I don’t know if you have been to Pike Place Market on a Saturday afternoon, if you haven’t let me tell you it’s rather crowded.  The market itself is pretty large and mostly under cover with stores on both sides of the walkway.  Trying to walk down the walkway is pretty difficult, you spend a lot of time bumping into people, getting stepped on or being pushed. So imagine what it’s like trying to take some pictures in that kind of environment!  It’s pretty difficult.

We were in there trying to shoot some flowers and fruit.  The market sellers don’t really mind photographers there, I guess it kind of goes with the territory, I mean when your store is in a major tourist attraction you gotta expect pictures.  As long as you don’t get in the way of purchasing customers they are fine.

Anyway, we saw these sunflowers that were just under some tungsten lights and were totally of back lit – so the petals looked almost orange.  So I “eased” my way forward and shot off some frames and got the image below.  Now those of you who visit my blog know I don’t shy away from photoshop.  But this image is directly out of the camera.  I didn’t do a thing.  Check out the petals across the top of the flower, you can see that they’re back lit as the middle at the front is slightly darker than the outer (thinner) edges.

I loved the narrow depth of field in the image, the way the background is out of focus keeps you looking the foreground flower.

Master Chief and Carter had a bet tonight to see if a small flashlight would power a solar powered flower toy.  It did.  Master Chief won.

On Saturday on the Seattle photo walk we visited Seattle’s Art Museum (or SAM).  Outside the museum they have a large Hammering Man moving sculpture.

This 48 foot sculpture was made out of steel and aluminium and has a motorized arm that moves up and down.  The arm is holding a large hammer, hence it’s name, the “Hammering Man”.  It was erected in 1992 and built by artist Jonathan Borofsky.  There are several Hammering Man sculptures around the world, ours is one of the largest.  The arm hammers from 7am to 8pm every day and takes one day off a year, Labor Day.  The statue is suposed to represent the working man so I guess taking Labour Day off makes sense.

When we got to the museum our guide (Chandler) gave us a challenge.  He said that he comes here quite a lot with different photography parties and always see’s the same images. So our chalenge was to try and capture the sculpture from a different perspective, something Chandler hasn’t seen before.  So for the next 15 minutes we tried everything, walking around the sculpture, shooting from under trees, from behind bus shelters, I’m sure you get the picture.

Anyway I took loads of pictures and in the end found this composition.  Below and some distance from the sculpture is a street lamp.  By lying on the floor (nearly) and looking up (at a certain angle) I got this picture so it looks like the Hammering Man is hitting the light.  Yes I know it’s not brilliant, and according to Chandler it’s not original either.  But it was the best shot I got.  He did say it was the best version he of this he’d seen, but I have no doubt he says that to everyone.

So here is my “original” Hammering Man image, with him bashing the crap out of a street light – what a vandal.

Today we were discussing what would happen if we had a flood, Carter explained that he had a plan and got one of James’ size 13 shoes!  Not sure I’ll fit but the Halo dudes are certainly going to be ok!

While on the photo walk in Seattle this weekend I captured this picture in Post Alley just behind Pike Place Market.  I loved the composition but there were quite a few things wrong with it and I started making changes.  I like the end result but it’s totally fake – I do love Photoshop.

So what was wrong with it, what did I do?  Well firstly the sky was a horrible drab grey color.  It wasn’t white just dirty!  So I grabbed some sky from a shot I took over Lake Mead in Nevada.  The sky was a little too blue so I had to lighten it a little for image.  Then there was the Post Alley sign.  Only the word Post was lit up, Alley was broken.  So I fixed that too.  Then there was wall around the Dead End sign.  The wall is basically cement, and looked flat and boring, so I changed that to make it pop a little.  Then there were the bricks on the other side of the road, I made them redder and sharper and did the same for the cobble stones on the road.  The end result is the image below.

I know what you’re thinking, now you know what I did you can “see it all” and I’ve probably ruined it for you.  The end result is I probably spent too much time on this and arguable over processed it.  But I had fun doing it so what the heck!

What I really liked about this image was the composition.  A normal shot of the Alley wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as nice.  This one came out really well.  I should say a big thank you here to Chandler who came up with the idea for the shot (can’t really take credit for that).

Update 9/27: Someone asked me what the original image looked like, so I added it to the post.  Just hold the mouse over the image to see what I started with.

Master Chief found a jar of Maraschino Cherry’s and went a bit nuts tonight.  Abi won’t be happy when she get’s in these are hers!

I thought tonight we’d go back to Las Vegas for another shot from the strip.  This time it’s the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino.

We were walking down the strip and came to the front of the Monte Carlo and they had this great fountain at the front and everything was beautifully lit.  However there were loads of people working past or coming down the stairs of the hotel.  So I decided to do something “sneaky”.

I set the camera up on a tripod and just stood there for 5 minutes taking LOADs of pictures.  I’d wait until the stairs on the right were empty and take a shot, then wait until the sidewalk to my left was clear and take a shot.  Eventually I captured enough pictures where I had overall bits of the entire image with nobody in it.

Then when I got home I started selecting different “bits” from different images and blended them all in together to create one image that has no people.

This is actually pretty easy to do in Photoshop so while it sounds complex it’s really not.  Having a tripod made it even easier as I didn’t have to line up the images.

I picked this composition so you see the Monte Carlo name at the top of the hotel tower on the right which makes sure you know what you are looking at.  I tried shooting a little further to the right but too many posters were in shot (I still have some here in the bottom left) and it didn’t help the picture.

Anyway the end result is pretty cool.  I love the fountain (that’s what caught my eye in the beginning) and the statues in each recess around the front of the hotel all lit up look great too.

Carter and Red helped Master Chief build a little glass house tonight.  I think they are running out of ideas for their daily picture – I know I am!

While in Seattle, walking round pier 57, we came across a group of Native Americans in a pow wow beating drums and singing in a circle.  There was a large group of Native Americans there all having a large BBQ.  The guys in the circle were all dressed in “western” dress (by that I mean normal pants or jeans with shirts and coats etc.), and didn’t look that impressive.  That said they had drawn a crowd.

Walking away from the gathering was one guy in full on costume.  He looked amazing, loads of feathers with a bone chest plate.  His face was painted white and that clashed amazingly with the red feathers and scarves.  He was moving pretty slow (he had a lot of gear on and it didn’t look that comfortable), so we walked up to him and started a conversation.  He told us he was from out of state (I think he said Kansas) and was here for a large pow wow.

We asked if he minded us taking his picture and he went into a long explanation on how as long as we ask at the pow wow and the members say yes it’s OK, but they may be praying and if they say no we shouldn’t shoot them as it could be really disrespectful.  Everything he said was very fair but we wanted to shoot him, not the guys in jeans and t-shirts.  I think he was tired as we asked him again if we could photography him and he kind-a sighed and said OK.  So I grabbed a couple of quick shots, thanked him and he walked off.

He really looked amazing, and his facial expression is fantastic – he looks totally annoyed with me, there may even be a little anger in there!  If he had smiled I wouldn’t have liked this so much.  Believe it or not this was shot outside early afternoon and the white behind him is the sky!.  The reason why it’s so blown out behind him is that his face was in heavy shadow (it wasn’t that sunny and the feathers in his headdress were casting a pretty big shadow).  So I metered on his face only (spot metered) and got the shot below.

I LOVE this picture, the fact that his costume and headdress and face came out so well, and the background is totally blown out, really made the image.

Carter and Master Chief saw the image above and got inspired.  Below is their homage to the Native American.