As today is Saturday I decided to do something different.

I went out to QFC and brought some flowers.  Got home and put them on top of a clean piece of perspex and put a black reflector behind the flowers.  Set up a couple of lights (one soft box and one grid) and took a load of images.

This one came out well, the flower reflection looks really nice and colors were great.

I had this idea of a shot where one of the Halo guys is looking cool while a girl walks past.  But I didn’t have a girl for them to pose for!  Abi to the rescue, she provided the little dole and the picture was made.  It was only after the fact that Abi pointed out that the doles pants are falling down!  Clearly she is from a rough part of town 🙁

So on the way home tonight I went to Redmond Town Center to take some pictures. I actually got 4 really nice shots (others will follow in the future) before a guy from Security came up to me. This is how the conversation went:

Security Guy: What you doing?
Me: Taking a picture.
Security Guy: What of?
Me: That over there (pointing in direction of camera)
Security Guy: I’m afraid you can’t photograph here.
Me: Why not?
Security Guy: Well it’s to do with security, you know, ever since 9/11
Me: So your worried that al-Qaeda will see my picture and bomb Red Mango?
Security Guy: Well no but you can’t have any shop signage in your pictures
Me: I don’t, here look through the view finder
<He looks, see’s there are no shop signs – clearly doesn’t know what to do, this has never happened before>
Security Guy: It’s just that my manager, oh
<now another security guard turns up, a girl, clearly his boss>
Security Girl: Hello Sir, what are you doing?
Me: I just told him
<I point to the 18 year old spotty security guard I was just talking to>
Security Girl: It’s just that you can’t take pictures here unless you photograph your family.
Me: Why?
Security Girl: It’s private property and we have a policy that says so
<Now passers by are stopping to ask what’s going on>
Woman: What’s going on?
Me: They won’t let me take pictures here, apparently it’s a terrorist concern since 9/11, I can only photograph my family
Security Girl: I didn’t say that
Me: No but he did
<Me pointing to 18 year old spotty>
Women: I can pretend to be your wife if you want
<People are laughing now>
Security Girl: Look she’s not your wife and we don’t allow professional photographers take pictures here
Me: I’m not professional, I work for Microsoft
Security Girl: Sorry your going to have to give me your images
Me: No I don’t, it’s not sign posted anywhere and you don’t have the right, call the police if you don’t believe me
<now passers by are booing the Security Guards>
People: Let him take his pictures…
Security Girl: No it’s private property
Me: Where does your property line finish?
Security Girl: Over there by the road
Me: So can I go and set up there?
<She is really getting pissed off with me now and I’m starting to laugh>

At this point I start packing up, and leave people behind me arguing with the security guards.

Needless to say, no more camera visits to Redmond Town Center 🙂

What can I say, I love toast and thought it was time for props:

Living near Seattle in the Pacific North West definitely has it’s advantages.  We are very close to the Cascades so if you like to Ski or Hike there are some very close locations.  We also have an abundance of water.  Seattle is located on Pudget Sound and between Redmond and Seattle is Lake Washington.

You can cross the lake using one of two bridges.  There is the I90 bridge that takes you over Mercer Island, or you can use my favorite, the 520 floating bridge shown below.

To capture this shot I found the last bridge that crossed the 520 before the 520 crossed the lake and took root above the commuting traffic.  This bridge has recently added a tole to pay for repairs and as a result there is quite a bit of “hardware” covering the road – which while being a shame doesn’t really hurt the image.

I found the location in Medina (very expensive area – where Bill Gates lives) and took the shot as the sun was going down after work.  In the distance you can just see the University of Washington and behind that the Olympic mountain range.  You can’t see Seattle itself as it’s off to the left of the shot.

My fun image today is Halo dude one giving Halo dude two a sponge bath! (No I don’t know why either)

I’m finding this is either really easy to do, or amazingly difficult.  How busy I am at work also plays a huge part in my output (obviously), and today was a very bad day at work.

I got home pretty late at night without any idea of what I was going to upload.  Abi had her gymnastics class earlier in the day and still had her leotard on and kindly offered to pose for me.  She rushed upstairs to wash her hair while I set up lights.

This was a three light shot, soft box in the front providing fill, gridded spot on her face as the key and a hair light behind.  Being only 8 Abi is not the best at keeping still and kept adopting “poses” for the images.  The shot below was my favorite facial expression but she did move slightly to her left (camera right) so you can see more of the hair light than planned.

That said I’m still happy with the portrait and need to thank her as she saved my bacon – day three and struggling (isn’t this what all New Year Resolutions are like?)

For Christmas Lisa got me some little camera’s that you stick on your monitor.  They look really realistic so I set up a little camera shoot for the Halo dudes:

So here we are day three and I’m having to work hard to find images 🙂 especially as I’m back at work. So this evening I decided to drive home via Kirkland’s waterfront and see what I could get. The sun was setting which created a beautiful sky but it was raining so I had to work fast.

A lot of people have asked if the images I capture are all HDR and I know everyone thinks that this image was heavily processed.  But surprisingly this is pretty much what came out of the camera.  The sky really was that blue and the orange from the lights was that strong.

Here is the image:

Being a big kindle user myself I thought if would be fun to see the Halo guys reading a Halo book, this was the result: