bff the 50mm. fun.

Thanks for checking out my pictures. My thoughts and prayers are with those who were troubled by the recent flooding.

rainy, windy, cold... repeat

I had the joy and pleasure of visiting our state's capital city, Olympia, this week for a work function. When I usually travel for work it is to places that require an airplane trip and extensive exporation on foot (I love my Keens!). It was kinda nice to have one that I could drive to... Hmmm, where should I go? I know nothing about Olympia, and I received a warning that the south sound could be a scary place ;)

I consulted a guidebook that has "hidden" locales in the northwest, and found Percival Landing. I am always lured by water, and a bit of history in the mix makes for a tempting shoot.

The pics below are the best I could muster from this place. The park itself is great; and would be a nice place in the summer. It was just so stinkin windy! My tripod was useless... I had to actually hold it down so that it wouldn't blow away! I had trouble using the auto focus in the dark, but then I remembered the lessons I learned this summer on the Phantom Lake shoot... I focused on a well-lit area off to the side then held the focus while setting up the shot I wanted. This is all well and good... except for the raindrop factor.

So, long story short, I am sure that any bystanders that were watching me must have thought that I was nuts: it was dark & windy, I was taking random shots of things, and I was balancing my camera on the edges of logs. Oh, and then I took some long exposures, so I stood around for a good minute, shooting into the dark.

Parts of this post might come across negative, but overall, it was a great place :) I had fun on my little adventure & even found a place that served the perfect end to any photo shoot: 2-star chicken phad woon sen.

The Statue
I loved the lighting on this statue!

Blue Dock

This was a cool place. At first, the boat in the lower corner caught my eye. Then, I LOVED the blue lights reflecting on the water.

What can I say? Ugh.

I had such high hopes for the next two pictures :) The first one is a 2.5 second exposure and the bottom one is a "hey why not this is going to be my last frame" 20 second exposure. Maybe they'll be better next time... when it is warm, not windy & I have my new awesome lens!

holy cow these things are noisy! I swear... I did not take them with a camera phone! Thanks for taking a peek at Oly with me.

oly you say?

greetings! I am headed to Olympia for a few days for work... thankfully, I don't have the type of job that requires an addiction to a laptop & blackberry... unfortunately, I'll be out of communication for awhile... meaning no new posts! I'm bringing along both cameras, and I'll be on the lookout for interesting sights.

a lovely distraction

To take my mind off of tonight's snowfall, I pulled out the Rebel, the tripod, my bff the 50mm, the closeup filter & my newly washed microfiber cloth.

A lovely rose seemed to be my perfect muse.

The pics below are all of the same flower, I just tried out some different aperture settings. I tried the full range of f-stops, from f1.8 to 22, and really liked the looks of the f1.8 3.5 the best.

I also tried out a bit of editing, too... some of them are in black & white, some with sepia, some in just a normal color. I also adjusted the white balance on one to portrait mode, which highlighted a different part of the petals.

For the last pic, I bumped up the contrast; I like how you can see the veins of the petals. I also like the contrast between the outer and inner petals. The new ones look so pretty and dewey and new, while the outer ones are showing a bit of wear from the elements.

Enjoy.

f 1.8

f 3.5-b&w

f 3.5-sepia

f 3.5 - better focus
f 3.5 - portrait white balance

ooo, contrasty

Aaah, aren't flowers lovely? Thanks for checking out my pictures! Wishing you a safe and nonsnowy day!