Tonights image was taken in Bellevue’s Botanical Gardens and as you can probably tell it was a beautiful day, very sunny (hence the shadows) and as I’ve said before, the worse possible conditions for landscape photography.

This area is near the entrance to the gardens and is surrounded by numerous flower beds and lawns.  Of all the images I took out in the open (not shaded by trees) this was the only one I felt justified a posting.

At Christmas, this whole area is covered with fairy lights and is amazing to see.  The pergola is completely lit up and really beautiful, but impossible to photograph as there are hundreds of people walking around and they just get in the way.  I tried one year to photograph Abi and Lisa under the lit up pergola and it was a disaster!  This was the first time I’ve visited the gardens in summer and while it’s very pretty, it’s not as nice as the year end lights.

Ironically I think I missed the real opportunity for capturing the flower beds as most of the flowers now are starting to wilt.  Spring would have been much nicer but I’ll remember next year and go back earlier.

That said the manicured flower beds and hanging baskets are really nice and make me realize just how much I suck at gardening.

Today Master Chief introduced Carter to his new pet!

I was looking through my backlog of pictures tonight looking for something to post (when you get to work at 7:30 in the morning and don’t get home until 7:30 at night, trust me when I say you are too tired to go out with a camera), and I found this image from our family vacation to Maui.

I’m not sure how I missed this one while I was there and didn’t post it, but I clearly kept it so I could share it with you tonight.  This was another shot of the Grand Wailea Hotel’s grounds.  The sun was just going down and the lamps by all the paths had just been turned on.  It was clearly dinner time as there is nobody in the picture (I have no idea how I managed that).

I liked this path leading to the small pagoda and the sunset over the trees and the sea was kind-a pretty.  The hotel has a lot of grass grounds like this but we didn’t go to this side of the hotel very often because this was the “Adult’s Only” section.  At the end of the path is the 18 and over pool and a large lawn area with a load of beach loungers for those who luv to sun worship.  So with two kids 15 and under I didn’t go here very often.

All I’m gonna say here is that Slinky’s are dangerous!

This weekend I went back to the Redmond Exotic’s car show with Regan (my nephew visiting from the UK).  They didn’t have a theme this week and in truth there weren’t that many cars there but we did find this really cool old Chevy Truck.  Now I have no idea what year and model this was, the owner wasn’t around, but I thought it looked great.

Add to that, my brother-in-law (Craig, Regan’s dad) is refurbishing an old Chevy Truck, so Craig, this one’s for you.

There’s a show I love to watch on TV (from the UK) called Wheeler Dealers where two guys (Mike and Ed) refurbish old cars and in season 8 they did a Chevy 3100, they did a great job and this truck reminded me of the show, so if you like cars (and trucks) check out Wheeler Dealers.

It was very very hot when I took this and the sun was pretty much over head.  Two things that (for me) don’t produce that great of a picture.  So the fact that this came out and looked ok was pretty lucky.  There are though a lot of hot spots in the picture where the sun blew out the color and detail, but I don’t think it ruins the image.

Carter got the chance to visit his first Sonic today.  He enjoyed a footlong quarter pounder coney hotdog, and a chocolate shake!

My nephew Regan Smith is visiting us from the UK for a couple of weeks and he’s an aspiring chef.  He cooks for us most evenings and loves to visit food utensil shops (like “Bed Bath & Beyond”) to check out the American equipment.

On TV Regan likes to watch the Food Network and one of his favorite shows is “Man vs Food” with Adam Richman.  When Regan got here there were a number of places he wanted to visit and one was a restaurant featured on Man vs Food called “Red Mill Burgers”.  Now those of you who follow or have seen Adam in the show know that he basically takes on food challenges, but in one particular show he was visiting Seattle and just went to Red Mill Burgers as the burgers there were SO good.

So Regan (who after all wants to open his own burger joint) decided he wanted to check out the restaurant.  So today for dinner we gave it a try.

The restaurant is in Green Park North Seattle but the I90 bridge was closed.  As a result we decided to go round Lake Washington via Lynnwood, and got there around two in the afternoon.  The place is tiny, very little seating and next-door to a Starbucks, literally in the middle of nowhere.

Having said that, the restaurant was packed, there was a huge line of people coming out of the store and fortunately most were getting take-out.  We got in line and I found a table and we had bacon burgers, fries, shakes and onion rings. (The onion rings are to die for, and the burgers are very good too – although rather big).

We had a great meal and all ate too much and now I’m home writing this I think I’m stuck in my chair for the evening!

So why am I telling you all this?  Well on the way out of the restaurant I took a quick peek over the counter (Regan told me the kitchen staff were “Really Hot” – his words) and I saw this unbelievable pile of bacon!  (Clearly I’m getting old as I didn’t notice the girls).

In my “bacon” frenzied excitement I asked the girl behind the counter if I could take a picture and she said sure, and invited me into the kitchen.

I appreciate that this is “unusual”, but look at it!  It’s beautiful!  If you like bacon you will definitely know what I mean.

So go to Red Mill Burgers in Green Park and check out the burgers, onion rings and pile of bacon – you won’t be disappointed.

Carter told me today that he wanted to work on his target practice, I thought he meant with a gun, but clearly not!

The other day I posted an image of the Suspension Bridge at the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.  You find this 150′ bridge if you follow the “Ravine Experience” nature walk through the park.  Usually I take wide angle shots of structures like this so you can see the whole thing.  But lately I’m trying to find an alternative perspective (that’s a posh photography or “arty” way of saying a different or interesting view).

With modern cameras anyone can take a correctly exposed picture that’s in focus, in fact it’s quite hard not to.  But the difference between a holiday snap and a beautiful picture is all about reading, understanding and manipulating light and learning how to compose scenes that draw the eye in and either tell a story or leave the viewer with a strong emotion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting I’m good at this or know how to create those strangely compelling images that you can’t stop looking at, but I’m trying.  What’s funning is as I’m a total geek and cameras have so many knobs and buttons, sometimes I go so excited about the technology I forget the composition.

If nothing else, this New Years resolution has got me out of the house and forced me to take a LOT of pictures and I *think* I’m getting better.

I really liked this image.  You can clearly see this is a suspension bridge and you can see it’s surrounded by forest.  I liked the texture of the brick in the base pillar and to draw your eye to it I kept that in focus and made the rest of the bridge slowly fall out of focus.

Tonight Carter and Master Chief decided to do some ironing and we witnessed a terrible accident!