This one turned out ok. I like the look of the clouds and the Quest Field with the green light on the left. The pictures I took earlier didn’t have this green light to them.

Well, this is not quite the end of the story. In order to get my camera on a tripod, I had to remove my BlackRapid strap that screws onto the bottom of the camera in the tripod hole. I set it down on the ground as the light was disappearing. And left it.

As Alison and I were leaving we went accross the bridge on 12, and there is the perfect view without the trees on the right, but it was too late. Only so late you can ask a non photographer to stay out when you already have a photograph. ¬†Once we got back to the hotel, I realized that I didn’t have my strap. Dang it.

I had written it off, but decided that I would take the bus up there and take a look around anyway. You never know. The bus turned out to be easy. (Note: Google bus directions on an iPhone is awesome) A couple of blocks from my hotel, a bus took me right up the 12th ave bridge and let me off in front of the current Amazon headquarters and a block or two from the park. Sure enough, it was sitting in the grass, right were I had left it. Figured I would take a shot in the daylight while I was there.

 

This is close to the same shot, just at a different time. The sky was cloudy almost the entire trip, and often was grey with almost zero definition. I had to do some finagling in Aperture to get some color to the buildings and definition in the sky. The trees make a better frame in this shot, but Quest Field just blends into the skyline without the lights.

I walked home after this, wandering through the Chinese/International section and down and along the waterfront, before heading back to the hotel pretty tired. Fun day though. Glad I got the first shot – Thanks Alison – and the walk back sent me through an area of town I probably wouldn’t have got to… so it all worked out.

This time, I was specificly going for the typical Seattle Space Needle shot. The location for this is Kerry Park. This is so popular a place, that there were 6 or 7 other tripods there the night I was there.

So here are the “postcards” that I got from the trip.

 

I also put on my 70-200 to get a “closer” look at the needle. I think this came out a bit better.

 

I also took a “I was here in Seattle” picture. I put my SB800 on top of camera in the hot shoe, and had somone else press the remote trigger. I had to boost the flash exposure up to get enough light on us. I still had the 70-200 on, and had to back up a bit to get everything in.

 

And lastly, I have the first picture I took that night. There are some sculpture/art arches up there that I took this picture through to frame the Needle.

I also noticed that the reflection of the Space Needle was coming in really clear, so I posed her to get the best reflection.

I had actually been here earlier and was looking for reflection shots, but this was later in the day and the light was a bit better. It was a better angle for the reflection.

Then on our way back from Kerry park after dark, (pics to come later) I noticed that the Space Needle when all lit up reflected really well in the building.

I ended up taking this picture just as the train was coming through too. I planned it that way

I also was able to squeeze in a shot of the Space Needle and it’s reflection.

In a perfect world, I would have had a wider angle lens. I was scrunched down on the ground to take this, but I just don’t have quite wide enough view to get both the reflection and the needle all in the picture. If I had had the new Nikon 10-24 I bet it would have fit it all in. But then I would have used a smaller aperture, forcing a slower shutter, and I don’t think I could have hand held it. I did have my tripod with me, but we were rushing home trying to beat the rain and grab that train that just showed up on that previous pictures. We ran and caught it. Best four dollars ever. We had walked enough that day.

What’s cool is that someone had the sense to preserve all this old machinery and turn it into a park. It is a great place to walk around and take pictures. I bet you could get some cool pictures here in the evening. (I don’t remember when this park closes)

There is a section of the park where there is a bunch of smaller equipment that you can actually touch. Not supposed to climb on it (there is actually a park with newer stuff kids can climb on), but kids could come and get a close look and actually touch some of the old machinery.

There is also a big hill you can climb up that affords a great view of Lake Union, gives a different vantage point for the machinery, and allows you to get a great shot of the city. On this day unfortunately it was a little hazy and the sky was kind of grey. It was hard to coax anything out of this sky, but this is what I got.

When you don’t have many second chances with weather, you have to take what you get. After this I walked back up the hill to catch the bus. On the way back, I stopped in to see Chase Jarvis. As luck would have it, he was in, and just waiting for a model to get makeup put on. I got to have a quick chat with him and some of his staff. Chase and the rest of them are really nice. It was fun to “drop in” for a visit.

One of the cool things about this fountain is that you can go right up to it. It is not in the middle of a lake like most fountains. It is at the bottom of a big concrete bowl. It looks like a crater from when an alien ship landed from outer space, and they turned it into a fountain. Kind of Men in Black was my thinking. Anyway, kids loved this fountain.

The fountain was not static. Sometimes there would be almost no water in it. Other times there would be water firing out several stories up, and several feet out. You never knew what it was going to do. So, naturally, the kids would dare each other to go touch it. The picture above is of several kids running away that were cautiously approaching it.

I saw several people touch it, but several people got really really wet.

Myself, I just hung back and took pictures. I almost got wet a couple of  times when I was down lower trying to get better pictures. Kids here were having a blast. I think Kate especially would have loved it. I think that the bank was a little steep for Lily. In fact, some kids were sliding down the concrete on their shoes on the wet patches as if they were on a skateboard.

I did hear a lot of “Hey, be careful! You don’t have a change of clothes!!!” coming from parents, but it didn’t seem to matter. Pretty much everyone got wet.

While I was up in the air, I experimented with some of the raw conversion features built into the D90. I usually shoot in RAW and then process in Aperture or Photoshop, but did some playing with the camera. Note the star cross effect. Funny.

On the way I had my first in flight beer. I am usually too cheap, but I had a coupon from Annie. That and I haven’t traveled by plane in quite awhile.

Also, I seeing I was going to be going to Seattle, I decided to watch a bunch of pod casts by Chase Jarvis. He has some pretty funny stuff. This is my iPhone that was playing a pod cast of a shoot he did with a martial artist fighing water. How it was done was pretty cool.

Just before we got there, I got a picure of Mt. Ranier. I think if I lived here I would have a hard time not wanting to climb it, if I was looking at it all the time. We could see if from the ground when we got on the bus to the hotel too. That is really not practical now.

After getting here we had to find our room at the Westin. That is one swanky hotel by the way. They had a hard time finding our reservation that was done as a group by an administrator. They have 4 conferences going on right now. You would think that they could handle that.

Then we met Alison, and headed to the Wild Ginger for supper. Very nice experience. Liked it a lot.

After we got back I thought I was missing my lens cap, so I went back, and while checking the floor, I discovered it in my pocket. Sheesh. Anyway, it was good, because I got a couple of good pictures out of the walk of a fountain, our hotel, and the space needle.

Stay tuned for more Seattle…

I found a couple of sites that could help in the research. The Photographers Guide to Seattleblog looks interresting.

There is a flickr map of Seattle to check out.

I also found this Google map of one guys Seattle photos. Some of these night shots would be really neat to take. Once again, not sure how easy to get to these by bus. A scooter maybe?