Today’s image was taken again in Mount Vernon.  This time it’s a shot of a field of tulips (I really needed to point that out didn’t I).  Hopefully you get a sense of the scenery here which is truly spectacular.  I have other shots that have Mount Baker in the background topped with snow (you’ll see those ones soon I’m sure).  It was such a lovely day and the back drop of the top of the Cascades behind the fields just looked great.

Now I know that my photography and image processing is not to everyone’s taste.  What’s that you ask, “people don’t like your pictures Tony?”  Well some don’t.  There are a couple of different schools of thought in photography, one school see’s it as an art form, where you do what you need to do to get the end result you wanted.  This involves modifying images in Photoshop, removing distractions from the primary subject or enhancing tones, contrast or colors etc., even re-composing the image after the fact (that means cropping), well, this is obviously the camp I’m in.  But then there are the “purists”, the people who believe that you take a photograph, and whatever you get out of the camera is the final image – no messing about.  Interestingly these people are a bit of a dieing breed as everything is post processed these days (as even if you don’t do it, your camera does it for you!)  This is kind-a sad, as there is something to their argument.  As with most things in life photography is about balance, so I try to get the best composition I can in camera, try to get the lighting right etc., and then only modify what I need in Photoshop after the fact.

So why on earth am I rambling on about this?  Well this shot is pretty much right out of the camera.  “Pretty much you say?”, Well yeah, if you remember I told you that there were loads of tourists there tramping all over the fields and this shot was no exception.  So I removed them in Photoshop – can you see where?  But that was it.  I didn’t change any colors, I didn’t crop or modify the images contrast or add any filters.  Once the annoying people were removed, this is what I saw.

See I can be “old school” too.

Now I know that when people say “he was wired” they sometimes mean the person was tense with excitement and enthusiasm as from a rush of adrenaline, but when Master Chief got wired it was different, he literally got caught up in a load of wires!  Bit embarrassing but it happens to us all (when you’re 3″ tall anyway).

Back to tulips – well I did warn you yesterday.  Tonight’s posting is a great example of what to do when there are hundreds of people all around you and you want a picture of flowers (with no people).  GET IN CLOSE.

Ironically this image was taken with quite a long lens from a distance, but the “get in close” approach is the same.  I liked the fact that not all the flowers had bloomed here and the fact that they aren’t pointing straight up, I also was aiming for a narrow depth of field (for those of you who don’t talk camera – this means that the front of the picture and the back of the picture are out of focus and the middle is sharp – well that’s the idea anyway).

Expect to see more tulips for the next few days, but I have a long weekend coming up and am planning a day out to get some new stellar shots (that you won’t see until Monday) so hang in there.

While walking around the office at work Carter and Master Chief found a load of enslaved “dudes”, they are currently planning their escape.

As promised I don’t want to post tulip pictures every night (even through I have enough for the rest of the year), so tonight I’m having a break and posting this image of the harbor at Carillon Point.  Today has been a rainy day and pretty grey outside, so this image reminded me of the sun we had last week and what’s to come.

Lisa, James, Abi and I drove to Carillon to see if we could get any nice pictures and we did well.  The white puffy clouds against the blue sky looked great and there were not too many boats in the harbor.  You can’t see it but Seattle is on the other side of the lake.

I’m waiting for a clear night as I want to go back and see if those street lamps light up and look any good when it gets dark.  I think a similar shot at night, maybe even with moonlight would look very cool.

However, enjoy this break as tomorrow it’s back to tulips.

Carter and Master Chief got scared by something at work today and I found them running away.

One of the fun (or dangerous) things about owning Photoshop, is that you can go a little mad!  You can definitely “over process” an image.  In fact many people (including Lisa) tell me I do that all the time, but I don’t care I like my images.  However tonight’s posting is a conscious choice to go over the top.

While driving back home from Mount Vernon I passed this really cool church.  I literally drove right past it, did a u-turn and went back for another look.  It’s all wood and I loved the steeple and the fancy windows.  So I decided to take a picture.  Unfortunately it  was positioned right by a main road and the road had power cables in the air that would have ruined the picture.  I tried lots of angles and found the one posted here the best.

When I got home to check out the picture there were a couple of issues.  Firstly there were loads of parking signs in the church car park (so I took them out with Photoshop), and secondly the sky looked REALLY boring.  It was almost white and gave the image a dull flat look.

I was playing with some filters and got this really cool purple sky and at that time Lisa was walking past.  Anyway she loved the sky and said I should post it like that (this is the person that says she doesn’t like it when my pictures are over processed and look fake).   I can honestly say the sky looked nothing like this, but, it would have been cool if it did.

Carter and Master Chief decided to read some technical books today but couldn’t agree on which one to start.

If you read this blog you will remember that I went back to Mount Vernon on Saturday to finally shoot some tulips.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m going to post LOTS of pictures of tulips.  Having said that I’ll try and intersperse non-tulip images so you don’t get too bored.

You kind of have to imagine a huge field (and I mean huge) full of different colored flowers.  Then imagine hundreds of people walking all around the flowers and periodically running into the flowers for a picture.

Then you have to ask yourself how can you photograph great pictures without loads of strangers in shot?  Well there are a few approaches (and I used them all).  One way is to shoot deep into the field with a long lens, to do this I just stand at the edge and focus way out into the middle of the field.  Another approach is just to have patience and when a small number of people are in view (you never have no people) take the shot, then remove them in post processing.  The last approach (and the mechanism used in today’s picture) is to get a large black bin bag out of your camera case and lay it on the floor.  Then you lay on the bag under the flowers and shoot up.   This is what I did.  Of course there are people walking round my feet looking at me like I’m a loony, but that’s OK, the results are worth it.

One of the benefits of this approach (other than no people) is that you get the blue sky as a background and it can set off the flowers.  In this image I also had the sun, which I tried to hide behind a flower bulb.

Cater and Master Chief decided today to play a game of soccer.  So they jumped on a Foosball table and took over.