For those that don’t know, Seattle is on one side of Lake Washington and Kirkland is on the other.  Kirkland has a small harbor and even smaller beach where kids and dogs paddle in summer.  As we have had some really lovely weather lately the sun brought out the crowds to check out the water front.

There’s a park area to lie out in the sun, a large gazebo to find some shade and benches along the water front to watch the boats and children play.

I set up the tripod under the gazebo and using a long lens captured the shot below.  The lens created great compression, making the Seattle skyline across the lake appear much closer and captured the people on the bench enjoying the water.

This image below was actually my second attempt.  In the first one there was an elderly couple sitting on the bench holding hands, and while in silhouette they looked great, I made a composition blunder and had the water horizon crossing their necks (that made it look like their heads were cut off).  After realizing my mistake I set up again but the older couple had left and were replaced with a younger couple and a dude with one leg (he actually had two legs but it looks like one is missing).

Oh well, next time I’ll get it right first time. 🙂

When I got home the Halo guys were watching Glee with Abi, immediately after the show they ran for their pink iPod and Hello Kitty headphones so they could hear more songs and sing along.

Went out again today to see what I could capture and had some success.  The weather again was really nice so I did some research at home on the internet and selected Kirkland and Bellevue as my destinations.

Kirkland was really busy, lots of people walking by Lake Washington enjoying the nice day.  Anyway one of the shots I really wanted was to capture some moored boats in the harbor.  So I walked around the boats looking for something cool.

The public part of the harbor was pretty empty so I walked to the private harbor.  Now this area is only accessible through a locked gate but I found a small jetty next to the harbor where a number of 20 foot sail boats were moored.

I liked the scene and the way all the boats were in a line so I captured some images one of which was the picture below.

The actual photograph was a nightmare to process however as when I got home I found that the boats were all moving about in the water and there were multiple masts and cables in the image.  After around an hour I got the image to what you see below.

Today’s fun shot shows the Halo guys playing with some Russian Stacking Dolls.

Today I hit the road for a couple hours looking for something local to shoot.  It was a lovely day too with blue skies and the temperature in the low 60’s (not bad for February in Seattle).

I didn’t really have a plan; I was just looking for something that grabbed me and between Carnation and Duvall I drove past this pond by the road.  Ironically it wasn’t the water that grabbed me it was actually the sky.

It’s time like this that I really feel old.  I mean when I was 18 I NEVER noticed a nice sky!

Anyway so I turned the car round and drove back to see if I could find a picture.

There was a dirt track by the road and I pulled in there and got the camera out just in time to see some ducks fly down and enter the pond.

In all I’m happy with the shot, the sky looks really good, I like the tree line and the pond in the foreground sets up the shot with something in the lower, middle and upper parts of the image.

Game night for the Halo dudes, and like any normal person there is nothing better than a nice game of Twister!

For those of you who know me, or more importantly my wife Lisa, know she likes chocolate.  Actually that’s a bit of an understatement, Lisa LOVES chocolate.  There is a problem though, we live in Seattle in the US and Lisa loves UK Cadbury chocolate.  Now you can buy Cadbury’s in the US but Hershey sells it under license and they changed the recipe.

Lisa thinks that Hershey actually changed it because the UK version tastes better than Hershey’s US chocolate.

So she has a problem, she wants her Cadbury “Fix” (and trust me it’s like that) but she can’t get it in the US.

To help Lisa out and keep her supplied, friends and family regularly send her Cadbury’s through the post.  If someone comes to the US to visit, Lisa will only let them in the house if they stock her supply.

Over Christmas my niece Aimee came out to the US to spend a few weeks with us and as expected she brought chocolate, she actually brought the largest bar of chocolate I had ever seen.

So tonight I thought I would take a picture of the Halo guys getting into Lisa’s large bar (which she is well into herself by the way).

After taking this picture I thought I would try a “candy” image for my serious shot.

So today’s image called “Sugar” was created. – Tomorrow no more food shots – I promise.

As promised, here are the Halo guys chomping down on a huge bar of chocolate.

As I purchased some fruit the other night I thought I should use it before it went off! As a result I tried a number of fruit pictures.

At first I tried shooting each piece of fruit separately, I even got the macro lens out and zoomed in really close. The pictures were nice but weren’t great, the big problem was I think a lack of color. But when I added all the different fruits together the picture kind of popped. It still has that minimalistic look, simple fruit on white, but the colors (reds, blacks and whites) worked well together. (The green leaves on the strawberry also helped).

So I liked this one and chose it for this evenings post.

Really no post processing here, this is exactly what came out of the camera.

Our Halo heros this evening are reaching for the sky and trying to fly around the house! I think Carter is planning on shooting Buck into the air using the launcher!