The Botanical Gardens in Bellevue were really beautiful the other day.  The temperature was ridiculously hot so I kept under the cover of trees by following the woodland trails.  While winding my way around the park I found this Japanese Sun House.  I took several pictures from different perspectives but due to the trees near by (especially off to the left in the picture below) the image I’m posting tonight is the best one.

The house only had 3 walls and inside there were a number of wooden benches where you could sit and enjoy the gardens.  I was lucky when I got there to take this as there was nobody else around.  Ironically shortly after that a wedding party turned up (they arrived in a stretch Hummer limousine – I saw it when I left) to take some pictures.

Now I have nothing against wedding parties or wedding photographers (not that I’d ever photograph a wedding – get that wrong and there’s no opportunity for a do-over, who wants that pressure), but some of them can be a real pain in the ass.  The guy photographing the wedding party basically took over the area and started bossing me and other visitors about.  Now you don’t need a license to photograph a wedding party at the Botanical Gardens so anyone can do it, and I have as much right to be there as a wedding party, so I get a bit angry when they start telling me to get out of the way, specifically when I got there first!

I encountered this same problem in Maui, there were these photographers who went to the beach at sunset to photograph a client.  But the beach is public property, they don’t own it but you would think they did.  I find it all very annoying!

Anyway I had fortunately already taken my pictures so I buggered off and left them too it.

I really liked the image below when I got home, it definitely captured the beauty of the area and the serene tranquil influence of the trees around the house.

Now coming from England I get all sorts of negative comments from people at work about British food, but the Halo guys wanted to try some traditional English food and decided to check out Lisa’s cooking book.  They decided to make some “Spotted Dick” – Yummy!

It’s funny what you see as you’re driving around, every now and then you see something cool and think “that’ll make a nice pic”.  This happened the other day on the way home, I was driving the back way home and I saw this old truck.  It was quite far away from the road but I thought it might make a nice posting.  Next to the property that had the truck was a road with a white picket fence, so I drove down the road, and jumped out to get the shot.

I hand held the camera to take the image as I was concerned that someone may come out and tell me to move on, so I rested the camera on the picket fence on the middle horizontal plank.  From a distance I wasn’t sure if the truck was road worthy or just there for show, but when I got closer, it looked like it was in need of some work and probably wasn’t running.

It was really sunny when I got the shot and you can see the reflection of the fence in the truck’s door.  I have no idea what year and model this is but it had Ford on the hood so I knew the make.  I loved the white walled tires and the running boards.  The grass on the back kind of looked cool too and when I got home I was really pleased with the image.

I used a good lens and managed to get a nice depth of field so the barn behind is starting to fall out of focus.  Ideally the truck would have been further away from the barn and the barn would have been pretty blurred but unfortunately they were quite close together – but then there’s not much you can do about that.

I’ve learnt now that when I see these opportunities I stop and take the picture (if I have the camera with me of course), as if I think “I’ll get it later on the way back” I never get the chance again.  With my luck the truck would have been towed away that afternoon.  But this one I got and I think it looks great.

Today the Halo guys decided to hold their own medal ceremony, where the winner got a gold Cadbury medal.  Somehow Carter won!

So yesterday I visited the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.  In hindsight this was a silly day to go as it was over 95 degrees outside.  I also very cleverly chose not to put on any sun screen and I have one of those bodies that burns really easily.  So like I said, dumb idea.  The gardens themselves cover 53 acres in the middle of Bellevue city and contain cultivated gardens, restored woodlands and natural wetlands.

As it was really hot I kept away from the open gardens with all the flower beds, I suspect that the direct sunlight would have been pretty harsh in the pictures and wouldn’t have looked good (it very rarely does) so I kept to the woodland trails.

As I was walking around I saw a sign for the new “Ravine Experience”.  I had no idea what this was but as I was walking under huge firs and cedars I figured it was safe to check it out.  The trail took me down a number of hills and I won’t lie, I was dreading the walk back to the car as it was going to be up some pretty big hills.  And remember I’m walking with a pretty heavy camera bag and a tripod.

Along the way I passed a few other hikers who said hello, but pretty much the gardens were empty.  Eventually I found out what the “Ravine Experience” was.

The gardens had added a really cool suspension bridge over a ravine.  The bridge was 150 feet long and about 5 feet wide.  The ravine was around 100 feet deep so you are relatively high up.  Of course once I reached the bridge I grabbed the camera and got ready to take some pictures, and then the masses arrived, family after family appearing from nowhere started crossing the bridge and the whole thing was swinging.  I don’t mind that really as you have to have patience for this hobby, but then a couple stopped on the bridge, looked at me and just decided to make me wait 10 minutes!

Eventually everyone left and I had the area to myself.  I took a number of different shots, some of the whole bridge, some from the front getting everything in, some from the side getting a different perspective and they all looked nice.  But my favorites were shots like the one I’m posting below.  For this one I focused on one of the suspension cables and selected a very narrow depth of field so a majority of the bridge fell out of focus.

I loved this look when I got home, it’s kind of different but you know what you’re looking at.  I’m sure I’ll post others of the bridge in the future so this was definitely worth the walk and heat, although I was a total mess when I got back to the car, fortunately I have no picture of that!

Carter saw Abi on the trampoline yesterday and got all jealous, so today he did a straddle jump too.

I had a really good day today, we had a lazy Sunday and again it was really hot (over 95 degrees), and I got some great pictures.  First I decided to go out and see what I could shoot, but I didn’t want to go to Seattle as the I90 bridge was closed as the Seattle Sea Fair was on today and the Blue Angels were flying across Lake Washington.  As a result I thought I’d go to the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue.

I got there around 3pm and it was incredibly hot.  Fortunately there weren’t too many people there so I got to walk around the garden trails taking pictures without people in the way.  I found a really cool suspension bridge and got some great shots.  They also have a lot of rock gardens and flowering perennials but they were in direct sunlight and wouldn’t have come out that well.  So I’m definitely going back one evening after work when the sun is lower in the sky, I should get some great shots then.

That said I still got lots of really nice images that I’ll be posting in the days to come.  On the way home I saw a really cool old Chevy truck so I pulled over to shoot that, and then in my own neighborhood there were some wonderful trees covered in red berries, so I shot some of them too (against a lovely blue sky).  So I got home quite excited with lots of pictures to pick from for tonight’s image.

Then, Abi decided to go into the garden and play on her trampoline.  Now for those who don’t know, Abi is a very keen gymnast.  She trains 3 times a week putting in nine hours in her gym.  Then she comes home and spends hours on the trampoline and her own floor beam and mats.  She starts to compete in October and I’ll be going along to cheer her on and take lots of pictures.

Anyway she was bouncing up and down and doing back hand springs and flips, so I thought I’d take a picture.  I’ll be honest I didn’t think the image would come out that well but the D4 camera is just amazing.  We got the picture below after around 15 attempts, she was doing amazingly well but I had to figure out timing and wait for a shot when her hair wasn’t in her face.

I’m really pleased with the end result, she looks beautiful and I’m going to print this one out and put in on the wall.

Tonight, Carter and Master Chief decided to play a little basket ball, here you can see Carter’s basket and Master Chief’s attempt to block.

Today was probably the hottest day of the year.  We hit 91 degrees in our garden and it was so hot that Lisa couldn’t sit outside and sunbathe.   The skies were a beautiful blue color and I wanted to capture a picture that showed you all what a lovely day it was in Redmond.  I can honestly say, that when the weather is nice the Pacific North West is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

So I grabbed my camera and tripod and jumped into the car and headed off to find some inspiration.  As it was really, really hot, I didn’t want to do any hiking, I needed to find somewhere I could park the car, leave the safety of the air conditioning and run (or walk briskly) to a photography viewpoint, take a picture and get back in the cool car quickly.  At least that was my plan.

On the way out of Redmond Ridge where I live I stopped by the side of the road to shoot some berries against a blue sky, they came out well but didn’t convey the magnificence of the day.  So on I went.  Eventually I found myself in the Redmond Watershed which covers acres of land that’s preserved for wildlife.  I parked up and got my gear and started to walk.

After 5 minutes (which incidentally was far to long as I was starting to sweat), I found this small lake.  The trees on the other side of the lake were really grand and topped by the blue sky and there was this great reflection in the lake.  The lake itself was a bit messy with logs and “stuff” floating on the surface, but there was nothing I could do about that so I set up the tripod and took some pictures.

I think the image came out really well and Abi sat with me this evening while I processed the image and posted it to the site.  She also contributed to this posting making suggestions on what I should write (she wanted to say I was sweating like a pig but she wasn’t there so how would she know?)

Today we had a barbeque and Lisa made some corn.  Carter and Master Chief wanted some too and pinched it when we weren’t looking.