While in Duvall at the Big Rock Classic Car Show I captured this shot of a chrome engine.  I have no idea what the car is (I didn’t check) but I loved the three carburetors on the top and the fact that it was all bright and shiny.  After a while you tend to just walk around taking lots of pictures, some you know will look good and some you just hope.  This was a shot I kind of saw as I captured it and while it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I like the mechanical busy look of the engine.  I just wish I owned an engine this clean – never going to happen.

I really don’t know how much time these guys spend adding bright-work to their cars, but you have to admire this kind of dedication.  I mean how long does it take to polish the engine?  And what happens if you get an oil leak?  Clearly these are questions I will never know the answer to.  Anyway I hope you like the image.

Tonight Carter and Master Chief were once again playing with fruit, who knew you could have so much fun.

Lisa, Abi and I drove over to Duvall yesterday to go to the Big Rock Classic Car Show and on the Duvall/Carnation road passed this red barn. On the way to Duvall the sky was totally overcast and I didn’t think a picture would look that great, so I decided to remember the location for another day.

After visiting Duvall and the car show the clouds parted and blue sky appeared (in fact it got really warm) so on the way home we stopped by the barn to get a shot.  I’ve driven this road many times and I must have passed this barn, but I’ve never noticed it before.  So Lisa and I think that the owners probably recently painted the barn as it was very red.

Lisa pulled over and I jumped out, I didn’t want to keep her waiting so I didn’t bother with a tripod, I just hand held multiple shots so I could HDR a nice image when I got home.  When I processed the image I didn’t want to over do it, I really wanted a natural look as the barn looked great just as it was.  I know the color here looks saturated but it really was this red.

I think the image came out nicely, the fact that the whole image is composed of the primary Red, Blue and Green colors really makes it stand out.

Carter found out that you make wine from grapes so he started a little wine processing plant with Master Chief.

Today we drove over to Duvall to go to the “Duvall Day” event.  I have to say I was totally underwhelmed.  They closed off all the roads into town so we had to park up outside of town and then walk in.  So we parked the car, and Lisa, Abi and myself started walking.  We reached a police road block as the cop was opening the road, so we ran (OK walked quickly) back to the car and drove instead.  And I’m glad we did as we were a good couple of miles from the center of town.  When we got there it was clearly over and there wasn’t much to see.  So we started for home.

On the way home we popped into Safeway’s and found the “Big Rock Classic Car Show”.  Lisa found us a parking place (no mean feat as there were loads of cars circling) and we went to look at the cars.  This really made the trip, there were some beautiful old cars there and I got lots of pictures.  The one captured below is a favorite of mine, it’s a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.  They really don’t make cars like this any more, it has a huge bench front seat and enormous rear fins on the wings.  The car is really very large (in size) and when you look under the hood it has a tiny engine, but I love it.  I don’t think you buy one of these to go fast, you get one to drive on a sunny day and cruise around town.

They had a blue one there too and you could buy a raffle ticket and win it, so I’ll let you know how I do – in fact if I win it you will probably hear me screaming for joy.

There is a great show on TV from the UK called Wheeler Dealers where two guys (Mike Brewer and Ed China) buy and refurbish old classic cars and sell them on for a profit.  In one of the shows they came to the US and brought a Chevy Bel Air and took it back to the UK.  They did an amazing job and sold a beautiful model for £16,000 making around two grand profit.  That’s around $24,000!  This is an amazing price, here a mint Bel Air can cost you as much as $80,000 – so if I don’t win one I’m not getting one.  Better keep my fingers crossed.

Apparently Master Chief misunderstood when Carter asked him if he wanted some orange.

After my night shots in Bellevue, I thought I should do some more night neon pictures, so this evening I drove to Seattle to see what I could get.  I started off in Pike Place Market and took this picture overlooking Elliott Bay.

The market was pretty deserted so I was able to park up right in the market and walk around with the tripod and get some nice shots.  I chose this one as the first to post as I liked the contrast of the blue sky and the pinky-red neon.  Also the ferry in the distance came out really well, add to that the cool little fish in the corner and I had a nice image.

I tried to get a shot actually in the Market as well as it was empty and I figured how often can you take a picture in there with no people, but a security guard told me I wasn’t allowed!  I have no idea why, all I wanted to do was take a picture but he was quite big and a little scary looking so I just moved on.

Tomorrow I’m going to another car show (I like cars) so I may post something from that tomorrow.

I posted a picture of downtown Bellevue the other day and explained how I went out on a date with Lisa and while walking over a foot bridge saw a scene to capture.  Well tonight’s image is the original picture idea I had.  On this side of the bridge you can see Maggiano’s restaurant and some of the office tower blocks in the distance.

Maggiano’s is one of my favorite places to eat.  If you like Italian, this is the place to go especially if you are in a big party.  They let you order from their family menu and bring you out loads of dishes for everyone to share.  Inside the restaurant it’s decorated in dark wood and looks fantastic.  That too would make a really nice picture and I’ll get that one day too.

In this image the sky came out really blue, I suspect that this is somewhat due to the neon lights affecting the white balance settings in the camera (it wasn’t that blue in real life, it was actually almost black as it was night) but I think it looks great in the image.  The tall office building in the distance also picks up the color of the sky and looks good too.

There is something about photographing neon signs that’s really fun.  You tend to see more colors in the picture than you pick up when you’re there as your eye’s adjust and “see” the neon colors differently.  But the camera’s brain is not as smart as ours and produces more accurate vibrant colors.   So surrounding walls are more saturated and look brighter.

I’ve enjoyed taking these night shots and think I’ll spend some time to go out and get some more, perhaps in downtown Seattle.  So look out for those in the future.

After a long day at work the Halo guys stood outside work waiting for their bus home.