Tonight I decided to photograph one of my favorite places to go, iPic Theater.  This movie theater used to be a Gold Class theater and was owned by Mark Cuban.  However for some reason Gold Class sold out to iPic, but it’s still really good.

So what’s the big deal?  Well firstly this is a movie theater for adults only – so no kids talking.  As they have a bar and serve alcoholic drinks to your seat while you’re watching your film, you have to be 21 or over to go there.  Also, they have these enormous electric chairs that recline and they give you pillows and blankets so you get all comfortable while you enjoy the movie.  And the thing that makes it perfect is they have a full menu and serve you food again in the theater to your seat, what’s more the food is pretty good.  So going out for dinner and a movie is a totally different experience.

Originally Lisa and I said we would never go there as a ticket cost $22.  We thought it was nuts spending that much for the movies, but there was a film we wanted to see (I can’t remember what it was) and the only place that was showing it at the time we wanted was Gold Class.  So we reluctantly went and begrudgingly handed over our $44 for two tickets.

But it was just FANTASTIC.  Back then they used to have a little red button that you could press and someone would come to your seat and take orders etc., but these days (since iPic took it over) the buttons have gone.  Also when iPic took over they raised the prices to $28 a person.  But the problem is once you have been there you just can’t go anywhere else – it really is that good.

I’ve taken friends there and they all get hooked too.  So I thought it might make a nice image.

So I parked up, grabbed the gear and ran across the road.  I had to be quick as security won’t let you take pictures in the town center (check out one of my first postings on when I got busted).  So I thought I’d just be quick.  I took three pictures from different locations and got out of dodge.

Fortunately in the one I chose to post, there were no cars driving past, but I think I could have got a better image.  I think it’s just OK, but definitely good enough to post.

Today I got a new Retina MacBook Pro and Master Chief and Carter helped me unbox it.

The trouble with night time shots of piers, is that once you take one, you kind of want to take them all!  This time I visited Lake Washington on the Kirkland side and found this small pier.  The sun was setting on the other side of the lake and behind me was this very bright street light (that’s why the pier is so well lit up).

This picture came out pretty well and I particularly like the sky with the orange sunset and mottled clouds.  At the end of the day (no pun intended) it’s pretty hard to mess a scene like this up, but all is not necessarily what it seems.

This is another long exposure, this is necessary to get enough light into the camera to light up the subject.  This also has the added benefit of making the water look smooth and calm.  In reality it was a little windy so the water was choppy.  But this looks much prettier.  The result of all this is what you see below and isn’t really what I saw.  Sure I could see a bit of the pier, but the end was in darkness.  The sky looked nice but not as cool as in the image and the water, was much rougher.

So you kind of have to imagine what the end result will be when you do this.  I’m getting better at that and am less surprised these days with the end result.  You learn to “see” the landscape in a different way when you take the image.  This is why people come up to you when you are shooting and ask “what are you doing”.  They can’t see it.

The only problem was that there was a group of people sitting on the pier at the end, as it was pretty dark I couldn’t really make them out but they looked teenager’ish.  Anyway thanks to Photoshop they are no longer there – I love Photoshop.

Carter and Master Chief were trying out some new carpet samples today, I think Master Chief found the one he wants.

I got home this evening and again didn’t know what to post so I had dinner and headed out with the camera.  I didn’t have any idea where I was going but the sun was going down so I followed that.  I didn’t want to head to Seattle again as it was getting late so I drove down to Kirkland.  I parked up in Marina Park and got the camera and tripod.

It was pretty warm out still and there were a load of people walking outside enjoying the evening and the sunset.  There were loads of really nice opportunities to shoot images and I got a few nice shots.  I love shooting water at night but if there are boats on the water they tend to be a little out of focus.  They are bobbing up and down on the water and at night I have to have a long exposure so there is a load of motion blur. That said, I think moonlight and street lamps on water look really nice.

The image I chose to post tonight was a shot of the water front along the small beach.  By shooting towards the large gazebo I got a lot of light on the water and the sky facing west (so you just got the end of the sunset above).  Interesting as I was shooting with long exposures the people walking past didn’t appear in any of the shots as they kept moving and didn’t stay still long enough for the camera to pick them up.  So very little work to do in Photoshop.

Master Chief saw some dog treats and asked to try one, Carter said he had to play dog first.

The other day we visited Ballard Locks in Seattle and got some great shots of the boats moving from Lake Union through to Elliott Bay.  They have two locks in Ballard, one really really big (it’s like two football pictures) and one that’s pretty small.  The big one takes a LONG time to fill up with boats, then it takes a long time for the water to rise.  So if you go into the big lock you have better have a lot of time.

The smaller lock (in tonight’s picture) is a lot smaller.  For example here you can see it containing pretty much one big boat and a few small sail boats and it’s full.  So with this one you get in and out quicker.  I’m not sure what the rules are, if it costs more or something but most boats you see there go through the larger lock.

In the image below I’m standing on the gates that open and let the boats out so I’m literally at one end and the can see the gates at the other.

This is a cool place to take a camera, the only down side is that there are either too many people there in the way or you end up with all these fences in the way of the pictures.  They fence off every thing here.  So it’s hard to try to take pictures that focus on the subject you want.

Beside the docks they have a fish ladder where you can go and watch the salmon jump up the ladder to get up river to spawn.  I’ll go back there in a few weeks and try to get some shots of the fish as it’s quite amazing to see.

Carter decided to make some paper plane’s tonight, they didn’t fly very far though.

Wednesday’s are a bad day for me lately.  I get to work at 7:30 and stay here until gone 9 at night.  So I really don’t get much time to take a picture and post it.

So to overcome that I now get two pictures on Tuesday (clever eh?).  Then all I have to do on Wednesday is write something about the image and I’m done.

So last night I drove to Seattle and photographed the Seattle Boat Club (not to be confused with the Seattle Yacht Club that is in a totally different place).  After shooting that image I went looking for today’s picture.

I was driving sown Lake Washington Boulevard and I saw the I90 Bridge all lit up.  It was pretty dark by this time so they had these red lights along the bridge, and loads of traffic headlights and stop lights on the bridge itself.

So I found somewhere to park and took the image below.  When I took this I was a little worried it may be a little boring as the sky on the back of the camera didn’t look that great.  But when I got home I was pleased with the image.  This was I think a 10 second exposure (or something like that), so you can see the lines of lights from the cars on the bridge.

I managed to get some cloud detail in the sky so it looked ok.  Not bad for a Wednesday image.

Tonight Cater and Master Chief wanted a Caesar Salad, so we made them make it themselves!