I went into Redmond today to buy a new Windows Phone.  I was having difficulty deciding whether I should get the Nokia 920 or the HTC 8X.  Ironically I didn’t have to make the final decision as there was a line of people out side the shop and down the road.  They told me it would take around 2 hours to get to the front of the line so I decided not to wait.

Anyway, I had my camera with my and even though it was raining I thought I’d see if I could get a picture for tonight.  So I went for a walk around the town center.  Now from past experience I’ve learnt that you need to be a little careful in the town center when you have a camera, the security people there don’t like it.  So I had the camera in a bag and pulled it out every time I saw something to shoot. (Sneaky eh?)

I walked over to Starbucks to get a coffee and there was a huge line in there too, so no coffee for me.  But when I walked outside I saw the huge Christmas tree and “Santa’s Grotto” across the road.  Now in our house we don’t start to celebrate Christmas until December 1st because Lisa’s birthday is November 28th and we like to enjoy that first.  But people seem to be celebrating Christmas here earlier and earlier these days.  All the decorations are in the shops, some people have their house’s all lit up and Redmond town center has clearly decided it is the time to be merry.

So I thought I’d shoot the tree and see if I could get a nice image.  Luckily there weren’t many people walking around (there were all in the AT&T store and Starbucks) so the sidewalks were pretty empty.  Also not many cars drove past so I had lots of chances to get a shot.  So I grabbed a few pictures and the one below was my favorite.

I liked the clouds in this picture and reflection on the wet road.  The colors came out really well in this picture too and you can just make out Santa standing in his house.  All in all I’m happy with this one.

The guys fancied some fruit tonight so they got a couple of satsuma’s and dived in (Master Chief did any way).

If you get the chance to visit the Pacifici Northwest you will find in the Seattle area a few large lakes.   Lake Washington is obvioulsy the one most people know about and for good reason.  Lake Washington is 22 miles long (at it’s extreme’s) it has a very large island in it’s middle (Mercer Island) and loads of people live on that, there are also a couple of major floating bridges that cross it, so it does tend to get all the attention.

While Lake Washington is big, there’s another lake between Lake Washington and Elliott Bay, Lake Union.  This lake is much smaller and is probably best know for it’s floating house boats, the subject of which appeared of course in Tom Hanks’ film “Sleepless in Seattle”.  Lake Union also has an official airport for sea planes, and if you go to it’s southern tip you can spend a lot of time watching planes take off and land – trust me it’s pretty cool.

If you do visit the southern point of Lake Union you will find South Lake Union Park (not very imaginatively named) and there you will find the Center for Wooden Boats. This is a small maritime museum that’s dedicated to the preservation and display of (wait for it) wooden boats.  This is actually a really cool place to visit, they have some great exhibits and loads of history and information about the boats on display.  You can also take a free public ride on a boat, learn to sail, rent a classic boat or take a boat building workshop!

While visiting myself I took loads of pictures, one of my favorites being this boat below.   Some of the boats there are in a poor state of repair but this one had been either really looked after or totally refurbished.  Now I’m no sailor but if I was I think I’d like a nice wooden sail boat with all the dark wood on the deck.  They look fantastic.

Carter had something in his teeth and Master Chief very kindly agreed to help him out.

Here’s another shot from the park, this time (again) from before the sun went down.  I’ve already posted one picture that showed the large expanse of water above the waterfall, but I also shot this other shot taken from a different position.

Off to the side of the park is this tall apartment building and it was casting this great reflection in the water.  I just had to shoot this one!  Also behind the building the sun was casting this nice red sky.

As it was early there were still quite a few people walking around so this picture took some time and patience.  Having said that I never would have got a shot with nobody in it (there were too many people) so I had to take a few folks out with Photoshop.  There are a few things in this picture that I’m not that happy with (trash cans, park signs and even ghosts of people moving) and in truth if I spent a lot of time, I might be about to remove them.  But the issues are so small you probably wouldn’t even notice them if I didn’t call them out.

Other than the people in Photoshop I didn’t do too much processing on the final image.  A little sharpening and then a slight blur to provide a nice soft focus.

The boys had a great night playing Bingo.  After several hours they succeeded in winning nothing.

I have to say I really enjoyed visiting the Bellevue Downtown Park.  Getting there just before sunset and staying until after the sun went down got me so many really nice images.  Tonights picture was obviously taken quite late.  The sun had completely gone down and the park was pretty empty.  The lights around the parks walking path had come on and it looked really pretty.

These scenes really area a gift, you literally just have to point the camera and everyone’s a winner.  In this one I again shot with a wide’ish lens so composed to have one of the big lights adding some foreground interest, I again went for the curved path taking you from just in front of the camera to round and out of the picture.  The tall building in the distance breaks up the sky and kind of gives you something at the end of the path.

My only regret is that I didn’t go to the path a month earlier, getting shots with more leaves on the trees would have been interesting, but then there’s always next year.  The good news is I only have a couple more of these to post and next week I’m off work all week and planning on going on a few trips out with the camera.

The guys found some glass at work to play with today.  Carter particularly liked his extra long arms behind the blue one.

Here’s an interesting picture, again taken in the park just before the sun set.  Just above the waterfall is this large expanse of water which makes a great mirror for the city behind.  To capture this shot I had to set the tripod up on some stairs and I had people walking by looking at me like I was nuts as each leg of the tripod was a different length.  Anyway I composed the shot to get as much of the city reflection as possible.  Whenever I see water it’s all about the reflection.

I really liked the railing in the picture too, the way it get’s smaller and smaller into the distance really shows you how wide this water feature actually is.  The trees and buildings came out great as well in the water, you even get the sky color reflected too.  It’s interesting seeing how the sky nearest the horizon in both the sky and water is lighter and as you move higher and lower they both darken – I think that’s cool.

The only downside of this picture was that there was an ugly crane above the trees to the right of the picture.  This was also reflected in the image and was kind of unsightly.  So that had to go.  Other than that I didn’t have to do much else.  Applied a little tone mapping to bring out the shadows and applied a little soft focus to make it “dreamy”.

Carters got a new perspective on life, something that Lisa fully endorses.