Tonights image is a little different.  Last week I lead a photowalk around Redmond town center and I found this painting on a building wall just off the high street.  Now I would guess that this graffiti was made with a stencil but I thought it looked really cool.  There were some cars parked right in front of the wall so I had to get pretty close to get a clean picture.

I thought the bricks looked great too and love the lines disappearing out of focus into the distance.  Ideally I would have got the shot from the other direction so the lines led you to the image, but there was a huge truck in the way and right behind me was a great big bush and it didn’t look as good in the image.  While the image appears black and white, it’s actually color, that’s just the color of the bricks and the paint.

I think the thing I learnt from the walk was that you really can find great things to photograph by just walking around and looking.  Going to Maui is nice for a beautiful sunset or landscape, but you really can get compelling images anywhere.

Tonight the guys wanted some chicken so they decided to carve one up themselves.

I went to the movies tonight after work (went to see Argo, it was really good I can definitely recommend it) and got home pretty late.  So I had to hit my backlog store for an image for the day.  (I still found time to shoot my Halo dudes but the serious picture is from earlier this year.)

I actually have a pretty large collection of backlog images and ended up selecting this view of a yellow Chevy Truck that I shot on August 12th.  This was shot at one of the Redmond Exotics car shows which don’t usually have trucks so it was a bit of a novelty.  The owner had opened up the truck hood and it looked all clean and shiny inside (nothing like my car) and there was so much chrome on the front it was well worth shooting from this perspective.

I find the best pictures for vehicles are taken low down on the ground.  It gives you a different perspective of the car or truck and usually looks cool.  This picture was no exception and think it came out well.

Carter found Lisa’s stash of English candy today and we caught him eating a “Pear Drop”.

One of the “problems” of taking a picture a day is that if you work for a living (like I do) you tend to take pictures at the same time each day – after work.  And when summer is over and the sun goes down around 6pm, all your pictures become sunset or night time shots.  Now this is not really a major issue as this time of night is considered by most photographers as the “Golden Hour”.

The Golden Hour is said to be the best time of the day for pictures outside.  Really the golden hour is usually thought of  as the hour before sunset or the hour after sunrise.  (Although many believe it’s the hour that straddles both).  So what’s special about this time of day?  Well the sun is very low in the sky and casts long soft shadows on people and buildings.  Also the sky takes on a colored (sometimes red) hue which many people find attractive.  Sometimes if the weather’s not that nice the clouds become more dramatic.

Tonights picture is a great example of this.  I shot the image at Carillon Point in Kirkland as the sun was going down.  Earlier in the day the clouds were pretty flat and boring, but once the sun was low in the sky the clouds took on a much more interesting look.  Luckily when I set up the tripod for this image nobody was around (that usually never happens) so I didn’t have to take anyone out in Photoshop.

If I had taken this picture 30 minutes earlier or later I wouldn’t have got the same shot at all, so it shows that hour is kind-a special.  So as the nights are starting earlier these days, you should expect a lot more pictures like this.

Today the guys wanted to play on some halloween decorations.

I left work this evening and as I was walking to the car I noticed that above me was the most amazing sky.  Big billowing black clouds interspersed with white clouds and blue sky and as the sun was starting to go down a red glow was spreading across the sky.  I had my camera with me and had to find a place where I could get a picture.

I jumped in the car and decided to try the nearest park.  While the Microsoft Campus is in Redmond, Grass Lawn Park is just down the road on the Bellevue border so off I set.  I parked up, grabbed the tripod and camera and headed into the park.

The park is really beautiful with loads of trees covered in red and yellow leaves but they were blocking out the sky, and really that’s what I wanted to shoot.  I tried loads of different compositions and got some great shots, but not the one I was really after.  Walking back to the car, I came to the basketball courts and they looked great.  The courts were empty (it was about to rain and everyone had gone home) and it had got even darker, the sun was nearly over the horizon and the sky in the distance was red.

Anyway I set up the tripod and took some shots.  When I got home I looked at the images and thought the pictures looked really good.  I only just made it too as the skys opened and the rain came down like you wouldn’t believe.  But I made it and got my cook sky.

Master Chief decided to count his footsteps today and to make sure he got a good number he used more than on Pedometer!

I was walking through my office building at Microsoft today when I passed the reception and main entrance.  This guy came in (a developer I think) carrying a single red leaf that he’d picked up off the floor outside.  Anyway he looked at me a little embarrassed and said “perfect leaf – shows that summer is definitely over”.  Both he and I got into an elevator and went up to the third floor.  All the time he’s looking at the leaf, clearly fascinated by the color.

Now 18 year old Tony would have been laughing his head off, I can hear my younger self now in my head, I was so embarrassing.  I probably would have made some derogatory comment to the guy about how stupid he was or something.  But these day’s being much older (50 next year), I can appreciate the beauty in a simple leaf and I started thinking.  At home we have the very cute little Japanese Maple tree (Lisa loves this tree) and this week the leaves have turned from their normal deep purple to this amazing red color (clearly they are soon going to fall).  And all of a sudden all I can think of is how much I want to shoot a single leaf when I get home.

At 6pm I walked in the door and after a quick “Hello everyone” ran into the back yard to find that “perfect” leaf.  I’m not sure if the one I selected was perfect but it looked great and I picked it off the tree.  It was raining outside so it was pretty wet and covered in water droplets and that looked great too.

Anyway I brought the leaf in and set up a little set to shoot it.  I had a light stand supporting a 40″ reflector with a black cover – that was going to be my backdrop.  I got another stand to support the leaf, and placed the macro lens on the camera and got out the tripod.

I used a single speed light to light the leaf and took a number of pictures.  Now they all looked nice but they were missing something.  Then I realized what it was, the leaf was now dry.  So I grabbed a spray water bottle an started to cover the leaf with water until a number of drops moved together and started to drip from the leaf.  Then I got the shot below.

I did very little to this picture, maybe increased the contrast a little but that was it.  I think I ended up with a keeper!  I love the red color on black, and the water drop about to come off the bottom leaf just draws my eye.  Hope you like this one too.

Sometimes I have no idea what these guys are doing, tonight it appears that Master Chief was trying to hatch a chicken egg by sitting on it in a birds nest he found!  Carter was shocked by this too!