Tonight I thought I’d post another one of my park at sunset pictures.  This image was taken just after the sun had gone down over the trees, it hadn’t completely set yet as you can still see the orange glow in the distance, but the lights in the park had just come on.

As there was no direct sunlight it was a little darker in the park so I put the camera on a tripod and shot the image with a long exposure.  This was a really pretty scene, there were trees to my right leading down the path and the path was covered with fallen leaves.  The lights along the path also added to the ambiance providing a line of lights off into the distance.

At this end of the park, nearly every light had a couple of flags attached.  I really wanted one of these sets in the foreground to provide some near interest but had to take lots of shots as the flags kept blowing in the breeze and showed motion blur with the long exposure.  Then of course I’d get a good image and found someone had walked into shot!  Very frustrating.  But eventually I got the image I wanted.

For the composition I wanted the entire flag in the foreground in the frame and some of the leaves visible on the floor.  I also wanted the path to wind from center round to the left, this is kind of a leading line, so called as it leads the eye.  Hopefully you look at the image and follow the path around the bend and are left wondering where it goes.  Ideally there’s some payoff at the end of the a leading line, something the line takes you to, but the park didn’t really have anything.

The lights around the path threw a nice orange glow into the trees and the blue sky above the setting sun added a nice color to the image.  Ideally the nearest lamp would have been in line with the sun (that would have been cool) but the sun actually set off to the right hand corner.  So quite a lot happening in this image, and I’m really pleased with the end result.

When I started photography a few years ago I’d occasionally get some really nice pictures.  In hindsight this was more down to luck than anything else.  I didn’t consider the composition as I took the shot.  I didn’t look in each corner to make sure there were no distractions and what I wanted in frame was there.  I guess I was so excited about getting the subject in I didn’t look at what else was going on.  So I got some nice pictures but a lot of bad ones too.  These days I take a lot longer composing the image, making sure I think through what I’m trying to capture.  The result is a much higher percentage of nice pictures.  Today’s image is a great example, I walked through everything I have written above in the view finder before I pressed the shutter.

Tonight Master Chief was showing Carter his new winter hat.  Apparently it’s very warm, but visibility is pretty poor.

So for tonights picture I thought I’d post another image from yesterday’s visit to Bellevue’s Downtown Park.  As I mentioned in yesterdays posting the park has this rather wide waterfall and as you can see in the image below I wasn’t kidding.

I was walking towards the waterfall when I saw the red glow of the setting sun on the water.  I got all giddy excited and ran over to set up the tripod and this was one of the shots I got.  I put a really dark filter on the front of the lens (called a Neutral Density Filter) that restricts light without adding a color cast.  this allowed me to take a pretty slow shutter shot even with bright sunlight on the subject.  This gave the water a nice “ribbon” look as it went over the fall.  I couldn’t have got this effect without the filter, the water would have either been stopped in motion (which I think doesn’t look as cool) or the image would have been blown out.

Above the fall you can see the skyline of some of the tall buildings in Bellevue.  There was an unsightly crane in the image but that was pretty quick to remove with Photoshop (we don’t want no ugly cranes).  While there I met someone who is on my photo course and we had a long talk about the images we are all capturing.

Pretty much right in front of the waterfall is the ice rink.  This was stopping the sun from hitting more of the falls, which is a bit of a pity but I still think I got a nice shot.  Hopefully you agree.

Master Chief introduced Carter to his new girlfriend today, Carter described her to me as a bit of a troll which I thought was pretty rude until I saw the picture!

This afternoon I decided to go out with the camera and grab some pictures and I thought I’d try somewhere different.   So I went to Bellevue Downtown Park.  This is a really nice park in the middle of the city of Bellevue, right next to the Bell Square Mall.  I know this park pretty well as when we moved to America, Microsoft put us up in an apartment block right next to the park (and the Mall).  Obviously Lisa spent her first three months in the Mall (cost me a fortune!)

Anyway, back to the park.  The park is basically a large expanse of grass surrounded by a walking path that’s lit up with stone lamps.  There’s also a number of water features around the paths, and at one end is this pretty cool really wide waterfall.  Around Thanksgiving the city of Bellevue also open up an ice skating rink right by the waterfall and when I was there they were setting it all up.

I got there around 4pm just before sunset and took a load of pictures before the sun actually went down.  Then the lights in the park came on and I took a load more with the park all lit up.  So I have quite a few images to post.

This first image is actually the very last one I took.  This was taken right next to the ice rink (you can’t see it, it’s off to my right) at the base of some stairs by the waterfall.  I love this image and think the way the trees are all lit up looks great and the stairs kind of lead the eye up and out of the picture.  The city in the background is pretty cool too and you can see one end of the waterfall to the right.  It took a few attempts to get this as people kept coming down the stairs.  But in the end the patience paid off and I got a great shot.

Master Chief decided to “ride the bison” this afternoon.  I don’t think Carter was very impressed!

I was looking through my picture back log this evening looking for something to post and came across this picture of Pike Place Market at night.  Now I’ve never posted this one before (duh) and I can’t remember why!  When I took this I did take a tighter shot of the Public Market sign and posted that, but this one is the whole market with nobody in the image – and you never see that!

I actually drove into Seattle just to take some pictures, it was just after 9pm (as you can see from the big clock) and the place was pretty deserted.  There were a few people out and about going to restaurants and pubs etc., and some where even there with cameras doing the same as me.  The nice thing was that I could drive right into Pike Place and park on the road (in fact I’m parked directly behind where I stood when I took this picture).

There were a few people in shot and cars kept going down the street so I had to time the picture to get it empty and I think it was really worth it.  The neon signage looked great and I loved the purple lights on the wall of the building above the market.  Of course a beautiful blue sky helps as well.

For post processing I just popped this into Photoshop and gave it a little sharpen, then applied a little targeted blurring to give it that glamour glow look and added a vignette.  The finished image came our really well.

Carter lost Master Chief today so went looking for him.  Eventually he found him sitting on a Totem Pole!

Tonight I’m taking you back to sunrise at Alki.  The sky was really pretty and we had taken loads of pictures of the cityscape I was looking for something different.  Just further up the beach was this little pier hanging out over Elliott Bay.  There were actually a few people standing on the pier when I took this and they kind-a ruined the picture. So I hit Photoshop and now they’re gone.

This image was all about timing.  I really wanted the ferry in the right of the picture to have a counter point to look at (so it just wasn’t only about the pier) and I had to bide my time for the ferry to get in the right place.   I was lucky that the other people on the pier weren’t moving around too much so I got the shot.  There are so many things that make this picture nice, I love the sky, the reds are really pretty.  The boat and the pier are great (they were the things that attracted me to the shot in the first place) and I love the rocks under the pier and the waves lapping against the shore.

All in all I like this one and feel getting up at a stupid hour on a day off was actually worth the effort.

I think the guys were watching some Disney films today and insisted on both sucking the same spaghetti, it’s kind of Carter and the Tramp!