Dark-na

I won't lie. Its dark outside. early.

For weeks, I have clickity clacked away at my desk, computing rates and analyzing changes to the fourth decimal place, pausing every now and then to look up and glance out the window. I wished I could be out exploring & capturing some nice frames, but responsibility got the best of me and I continued to clickity clack. I pacified my photographic needs with this quick pic taken with my little elph. I love the colors of the warm afternoon sun.


Sadly, by the time I got off work, my options were pretty dang limited. (btw... I took this one with my elph in the Target parking lot. Not too shabby...)


Although, on the flip side, it has been super easy capturing night frames! I took this one at dinner one night down at the Waterfront! Yup... another elph shot.

I am glad that today is the shortest day of the year... because that means that soon it will be sunny and I will be reunited with my dear friend, daylight.

Thanks for taking a look at these pics! I hope you are well & keeping it cool with all the holiday, um, stuff.

In peace, Lori

frrrostay

Here is another round of old pics! These were taken the first weekend in December up past North Bend, on some random side of the road near the Twin Falls trailhead. It was another day of wandering. I really enjoy the different aspects of photography; sometimes it is hectic, sometimes it is grueling, but what I most enjoy is just the free flowing "let's see" approach. And that is exactly what happened on this particular Sunday.

We didn't have much light; typical for winter, the light fades FAST. I spent most of my time trying to macro the icy moss on an old bridge. At first, I used my bff the 50mm with the teleconverter, but the vinette was insane! It was fun, though to try!

While I was concentrating on the icy mossy bridge, DMA was over at a creek across the road. After awhile, we met back up and headed down a path near where we were parked. It looked like an old, overgrown trail, and we ended up at the river. DMA kept exploring, but I stayed put and did a few long exposures. It was a wonderful time of day for this setting. I was able to do 20 second exposures without blowing out the image. I love the colors in the rocks.

Of course, I edited one of my frames as black & white. what can I say. its what i do.

Well, thanks for checking out this round of pics! I am caught up on posting what I have edited; buuuuut I have pics to edit still :) yay! And i just found three sd cards in my laptop bag when I was only expecting to find one! oh my! fun!

Hope the blustery, wintery weather is treating you well and that you & your family are all happy, warm & safe. Take care.

boooo!

oh man.... these are old, old old pics! I took these on Halloween in a park in Black Diamond along the Green River. It felt kind of eerie maybe because it was a gloomy day or because it was Halloween, or maybe it was just my childhood fear of anything associated with the Green River.

I don't really have any special techniques or approaches that I took here... it was all about whimsy.

Is it snowing yet?

Spencer Belated

I am a bit behind on posting! but, uh, what else is new?

These three are from an early winter stroll through Spencer Island in Everett. The goal for the day was birding, and I was armed with dma's teleconverter and my 70-300mm. Sadly, the birds were m.i.a. (oh no, wait, I DID get a pic of an eagle, but it is kinda boring...). It was nice to get out in the brisk air & good practice to keep eyes & ears open for birds.

Thankfully, as we left the refuge, dma and I were able to enjoy this lovely sunset. Gorgeous, isn't it? I had already packed up my gear, but we couldn't resist capturing these wonderful colors. The river was soooo glassy!

... well, it *was* glassy until a bunch of kiddos starting throwing rocks or something into the river. I didn't mind; I was able to practice getting a few abstract water images!

It has been tough the past few weeks, from a lighting perspective. I have been stuck at my desk looking out at the beautiful sunny weather allll day, only to walk out of the office after work to a sunset. One can only take so many pictures of magic hour in a business park, yes?
geez. Hopefully, the weekend will bring some interesting photographic adventures!

black and white beach

bright and early. those are the best words to describe Friday morning. While most people were either huddled outside their favorite store, or snuggled in their nice warm blankets, dma and I were on the Edmonds/Kingston ferry. Our destination de jour was the Dungeness Nat'l Wildlife Refuge in Sequim.

It was such a beautiful morning!!! I loved the way the light was hitting the morning dew on the branches and broke the rule of "don't shoot into the sun" to get this frame:

And then I took a ton... i mean a ton... of pictures of the little rocks on the beach as the tide crashed onto the shore. These are two of my favorites...

I also took a few using in-camera black and white. The pic below has not been edited.

The beach filled up quickly, so we headed out... the road to Hurricane Ridge was closed for the season, so we kept heading west and explored a bit of Port Townsend. We found some little pipers which proved to be both photogenic and entertaining. I took this shot with the 70-300mm and teleconverter using manual focus (oh the joys of the teleconverter!!). I liked the vertical pattern of the three birds and ended up cropping in to get this frame:

Sometimes, my fuzzy memory bugs me. For example, I can't remember which book I saw an overly over-exposed beach scene in... I think it was Tom Ang's book? oh well. sigh. I took advantage of the bright evening sunset light and intentionally over-exposed one of the piper pics. I did some other minor adjustments in photoshop, too...

And thus concludes Black Friday 2009! At this point, the weekend was just beginning... I will have more posts up in a few days. i think.

Thanks for checking out this round of pics & hope that you are having a beautiful day.

ooo teleconverter

ugh. November in the Pacific Northwest means one thing... rain. ugh.

Saturday afternoon had a few moments of tranquility, and dma and I explored the Lowell Riverfront Park in Everett. I have driven past this place many, many a time as I took the backroads from Bothell to A-town, and never knew about the coolness that existed in the area.

For this shoot, I was armed with my 70-300mm and dma's teleconverter... I have had it in my camera bag FOREVER but have been severely sidetracked by the big move. ugh. I was happy to finally have a chance to use the teleconverter; what a tremendous learning opportunity.

I took a few classic msg style shots:

and learned how stinkin difficult it is to get somoe bird shots without a tripod...

well, it is hard to take any shot without a tripod. guess I am just shaky :) makes sense... I lack grace in that respect.

and, of course, I managed to find a random water fountain to photograph also.

It was a nice trip, and I am happy to have another local spot to add to the mix.

Hope the chilly, windy, rainy, yucky November weather is treating you well. Stay warm!

lite bright

After a week of packing madness, a photoshoot was in order. Yes? I had *almost* all of my stuff packed up on Friday night, so Saturday I was free to hang out with dma & his brother, aka the butcher. We headed over to butcher's neck of the woods, grabbed some west side teriyaki & headed to the docks!

These first three pics are from a group of old railcars that we came across on our adventures.

These two boat scenes were taken from a waterfront park with interesting picnic shelters that I may, or may not have already visited. I used in-camera black & white. pretty dang cool!

These three are my lite bright series... I used a soft-focus on the waterfront lights. I love them. It was more challenging than I expected, but I had fun trying to get the right speed (to eliminate motion blur in the water) enough light (so I didn't have a black picture!) and focus (so that the lights didn't look too perfect...)

This concludes my post for today... I am exhausted, but wanted to get a few images up before too much time passed. OH one more thing... I took these pictures in both jpeg & raw, but ended up editing off of the jpegs. PLUS, the black & white pics (in-camera) and the soft focus frames are all unedited. nice, eh? Hope that the windy weather is treating you well & thanks for checking out this round of pics!

msg everyday: moving

tomorrow is the big day... I am leaving my dinky little place in bothell and headed to the very lovely town of Woodinville. 970 lavish square feet with TONS of wall space. aaaaah, can't wait!

My days (& nights) have been filled with packing, sorting, recycling, donating stuff, blah blah blah for several weeks, so I haven't been able to pick up my d80 very often. Sad, isn't it? I have managed to snap a few pics on my little elph, though. I am realizing more and more how important photography is to me, especially when it comes to documenting things from the past. In a way, it helps me let go...

Take this set of dishes for example:

I love them. I love the feel of them. I love the texture of the green plates, I love the hue of the blue petals. BUT... they remind me of times that were pretty tough for me. They were wedding gifts for Paul and I back in 2001, and were "our" dishes until our break-up in 2005. When I look at them, all I could think of was the 2001 "me"... the person that was so hopeful, optimistic, determined; so naive. I have changed a lot in the past 4-8 years; both for the good and bad. When I looked at these dishes, it reminded me of how jaded I am now. I have kept them all this time, partially hoping for a link to my old past, and partially because dang it, the bowls were such a perfect size! But, it is time to move on; time for the dishes to go. Before they left though, I arranged them on my living room floor, moved my lamps around for "lighting" & took this picture. I used in-camera settings to get the sepia effect.

On a more positive twist, last night I cleared off all the random papers and photos that have been collecting on my fridge for the past two years. I took a few frames of my collection of fortune cookie papers, and have posted my favorite one below:

This one is both my favorite picture AND favorite fortune ;) I have actually held on to the same stinkin fortune since sometime in early-mid 2007, and even took it with me when I went to DC in the fall of 2007... it reads "There will be true and sincere friendship between you both." I relate this fortune to my friendship with my very dear best friend, dma. We are wierd, and our friendship really, really doesn't make sense to most people. Who cares?... The fortune cookie gets it... true and sincere friendship. I used ELEMENTS to convert this frame to black & white, added a very heavy vignette & believe it or not, lowered the contrast.

And here is a preview of the new place!

Hope you are having a beautiful day, and thanks for checking out these pics!

ki'i leka

Every once in awhile, people ask me "what made you interested in photography?" Well, like most of my explanations, it isn't really a short story ;) I have always loved photography, and there have been a few images that, over the years, stand out as especially inspiring.

One is a photo of a lilac with raindrops that one of my college friends took and used on an Easter card. I loved the level of detail of the graceful raindrop contrasted by the super blurry background, and the striking hue of the lilac. Another one is a close-up of one of my former employers' son; I loved how the photo captured the sweet innocence of the baby. It was simple, but powerful.

And there is one that is mine! From 1999-2001, I lived in a village called Ha'atu'a on the beautiful, pristine island of 'Eua waaaaay out in the middle of the South Pacific. I was blessed with the sweetest neighbors in the world; a great comfort while being so far from home. The picture below is my favorite photo from the hundreds that I took over those two years. The little girl on the left is Kefi, my neighbors' youngest daughter, and the girl on the right is Toisi, the daughter of a woman that taught me how to tau'olunga (a tongan dance... NOTHING like a hula!). Kefi was a frequent visitor, and loved being my little helper! In this pic, Kefi and Toisi are helping me with my laundry, working together to wring out my pajama pants. This was taken with a point & shoot film camera. I had just one roll of black & white film from home; funny, eh... my how times have changed! I often think back to this image when I am photographing people, it is kind of like a benchmark... a reminder to capture the moment.


p.s. I scanned this photograph, so the image quality is compromised a bit; hopefully I'll run across the negative someday & be able to convert it to a digital image!

leaves leaves leaves

It was a lovely fall afternoon... I escaped from the office a bit early and soon dma and I were roaming south seattle looking for fall color. These are some of the pics I took; hope you enjoy the lovely fall colors!

There was a really cool spot in the park that was like a plant cave... hahaha, I am not really sure what you call it... a grove? I tried to capture the whole scene, but couldn't quite get it. I opted instead for a frame of the lighting coming through the leaves to capture the memory.

And then I tried the same frame using dma's "soft focus" technique. I was instantly calmed.

I lined up some leaves for this frame. I love the texture.
I didn't move these leaves around; they are as they were. I convereted to black and white, just for fun.
Hope that autumn is treating you well & that you are finding an abundance of fall color, too!

macrolicious

This past weekend was much more sedate, and quite a bit less hilly! The exciting news is that dma and I attended the Kenmore Camera expo and had a chance to meet Art Wolfe; a well traveled famous photographer that hails from the Pacific Northwest. How did I get here?

dma and I took a stroll through the Mercer Slough Park on Sunday afternoon armed with a mission to capture fall color.

It was so beautiful there! I haven't been there in a few years, and it was nice to visit an old familiar place.(I still want to see it in the snow yo!).

For this pic, I was drawn to the crisp yellow leaves sharing the branches with the fresh green ones.

  (oh! Here is a picture of "my" leaves!)

It was a great trip to this oasis of nature in the city. I really like dma's shots too from that day; he turned about 176 degrees from his "3d worlds" approach to create some beautiful, soothing images.

As I completed this photo shoot I realized that I need to study macro photography more. I haven't actually "studied" macro; what I have worked on so far has been mostly intuitive. I guess I am blessed in that respect... but I think it is time to concentrate on abstract macros. I have been reluctant over the past year or so to concentrate on macros, because I wanted to be a more well-rounded photographer. Now, I am feeling called to get lost in the details; to maximize the patterns, the create tension through assymmetrical frames.

well, that's my plan for now... we'll see what adventures are around the corner.

the post vacation staycation

Our trip to Yellowstone was cut short due to a wild fire & some road construction, so we ended up heading home early. The early arrival though, gave us a chance to recharge during the week & head out to the hills on the weekend!

Where would you go after spending a week in Wyoming? Mt. Ranier, of course! The next three photos were taken in the Paradise area of Ranier, along the Skyline Trail. We made it up to the Glacier lookout before the bitter cold got the best of us.

For these frames, I concentrated mostly on composition and messing around with different settings. The top two pics are unedited; jpegs straight from my lovely D80. While I LOVE looking at other people's landscapes, they are definitely not my strong point. I like these, though :)

We contintued our trek through National Parks and found ourselves in the Olympic National Park the next weekend. The plan was to spend the weekend there to get sunrise shots, but the weather ended up being kinda crummy, so we just went for the day. It was very cool; I have visit the rain forest part of the Olympics before, but haven't been up to Hurrican Ridge. It has been on my list for-ev-er.

I didn't have a specific idea of what I wanted to shoot here, or anything in particular to work on. lol... I was still in vacation "whatev" mode ;)

Thanks for checking out this round of pics, too! Peace be with you, Lori

pictures of things outside

pictures of things outside.
yes.

this post is just a tiny peek at some pics that I took on a recent vacation. it was no ordinary vacation. my dearest best friend and i headed to wyoming to explore two beautiful national parks. it wasn't a trip full of lavish, poolside fruity beverages, or sunny beaches stretching for miles. there were no college interns dressed as woodland creatures or hyper technical amusement rides.

it was better.

the tetons were a photographer's play ground. it was no ordinary vacation.

- The first pic was taken in Yellowstone, from an unofficial part of a trail. We were looking for a high vantage point to capture a scene we knew well from ELEMENTS; the Grand Prismatic Spring. Pretty cool, huh?



ooook, no more silly elph shots (bison?)... on with the pics!

This one is from the very, very, very, very, very famous Oxbow Bend. It was numero uno on our list, and every bit as captivating as we expected. The fall colors were beautiful, but I converted this frame to black & white to give it my own spin.

aaah, and here is my ansel attempt. It actually began as a Tom attempt, but was too cluttered. When I was processing the shot, I did my usual "hmmm wonder what this would look like monotone" maneuvers, and ended up with this processed image:

This barn scene is so Old Westy, eh? I didn't intentionally do anything to get the soft focused look, but I did do some processing to get the monotone.

The barns of Mormon Row are also very, very, very, very, you get the idea, very popular with the slr/dslr crowd. Have a tripod? we'll see you there at sunrise.

... but we won't see you there at sunset. We visited this area a few times, and had the luxury of basically having the place to ourselves during the times of day when the lighting was kinda harsh. (side note: 3-5pm in the tetons is horrible! best time to catch up on some zzzz's, blog, edit & do some coin-op laundry!)

And here is another Art Wolfe attempt; I wanted to capture the fall leaves gently moving in the breeze. I had tried on several occations, and was grateful to capture this frame. i love it. I will probably be printing it out soon (along with a few others in this tonal group).

And that about wraps it up! Thank you for taking a look, and for checking back! Hope you are having a lovely day. OH and go to the Tetons... it is a national treasure.