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.