You can’t really visit Seattle without going to Pike Place Market and when you do you’ll probable enter the market under the big clock.  This is the south end of the Market at the end of Pike Street and arguably the part that’s most famous.  At this end you find Rachel the bronze cast piggy bank which is usually covered in tourists trying to get a market picture, and behind Rachel is the Pike Place Fish Market.  This fish market is probably one of the major attractions as when you buy fish here the guy out front selects the one you want and throws it to the guys behind the counter who pack it for you.  Throwing fish is definitely their thing, but if you want that picture you need some patience – they don’t throw fish to order!

I chose to visit the market on a day off work.  It was pretty quiet in the morning and the sun was shining and gave me the opportunity to take the typical market shot.  I actually wasn’t going to post this one as everyone shoots the market from this location, but then I thought what the hell!  I live in Seattle, I need to get this one at least once – so here is my traditional Pike Place Market.

The signage above the market here is great and when it gets dark everything lights up.  I actually drove to Seattle late one Sunday night just to capture the neon lights.  It was raining when I went too which was fantastic as I was after red neon reflections in the road.  It takes around 40 minutes for me to drive there and I was going just for this one picture.  However when I got there the sign wasn’t on.  I was totally devastated and rather than look for other subjects drove home totally depressed.  I will get that shot this year though so look out for that one.

Today Carter felt the need to hit the road and ride his Harley.  As you can see his dream came true.

As you drive home to Redmond from Leavenworth you go west and take highway 2 towards Steven’s Pass with the Wenatchee River on the right.   Before you start to climb up to the Pass you go through Tumwater Canyon and come across Jolanda Lake.  This is an amazingly scenic Canyon and the Lake is just beautiful.

To the north of the Lake are some pretty big rapids and to the south you find the Tumwater Dam that throws the water down a man made waterfall that used to power an old hydro-electric plant.  The Lake seems so tranquil, you’d never know there was so much going on at each end.  Right by the Lake is the Alps Candy Store.

Chris and I stopped to take some pictures of the lake and grab a drink.  We went into the store and they asked us if we wanted to buy some fudge.  It appears that the store made their own fudge and had every flavor imaginable.  I thought I’d better get something for the kids so I tried some “orange cream” fudge that was so sweet it made my teeth hurt – it was disgusting!  But I got some anyway as the kids would love it – and they did.

Apparently this lake looks even better in fall when the trees change color, so I’ll be going back then.  Hope you like the image.

I think the Halo guys are making a statement to all our women readers.  They were quite passionate to get this message across, personally I have no idea what they are on about!

I posted a bit of an opus last night and still have typist cramp, so tonight’s posting is much shorter – to balance out.  If you read last nights blog posting you will have noted that a large train was parked up when Chris and I walked back to the car.  Well, this is that train.

It’s engine was running when we drove up, and it was still running when we got back from the waterfall – about a hour later.  I don’t know why they stopped there, but was glad they did because if they were 20 feet further forward we would probably still be there now, as they would have blocked our exit over the tracks, also I wouldn’t have got this picture.

I liked the orange and yellow colors against the green background, kind of looked cool there and I was pleased with the picture when I got home.  I chose a relatively big aperture and was pretty close as I wanted the end of the train to fall out of focus and got exactly what I wanted.

There, told you tonight would be shorter.

Imagine my excitement this week when I heard that Adorama had finally shipped my purchase!  Unfortunately though it wasn’t my D4, it was a D4 battery 🙁   However the Halo dudes were still excited and decided to do an un-boxing video.  Not that exciting I know, but they try.

I’ve been meaning to drive out to Leavenworth across Stevens Pass for a while now.  I wanted to wait until spring was really here and the snow was gone.  So a couple of weeks ago a work colleague (Chris Pearson) and I decided to plan a trip.  We thought we’d spend the day on the road, visit some waterfalls around Stevens Pass and then go to Leavenworth.

The day finally came and I picked up Chris this morning at 8am and off we went.  Now throughout the day I took over 550 pictures and have lots to share and a few “interesting” stories to tell.  But I thought I’d start with one of the last pictures I captured in the day.

Before heading out I did some investigation and found some waterfalls we could visit en route.  So our plan was to get some waterfall shots in the morning and then head to Leavenworth in the afternoon.  But Chris and I were talking so much on the way, we missed all the signs and ended up over Steven’s Pass before we realized we’d missed the falls.  We then started to say “We’ll get that shot on the way back”. Every time we drove past a cool sight it was “…on the way back”.

Anyway we visited Leavenworth and had a blast and on the way home we crossed the Pass and went looking for the missed falls.  Our first attempt at finding the road was completely wrong, we thought we found the right turning but we quickly realized we needed to go further from the Pass.  Our second attempt looked much more promising.

I should say here that these waterfalls don’t come with addresses.  You get longitudes and latitudes and driving directions, but I guess we are so used to following the Satellite Navigation system we suck at the directions thing.

So we turned off the main highway, and crossed some train tracks.  The directions said just across from the tracks was a dirt road, but we couldn’t see one, so we turned down a dirt road 200 feet to the right.  After a very bumpy track we parked up and started to walk, looking for the falls.  This involved climbing a couple of huge hills covered with rocks and snow, carrying our tripods and cameras.  After about 20 minutes we decided we were in the wrong place – things were looking bad!  So we headed back to the car.  We drove back to the railway tracks and a huge orange train had arrived and parked up – a women engineer was sunning herself on the train engine and asked if we were going to the falls.  We said yes and she gave us walking directions, pointing out the track we missed before.  After another 20 minutes we convinced ourselves we were again in the wrong place, or the river had dried up (unlikely as this was part of a 100 foot waterfall).  Chris was also getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and we were both frustrated and tired.  Eventually we decided to walk back to the car and call it a day.  Around 100 feet from the car I thought I heard running water, so I persuaded Chris to try one more time.  This time we had to jump a small stream, climb another huge hill (pretty much through a full on forest – no paths here) and we finally found the “Scenic Falls”.

This is a 113 foot waterfall that passed through this really pretty, mossy gorge.  The waterfall had three tiers, the first being the big drop and the other two smaller drops with fast water.  This image is of the last part of the fall.  The water is moving really fast and the noise was amazing.  It was also (for a 75 degree day) really cold standing by the ice cold water coming off the mountain.

Now I should say here that fast running water is pretty hard to capture using still photography.  There are really two primary approaches.  The first is the “ribbon or cotton candy” look, this involves having a slow shutter speed so the water kind-a blurs as it’s moving.  This gives the impression of movement and can look cool.  The second is the “stop motion” look.  This involves using a fast shutter to freeze motion.  I actually tried both approaches for all my waterfall shots and for this one I preferred the Cotton Candy look.  Now this is definitely not to everyone’s taste (even Lisa preferred the stop motion look), but I really loved this shot so it’s the one I’m posting tonight.  Also an old friend in the UK asked for one of these shots, so Mark (Haley), this one is for you mate.

In the coming weeks I’m sure I’ll post a lot more images but this is the first, and currently my favorite.

Lisa made some cookies today and when she wasn’t looking some disappeared!

I’ve mentioned before that I prefer older refurbished cars to new fast ones – clearly this is because I’m getting older and going super fast doesn’t excite me anymore (thank goodness).  If I was being honest I don’t think super performance cars have ever been my thing, I’m too much of a poser I guess.

I have also stated I love some of the old American classics from the 50’s, with their huge bodies and massive fins they are just so unaerodynamic and far away from today’s designs I think they look amazing.  Plus coming from the UK I only ever saw those old cars on TV so I guess there’s something attractive about that.

But my favorite car from last week’s car meet was interestingly an English model.  The Jaguar XK150 Roadster.  This car was just, well, beautiful.  I could have looked at this all day and did for a good 40 minutes.  For me it kind of merged the style of the old big cars of the 50’s and 60’s with the sweeping aerodynamic lines of a modern model today.  Plus I actually remember seeing car’s like this in the UK when I was very young and fell for them then.  This model was the predecessor to the E-type Jaguar, a model that received huge critical acclaim in it’s day but one I never really liked.

I talked for a bit with the guy who owned this and he told me he brought the car back in 1997 and finished the refurbishment in 2003.  He also admitted that he paid others to do all the work and he has always been too scared to work out how much he’s spent.  Clearly it was a lot.  Anyway, hope you like the picture, trust me when I say it doesn’t do the car justice.

Looking around my office the Halo dudes found some Insights Lego blocks and started to play.