OK this is a weird one.  I took this picture the other day of the Washington Mutual Tower and I kind-a like it but don’t know why!

I don’t think there is anything special about the building, I mean it’s not the tallest in Seattle or anything (it’s the second) and to be honest it’s not even called the Washington Mutual Tower anymore, it’s actually called the “1201 Third Avenue” (but I like the old name more).  Although some people call it the “Spark Plug” which is kind of funny I guess.

The image was shot just after the sun went down and the lights in the building were on.

So what do I like about the image? Well the building is a cool shape and symmetrical, which I think looks good.  It has loads of windows that make a cool pattern (I’m struggling aren’t I?) – I like the little square box on the top.  Anyway, I liked it enough to post.

So what about the building?  Well apparently it’s an office block and was built in 1985, it’s 772 feet high and the 60^th highest building in the US.  That’s all I could be bothered to find out.  Oh and it looks cool against a dark blue sky.

Cater found today that he likes Goldfish, quite a lot!

This is my last picture from the harbor in Seattle – well at least for now, I can’t promise I won’t go back.  I posted the the ferris wheel the other day and that was on the left hand side of the pier.  This shot was taken on the right hand side, looking back towards Seattle.

The boats moored at dock are vessels from the Argosy fleet right next to pier 55.  The boats were rocking from side to side and you can see this as the mast of the sail boat has a lot of motion blur.  This happened as it was getting dark so I had a longer than desired exposure.

In the far distance is Centurylink Field which is the stadium that’s the home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders (that’s an American Football team and a American Soccer team for any Brit’s who read this).  Just out of shot past Centurylink Field is Safeco Field the Seattle Mariners stadium – our baseball team (I figured I should mention that too so people know we have all three).

While I was there a few people came onto the peer to take pictures too.  It was kind of funny as I’m there set up with my tripod and huge camera bag taking loads of pictures and people walk up, pull out their iPhone, take a snap, look at it and say “awesome” and then walk away!  They must think I’m nuts as I was there for ages.  There was one other guy there with a camera on a tripod who was there when I arrived and was still there when I left.  His camera was pointing in the same direction the whole time and he was sitting there waiting – I’m not sure what for but I couldn’t be bothered to wait and see or ask him.  I was happy with my 150 pictures.

Anyway, tomorrow I’ll move onto something else.

Master Chief decided he didn’t know his seven times table, so Carter was helping him with flashcards.

I was looking for something to post tonight and went through my “Unposted” directory and nothing really grabbed me.  And as it was 10pm I started to worry a little.  So I went through my 6,198 picture library (that’s how many pictures I’ve taken this year) and I came across this train.

The image was taken in Snoqualmie at the railway museum.  When you drive towards Snoqualmie for about a mile on the right hand side you pass all these old trains.  There are loads of them and they are all rusting and falling apart.  Unfortunately there is this six foot high wire fence between the path that runs next to the trains and the exhibits, so it’s quite hard to get a good shot.  You don’t want a dirty big fence in the way.

So I found a part of the path that was a little higher than the rest, pushed the tripod up to it’s nine foot maximum height, lifted the camera over the fence and took the shot.  Considering I couldn’t properly compose the picture, I think it came out OK.

What makes the train and picture interesting (to me anyway) is the terrible state it’s in and the autumn colors of the metal.  It’s all red, brown, yellow and orange and I think looks cool.  My only regret is that I don’t have a nice blue sky above, that would have looked really good.  But you can’t have everything.

This weekend I’m going to try some light painting with some flashlights.  The Halo guys grabbed one each but I think Carter has flashlight envy.

If you ever visit Seattle and take a trip down to the city water front on Elliott Bay, you may be tempted to take a boat trip out in the bay and do a tour of the city from the water.  Alternatively you might want to jump on a boat, go through the locks at Ballard and get into Lake Washington and do a sightseeing tour there (who knows you may see Bill Gates in his house in Medina, Bellevue).

Well if you want to do either, you will have to take an Argosy Cruise.  This company provides all sorts of cruises out of Seattle and they all start from Pier 55 on Alaskan Way right down on the waterfront.

Now I have done most of their tours over the years (some multiple times as it’s a great place to take friends and family who visit), but I’ve never done one of their Dining Cruises.  They actually have a few different types including a lunch cruise, a dinner dance cruise and even a murder mystery dinner cruise (I’d like that one).  All of these take place on their largest vessel the Royal Argosy.

It just so happens that when I was there shooting the other night, the Royal Argosy was coming into dock after one of it’s dinner dance cruises.  The ship was beautifully lit and when it docked hundreds of people came off all dressed up in the best evening gowns and tuxedos.

I took this picture from the end of the pier looking back at the Royal Argosy which had docked at port with the city skyline in front of it.  Pier 56 to the left in the picture has some restaurants on it that were all lit up providing cool reflections on the water.

It all looked really nice and made I think a lovely picture.

Tonight the guys decided to play “Littlest Petshop” on Abi’s Nintendo DS.

So I’ve been going through a photography crisis over the last couple of days.  There is this video podcast I watch called “The Grid”, and the show is presented by a couple of guys I really respect.  I’ve been a bit behind with the shows (mainly due to work) and had the chance this weekend to catch up.  Well on a few shows the two presenters (Scott Kelby and Matt Kozlowski) carried out some blind reviews, where people send in their images and basically Scott and Matt tell them what they really think.

Unfortunately sometimes what they think isn’t nice to hear.  That said if an image sucked (and a lot of them did) they give the message in a respectful way, clearly stating what’s wrong and what you need to do.  Well as I’ve been watching the shows I’ve been going through my own pictures and have seen a lot of the “mistakes” they raised on the show.  One of the things they said on The Grid was that people tend to tell you nice things on Facebook and Flickr, friends don’t say things like “I don’t like that image”, they just don’t “like” it.

As a result looking through my “images to post” directory I found I didn’t like any of the shots anymore as I keep seeing errors and mistakes.

Tonight’s image is another shot from Carillon Point, this time from right down on the waterfront just by the harbor.  Just in front of the boats is this small separated area for small row boats and kayaks.  The water is covered in water lillies and lit from small lights that edge the water.

When I took the shot I loved the lillies and the reflections on the water.  Looking at the image at home I noted that the water in the bottom left corner was a bit “scummy” – and that’s being nice.  This was an attention to detail issue that was raised on the podcast.  So I spent an hour cleaning the water in Photoshop.  (Now I’ve said that you will all be looking in the corner at the water).

The end result is a better picture, but after this weekend I still feel I have a lot to learn.

Tonight the Halo dudes decided to cut up some fresh berries.  Fortunately they didn’t make too much mess.