Tug on Duwamish

Did some shooting late Sunday Oct 19 in South Seattle. Took about sixty exposures of this tug as it was approaching and then departing.

Beach Dream

This one was taken the same evening with October Tree. A little nighmare quality here, reminds me of the beach scenes of Bill Braynt. I almost erased this shot in camera when I saw how soft the bird was but a little voice told me not to erase it and now I see why. The out of focus bird isn't really an issue, since the bird isn't the subject, however without the bird there would be no photograph.

For another bird dream see Two Pigeons.

Dog on Leash

Same time and location as October Tree. The man with the husky is a local. See him all the time.

October Tree

This was taken on Oct 10th 2008, just minutes before sundown. The light coming over the water was very soft, filtered through a light fog. To preserve the look and feel of the scene I resisted the temptation to increase the midtone contrast with the clarity slider in Lightroom2. I gave the overall grayscale curve a steep slope with a flat shoulder at the highlights and a long toe in the shadows. I boosted the fill light to about 50 and then I did something counter intuitive, I decreased the clarity to -25. I have posted both the grayscale and color versions. I like the softness of the tonal transitions in the midtones. That is what it looked like.

Angelic

Fooling around at the beach today. The gulls and crows were fighting over some dead fish. This gull was bathing in the waves.

619 Post Ave

This is a shot taken just north of Yesler in Post Ave. This part of Seattle has a lot of old brick that will probably disappear when the viaduct gets torn down.

Opening Time - J&M Cafe & Cardroom

J&M Cafe is on 1st Ave & Washington St one block south of Yesler which is part of the historical club district dating back to Seattle's earliest days. Both a night club and a daytime tourist trap. I haven't spent much time inside in the five decades I have been walking the district.

A Horse on Alaskan Way

This was taken August 23, 2008 late in the day just before sunset. The location is on the water side of Alaskan Way just south of Pier 56 where all the tour boats tie up. There are several horse drawn carriages that work that location in the summer time.

The reason for the crop was simple, I had a long lens mounted and this was as wide as I could go. The maple trees cast a leaf pattern shadow on the back of the horse.

Smoke Break

Parking Meter

Post Alley at Pioneer Square.

If you take a close look at the wall on the dark side of Parking Meter, just under the vent you can see the remains of an arch over a former window. This is archeological evidence left over from the 19th century when this would have been the the second floor not the ground level. The street was filled in and raised one floor in 1906 leaving an under world called underground Seattle by the the folks who want to sell you a tour. When I was in college we had our own unofficial tour of underground Seattle, places that were not on the regular tour. It didn't last long. Police issues.

Sleepers - South of Yesler

Sunday Morning, 9/7/08, south of Yesler. A big crowd in the square just north of the fire station.

Push Broom

Stairs to Post Alley

This was taken on the same hot night as the Elliot Bay harbor shots. This man is walking his dog which means he is probably a local resident of one waterfront condos.

Tourboat on Elliot Bay

This was taken at the same time and place as Harbor - Last Light. This shot is looking toward the south end of the Olympic range. I think the mountain in profile there is named "the Brothers".

Harbor - Last Light

Not sure about this one. All that light on top of the clouds kind of distracts from the main subject which is the ships and the water. I could crop off the top but then the sky would be overly dark. So for now I will leave it as it is.

EDIT 8/30/08:Now I have reworked it a little, not quite as dark and added a BW version. When I shot this standing on the empty pier just north of the Aquarium in Elliot bay, I figured it was throwaway shot. I was using a long lens and had zoomed back to 70mm which didn't give me enough room to get all the ships in the photo. Anyway, it wasn't a complete loss.

St Elmo's Fire - Mt Rainier Sunday Morning

Here is a classic piece of 'bad art' which was actually a high key flat image until it was tortured in post-processing. The St Elmo's Fire around the water tank and trees is the result of pushing the clarity slider to 100% in ACR and then cranking the contrast up in levels to the point where you could see vertical banding in the sky from the sensor at 50% but not too much at this size. Image size reduction covers a multitude of evils.

Two Gulls Looking North

This was taken at the DesMoines Marina about 10am Sunday 8/24/08 with a storm developing, rain arrived about 12:30 PM.

DesMoines Marina Club House

Basement Old Federal Building

This is the basement entrance to the old federal building in Seattle. Not much in the way of security. A chain with padlocks. Don't know what goes on in this building now since the new federal building just across first avenue has been in operation for over a decade. I remember going in this building once for an interview with my draft board in regard to my application for CO status. That was 38 years ago.

Power and Light [again]

Here is a new contribution to my power and light series. I like the architectural chaos evident here. Note that the distortion here is not a fault of the lens, the building really does sag in places and lines don't meet at right angles.

[F]ord with Two Plates

Went to the Thursday farmers market in Burien today. Nothing much happening but found some stuff to shoot in the neighborhood of Old Burien just north of 152nd behind Kirk's Feed Store. The man who owns these trucks pulled up in a 30 year old elcamino and chatted with me about his most exotic truck a '55 GMC 630 cab-over which I will post later.

Seattle Mystery Bookshop

I was standing at the north end of Pioneer Square bracing my camera against a tree or lamppost looking up First Ave when I took this shot.

The Heat

Saint with Roses

This is the second time I have shot this wall. Decided to give it another try. Need to have someone tell me what saint this is, a saint who guards the door to your business. This was taken Thursday August 31st in Old Burien, one of the side streets just off the main drag. I stopped in at several of the shops and chatted with the proprietors. Don't often drive down this street since it is a bottle neck created intentionally by the city 'planners' and the traffic backs up several blocks from the light.

Abstract

I have been running dry on subject matter so I end up shooting stuff like this.

Photo on Demand

This man walked up while I was busy taking photos on 136th and Ambaum, trying to ignore a noisy altercation that was developing between a woman and some of her associates, involving her screaming and yelling and walking out into heavy traffic and truck tires screeching and blue smoke, and then the whole business moved across the street to the 24 hour store and then this man walks up and wants me to take his photo so I said, "stand over there" and took one shot and let him look at it and he was pleased and walked away.

After I got home and looked at the photo it seemed to have some merit, so I am posting it.

Bean Counter - Pike Place

This is a traditional produce stand at the Pike Place market. The vendor was placeing the green beans one at a time which struck me as a rather labor intensive approach.

Off Kingstreet

Winter morning light on third avenue just north of the Kingstreet Station in Seattle.

Six Plates

This was taken from a stairway that leads from Elliot Ave down to Alaskan Way. There is a seafood restaurant at the foot of the stairs.

Blue and Pink - Fourth of July Parade

When I go to a parade (once every decade or two) the people watching are the focus of my attention not the stuff going past on the street. This was taken yesterday in Burien Washington at the Fourth of July parade.

Two Bicycles

The same hot evening up on First Ave near the Market. Lots of people on the street.

Red and Green

More photos from a hot night downtown about sundown near the Market. This one was taken up on First Ave.

Sunday Evening at the Market

It had dropped below 90f when I took this photo about half an hour before sunset. It was still very warm and there wasn't much wind. I could have color corrected this to remove the yellow red cast but I wanted it to look like I saw it.

Pulling the Grade

This was taken late in the afternoon, just up the hill half a block from the Pike Place Market. This street is original equipment. Still paved with cobble stones (not in photo) and it is steep. When I was a teenager our family brought my fathers brother and his family to see the market in his chevy station wagon. We were going down one of these steep streets to the market when brakes failed and the emgergency brake was worthless. My uncle yelled no brakes to clear the sidewalk as we carened into an allyway. Close shave. Otherwise we would have gathered some speed before crashing into the market and killing who knows how many people.

Facing the Wall

Just around the corner from Box Office after the Matinee crowd had dispersed. The hero of Box Office experiences a quiet moment alone.

Work Boats

This was taken at Bell Harbor from the observation deck, a view point which is a favorite with local photographers and tourists alike. These boats look to me like they are together. The fishing boat with several net boats.

This was developed in Lightroom 2.0 beta using the target adjustment tool to balance the values and curves to adjust the contrast. It was resized and sharpened in PSE6.

Parka

Another image from my last Belltown shoot.

Two Stadiums

This was developed twice in ACR4.3.1. Once for the clouds and once for the stadiums and ferry. The cloud layer was masked using a gradient layer. Then each layer was converted using two Hue&Sat layers (four total) with the top layer desaturated and the bottom Hue&Sat layer in color mode using the hue slider to adjust how the grays were rendered. Then a levels layer was added to both cloud layer and the other layer to adjust contrast and white and black end points. All told there were nine layers before the image was merged, straitened, resized, sharpened and framed. The basic technique is describe in Mark Galer's Adobe PSE Maximum Performance pages 116-119.

Cloud Over Fort Lawton

Old photo new treatment using PSE6 Mac b&w conversion to simulate a red filter. This image is a little over cooked. The wall on the building is blown, the shadows in the tress too dark. The jpeg for the web didn't look as good as the tiff in PSE6. May work this up again later when I have time.