Today’s image was taken in Duvall.  Duvall is a very small city in Washington located between Carnation and Monroe.  It’s around 10 miles from Redmond and is a large community neighborhood for (amongst others) Microsoft employees.

It’s very quaint in Duvall (if that sounds condescending I don’t mean it to), it has a small high street of shops and almost looks like it comes directly from the 50’s (well it does to me).

Anyway I was driving through Duvall and went straight past this barn.  It looked almost derelict with its moss-covered roof that was falling off.   I immediately thought it would make a great picture so I turned the car around and stopped to take the shot.  I liked the two windows at the top of the barn too as to me they almost look like eyes.

There was a little bit of blue sky poking through and even a little green grass at the front.  Add to that the clouds looked pretty cool (it had rained earlier in the day).

Hope you like the image.

James (my son) has recently got into skateboarding and when it’s dry outside can usually be found skating round the neighborhood.  Not to be out done our Halo hero’s wanted to try it too.  Although I betting this will end in tears!

I really wanted to try something different tonight. I’ve been taking a lot of Landscape shots recently, and while I love that genre, I think I need to try new things. Now I would do more portraits, but other than my family, I’d have to go out and actually find someone to shoot, and to be completely honest, I’m just too lazy. As a result I have lots of family shots but not much else. (Need to do something about that).

Anyway, for tonight I thought I’d try food photography. Never tried this before so this is a complete experiment. I didn’t know what I wanted to shoot so I went to QFC and walked around with a basket looking for something interesting. Oh sure I brought fruit (every kind of berry) but I was still looking for something new. Then I found these peppers. I immediately thought they would look great on white paper (loved the red and orange colors) so I grabbed a handful and rushed home.

Then I spent two hours setting up food shots. I played around with these peppers first, then did some berry shots, dropped some strawberry’s in water and finished with food coloring. Phew!

I’m pretty pleased with the results (for a first attempt) but ended the night with pepper burns in my nose (don’t cut peppers then pick your nose – huge mistake), and food dye all over my fingers (red and green, my hands look like a Christmas Tree).

After my shoot the Halo guys found the peppers with terrible results!  Apparently they are pretty hot!

Not a great day for a picture.  Still raining with grey sky’s etc., so I thought a black and white skyline shot was in order.

For this I visited Alki Beach in West Seattle.  Alki is on the peninsular that’s directly opposite Seattle Down Town on the other side of Elliott Bay.  This is a great place to roller blade or bicycle and is scattered with coffee shops and restaurants.  (Our favorite place is Salty’s that overlooks the water).

This shot was taken right by Salty’s and as there was a lot of traffic in Elliott Bay I had to wait for an opening to get the city.  That said you can see the Ferry coming in from Bainbridge Island.  As it was just getting dark the city lights are starting to come on and it adds a nice collection of lights to the image.

Abi has hundreds of these “Littlest Pet Shop” Toys (and I mean hundreds) here they ganged up on our Halo heroes.

I went out with the camera today to see what I could capture but it was a bit miserable again.  Rain with grey skies.  Anyway I went over to west Seattle to Alki Beach and found this pier with some boats propped up on the railings.  Sitting on the top of one of the boats was this seagull.

I walked up to it and the bird blazingly sat there looking at me, I could see the bird thinking “what the hell do you want?”

Anyway I decided to set up the camera and take this shot as behind the bird was the Seattle skyline and the sun was just going down, so building lights were coming on.

I took several shots and the bird kept moving and the light was low so I needed a long shutter.  When I got home I checked out the pictures and found one with the bird staying reasonably still.  But when I examined the image I saw the boat was covered in bird crap!  I suggested to Lisa that I should throw the image away but she liked it and thought it was funny, so here it is.

These Halo guys have no fear, they just throw a rope to the top of one of Lisa’s glass ornaments and started to climb!

This afternoon I went out with the camera to Seattle hoping to get some great shots in the city. Unfortunately it was raining when I got there and Pike Place Market was ridiculously busy 🙁

As a result I decided to find somewhere inside and found the city’s public library. Inside they have these amazing escalators that are lit with yellow lights. I must have looked a complete idiot lying on the floor waiting for people to get off the thing but nobody complained.

I did ask a passing employee if it was OK if I shot in there and he just smiled and said no problem as long as I don’t bother anybody.

The funny thing was I had to wait a while for an empty escalator shot and while waiting some guy came up to me and asked if I wanted a model for $10! Obviously (as you can see) I politely declined.

Always trying to keep amused tonight the guys played hide and seek.