One of the places I really wanted to get to take a night shot from was up on Beacon hill. I had seen another shot on Flickr that I wanted to try to get, and that was the location. I wasn’t sure where exactly to go. I managed to con Alison, my wife’s cousin to drive me up there one night. Again, I wasn’t completely sure where we were going, so we had to drive around a bit. We finally found Jose Rizal Park. I climbed up on a big metal storage box of¬†some kind, and set up my tripod. I was trying to get higher than the trees that are in the lower right of the picture that¬†hide some of the car light trails.
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.