I was walking around the Center for Wooden Boats taking pictures and some girl walked past me who obviously worked there.  So I asked her if it was OK to shoot and grab some shots (I know it is ok, they don’t mind – but it never hurts to ask).  So she said “Yes of course, thanks for asking” with big smile.  I guess people don’t usually ask her.  So them she asked if I wanted to shoot a picture in their main workshop.  I’m not sure if people are allowed in there but she was all friendly and offered so I jumped at the chance.

The workshop was very cool.  It was a wooden building with a long wooden bench against the wall that was covered with tools.  There was also a boat in there that they were working on  and there were sails hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the room was some guy working on something small at his desk.

I set the camera on a tripod in the corner and composed a nice shot to include the boat in the foreground and the tools and bench at the back.  This picture was five exposures all one stop apart.  (Basically I took 5 pictures starting with a very dark one, and subsequent shots with double the amount of light in each).  When I got home I put the 5 pictures into Photomatix and “tonemapped” them into a single high dynamic range picture.  You have probably heard of this as HDR.

So why do this?  Why is HDR interesting?  Our eyes are just amazing, people think their eyes have enormous field of vision which is kind of true (it’s almost 180 degrees), but really you only focus on about 5 degrees at a time everything else is blurred.  We overcome this by moving our eyes around a scene all the time.  Your eyes also manage dynamic range this way too (how much light and dark we can see), by moving our eyes, we can see in shadow areas and bright areas at different times, but you walk away remembering everything.  Unfortunately, cameras dynamic range sucks.  When you take a picture the camera try’s to expose for as much as possible, but in scenes like this where there is bright light and dark shadows, the camera will fail, there will always be areas you don’t see.  By creating an HDR image you really get to “see” what you would have seen if you where there.

That’s why I LOVE HDR.  It can turn a boring image into an amazing one.

A couple of the guys were trying to move a present today, but something was stopping them – or at least making the job much harder.

So I did tell you that I would be posting some “boats” over the next few days.  Well, what did you expect, I mean I went to the Center for Wooden Boats, I kind-a have to do it.  Tonight’s boat is, well, a blue one.  OK I admit it, I don’t know anything about boats, but this one is made of wood, it’s blue, oh it’s a row boat and it looks like someone who doesn’t know what they are doing rowed it last – hence the broken front bit.

So why this picture?  Hell why this boat?  Well I really wanted one shot with a shallow depth of field, the bow of the boat really sharp with the focus falling off towards the back.  I even had this composition in mind, one of the oar’s visible and lots of water in the picture.  There have probably been thousands of shots like this, but never one from me.

I’m not sure why I like this picture, I mean it’s basically a mainly out of focus boat, but for some reason I find the image calming.  Probably not everyone’s cut of tea but I like it.

Today the guys decided to carry out a box climb.  This involved scaling a pretty high stack of boxes that Lisa got out for Christmas.

So this weekend I went out with the camera and found myself back at the Center for Wooden Boats.  This place is pretty cool, you can learn how to fix boats (they have classes), you can hire a wooden boat (they will teach you how to row or sail) or you can just check out all the exhibits they have.

This shot tonight was taken of the center’s main information building.  The wooden structure is actually built on a floating platform and you get to it by walking over a number of pontoons.  This is all well and good and fun to visit but it’s a pain in the neck when it comes to photography.  You set up the tripod and try to take a picture and very slightly everything is moving.

I liked this shot for a number of reasons.  The wooden building is quite nice to start with, and while it was dry there was a lot of cloud cover and it definitely gave me an interesting sky.  I also liked the boats and the purple gazebo on the back of the biggest boat in the center of the picture, finally the reflections in the water added to the image nicely.

They had loads of row boats all around the pontoons and I took LOTs of pictures, so you had better expect some wooden boat pictures over the next few days.

I’ve taken a few pictures of the guys like this!  What can I tell you?  It cracks me up.  Here Master Chief is showing Carter his new shinny balls.

For the last week or so Lisa has been asking me to take some pictures of the kids for a family Christmas card.  In fairness I tried last week when we went out to get our tree, it was perfect, blue sky, pretty trees near by etc.  So what was the problem I hear you ask?  How is it possible you didn’t get a great picture of the kids?  Well I’m in a good mood now and don’t want to unnecessarily go over my frustration, but lets just say that James didn’t want his picture taken!

OK, so here we are a week later and we are 9 days into December and still don’t have a card.  Lisa had already found somewhere online where she was going to order the cards, she just needed pictures.  So today had to be the day.  There was a problem though (obviously – there’s always a problem).  I wanted to take the pictures outside (they tend to look a little boring indoors, always in front of a white or black background) but it was raining again (shocker!)

So we got the kids to get dressed with clean faces and brushed hair etc., I got the camera gear out and we went on weather watch.  At around 3pm, the rain slowed down, it didn’t stop completely but became more of a light drizzle.  I called the kids and grabbed some lights and ran outside.  Lisa wanted three pictures on the Christmas card, one of each of the kids and one of them both together.  So I got some of Abi on her own, then some of James and finally a very rare couple of pictures of them both together and OH MY GOD they were both smiling! (You have no idea just how rare this is).

Both Abi and James were great, quite happy to do this, Lisa was happy as she got her pictures for the card (which incidentally she has already ordered), and I got a picture for the day.  This one isn’t on the card but it’s one I liked.

I kind’a like taking pictures outside, we have a lot of trees behind our house and they provide a nice backdrop when they are just out of focus.  I really wanted the kids to be brighter than the trees so I used a single speedlight flash in a 24″ softbox.  I dialed down the exposure until I caught some of the background in the image (it’s a little dark but you can kind of see it’s trees) and used the light to make the kids faces pop.  The end result was pretty good and even James liked them and he’s hard to please.  In fact he’s asked me to take some pictures of him and his girlfriend Alex, so all in all a major success.

We are now 9 days into December so you shouldn’t really be surprised that the Halo guys found some Christmas decorations.  I’m betting you see a few more pictures like this. Ho Ho Ho!

You aren’t going to believe this but today I actually went out with the camera and took some pictures.  It was pretty cold out but dry so I hit the road and headed for Seattle.  I had this great plan to go to the Seattle Center (home of the Space Needle) and take some nice pics as they now have loads of Christmas lights up.  But when I got there I spent 45 minutes driving round the area trying to find somewhere to park!  It was impossible and I eventually gave up and headed home.  Luckily though I did go to some other locations so I got a good weeks worth of new pictures.

Tonight’s image was taken in the Seattle Washington Arboretum Park.  This is a really pretty park right by Lake Washington and is full of walking paths that at this time of year are full of runners (it’s too cold I guess to go for a walk).  I found this park by mistake one day.  I was driving down Lake Washington Boulevard looking for somewhere to photograph and drove under this great bridge.  It was made of stone and had these lights on top.  I had Abi with me at the time and told her I’d go back one day and shoot the bridge.

Well today I found the bridge and captured this shot.  Now, those of you who read this blog know I like Photoshop but this image is pretty much right out of the camera.  I did fix one thing though.  One of the lights wasn’t on so I copied a light from somewhere else and fixed the broken one.  Question is, can you tell which one?  Bet you can’t.

But other than that, I didn’t change a thing and I think it came out really well.  It was getting dark when I got there so I had to take this with a long exposure and I needed to take a few shots as runners kept coming over the bridge.  But after five minutes I had the shot and headed home.  More new stuff tomorrow.

I don’t know about you but you cant beat tined Unicorn Meat – yummy.  Tonight the guys enjoyed a delicious dinner.