So today I was feeling all creative.  It happens every now and then so I thought I’d better jump on the moment and do something different.  So I shot the water drop below.  So how did I go about doing this, and more importantly can you do this too?  Well the answer is yes, you need a little gear, and a lot of patience.

Here’s how to get your own version.  Firstly I did the dishes, not mandatory but I needed the sink in the kitchen and the dirty dishes were in the way.  Once I had a clean sink, I placed a large cutting board over one of the sinks.  Then I sent Abi off to find some of her more colorful dresses and tops, she came down with half her wardrobe (so be specific if you have a 9 year old when you ask the same).  I picked out this cute orange, yellow and purple leotard and placed it on the board.  Next I got a small glass bowl and placed that on top of the leotard and half filled the bowl with water.  With me so far?

OK, next I got some lights.  You can’t really do this with natural light as you need to shoot at a pretty high shutter speed and small aperture.  So I grabbed a couple of speed lights and set them up on either side of the bowl.  You could do this with one speed light you just might not have it evenly lit on both sides.

Then I grabbed the macro lens and placed the camera on a tripod and turned on the faucet – and the dripping began.

Now you have to start taking pictures and trying to time it as the drop hits the water in the bowl.  The lights fire and freeze motion and hopefully you get a nice picture.

It takes time to get the focus right (you need to do this manually) and you need a pretty small aperture (I used f/16 here) so you have a big depth of field (which using a macro lens is really no more than half an inch).

Tonight I took 687 shots and ended up with 49 that I really liked and kept.  Out of the 49 this one was my favorite.  You can see the leotard in the background which is in soft focus, but you can also make out the leotard’s patten in the water drop, which I think is pretty cool.  The whole thing took around an hour and it’s actually a lot of fun – go ahead, give it a go.

The guys were playing hide and seek tonight, Master Chief had a great hiding place but they found him in the end.

I know what you’re thinking, didn’t I post a picture of this cup before?  Well yes I did, I posted a shot of the cup at night with a dark blue background sky.  Well I was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago and had the chance to shoot the cup again, only this time capturing a different composition.  The cup is at the entrance to Post Alley and is over a coffee house (wow what a surprise).  Well the coffee house has a big glass window and if you stand in “just” the right spot, you see the image below.

I really liked this image as not only do you see the cups reflection, but you see the Public Market reflection behind and the blue sky.  I really think this looks cool and despite my last posting of the cup I thought I should post this one tonight.  I think I like this version best.

One of the benefits of defining my own resolution around this picture-a-day thing is that I can post the same subject as many times as I like.  I will try not to post the cup again – honest.

I’d be interested in hearing what people think, which cup image do you like best (the link to the other one is here: http://blog.tonyseeley.com/?p=1080)

Today the Halo guys enjoyed a good game of “how long can you hang onto the stairs?”.

This is my last, very last, I have no more, image from Las Vegas, promise!  We were out shooting the strip late at night (the only time to take pictures in Las Vegas) and we arrived at the New York New York hotel.  This is the one with the replica Statue of Liberty outside and the roller coster on the roof.  As per usual in Vegas the traffic was terrible, as was the foot traffic, people everywhere.  So I decided to shoot up a little – above all the hussel and bussel.

Obviously the Statue is the most impressive thing outside the hotel but the warm lighting hitting the buildings give the statue a nice back drop.

I took this image from across the road using my tripod and caught the statue and buildings pretty well.  We did walk in the hotel (very briefly) and walked though a fake Coney Island amusement park selling New York Pizza and corn dogs with loads of people dressed up in bizarre outfits.  Needless to say we got out of there pretty quick.  I’ve been to New York a few times and don’t remember anything like that!

My only regret is when I did go to New York, I wasn’t into photography so didn’t capture the fantastic views there.  I’d love to go back with my camera for a few days, I’d get some great images.  Maybe next year.

Lisa is really into the craft thing right now and wanted a a new desk for her craft room.  So we went to Ikea to get one.  When we got home the Halo guys insisted in helping build the desk.

It was an interesting week this week.  First l sold some images that are going to go on a web site (that’s pretty exciting), and secondly I was asked to photograph this building.

The building is the Escala Luxury Condominium building located on 4th Avenue in downtown seattle.  It’s also the the residence of the leading male character in a very popular novel.  Anyway I was asked to shoot the building so went there this afternoon to check it out.

As buildings go it’s very nice.  Has nice lines and a distinctive curve around one of it’s sides.  But finding a good composition was a challenge.  Firstly the building is very tall and getting it all in was difficult, hence the reason I shot it in portrait orientation.  Then there was the traffic and people, there were loads of them and they were in the way most of the time.  Finally the end of the building with the interesting curve I mentioned above, was ruined by a large number of overhead power-lines and the look of the 1st floor windows that were full of ugly advertisements for buying a condo.

Consequently I had to shoot the building from the front.  So I crossed the road and started capturing some shots.  I tried some with the building straight (with the bottom horizontally level), but they looked boring.  So I tried tilting the camera a little.  There were some trees across the road too and standing behind one added a little foreground interest in the image.  Eventually I ended up with this image.

I really liked the trees, I thought they added a lot to the picture, but unfortunately there was a lamp post directly infront of the building, right in front of the Escala sign.  So when I got home I had to remove the lamp post.  Then I had to get another copy of the Escala sign and add the “E” that was obscured by the lamp post.  (Hope this doesn’t ruin the image for you).

So I ended up with an image I liked.  The problem was the image was a little monochrome – boring.  So I tried it in black and white and got a much more compelling image.  I even printed it out to see what it looked like on paper (it looked really good).  Hope you like it too.

Tonight Carter asked Master Chief to help him with his hair.  He looks so much better now don’t you think?

I was trying to decide what to post today, and came across this shot of the Redmond Downtown Clock.  This is a little embarrassing as I’ve lived in Redmond for nearly 10 years but I never knew this clock existed until last week.  I was walking around Redmond with Abi and found in above a sign that said “Welcome to Downtown – Historic Redmond” (I didn’t know the sign existed either).

The clock isn’t that tall and it sits on top of something that looks like a bus shelter with a load of old pictures of Redmond inside.  Around the “shelter” are benches with elaborately carved back rests – is it me or is all this new?  I mean I’ve never seen any of this before!

Anyway I took loads of pictures and actually had a few I liked.  We did a little test this evening and Lisa and Abi liked this one most so that’s the one I’m posting.  While I was there I was looking for a different perspective or composition.  So I got down low and shot up (just missing out the shelter).  Having a nice blue sky and fluffy white clouds helped make I think a nice image.

It’s amazing what you see when you walk around with a camera in your hand!

Master Chief wanted to show Carter his plums, he’s very proud of them.