Tag: seattle

Near Misses…

If you know anything about landscape photography, 99% of your planned shots usually end up as a near miss. Funny, that term "near miss," since it literally means "hit."if you "nearly missed," it means you hit it. Anyways, back on topic. I recently bought the 45-100mm lens for GFX and I usually take new lenses to Rizal Bridge to test them, as long as the focal length permits. Conditions turned out to be nearly what I've been waiting patiently for. The one shot I want from there is with the clouds traveling either northwest or southeast, preferably at a pretty good clip, since movement of the bridge due to buses and trucks traveling over it limits the length of long exposures.

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My Best Image From 2020-21, So Far

This is the best image I've shot so far in the past year. I took it 2 days ago, during the winter storm we had here in Seattle, at Post Alley near the Harbor Steps. The lighting, the glow created by the falling snow, deep shadows and lots of straight, converging all came together for this long exposure. I tend to be excessively modest about my photography, but this image stood out as soon as I took it and reviewed it in my viewfinder. 
To me, it's just hauntingly beautiful and perfectly encapsulates the feeling I had while walking through the 6 inches of dry, powdery, freshly fallen snow at 4am.
 Because of Instagram's image compression, you miss out on all of the subtle nuances that exist in both the diffused light and shadows. The gradation of both color and tone, the sparkle and texture of the snow, details in the shadows... none of this is visible until you see it in full, 16-bit, ProPhoto RGB color. Because of that, I'm posting it here in full, uncompressed, 16-bit TIF format. No watermarks or BS in the way so you can see it as I do and judge it on its merits. (Warning: this is a 330MB file. Click image for full size)
 Enjoy!

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Back in the Saddle (Again) and the Return of Pier 62

Volunteered for Kate on a photowalk to the Seattle waterfront recently. After spending the past few months doing lonely portraits to practice using strobes in 1, 2 and 3 light configurations, it felt good to go out and do some of the type of photography I'm most passionate about. So, why did I volunteer and for what? Since Seattle is still under a pandemic lockdown that limits group sizes to 5 people, I chose to help by leading a group so more people could participate via proxy groups. Pier 62 reintroduces a location and perspective that's been missing since it closed for reconstruction. While somewhat pedestrian, the addition of new attractions and changes to the skyline have given it more value when compared with similar locations, both old and new. However, like those other locations, it offers a limited perspective and thus limits its overall value, long term, as a photographic location. It's one that will become over saturated by the end of the summer as a landscape and cityscape destination, even during a time of reduced foot traffic due to the pandemic, but will easily persist as a street, tourist and especially portrait photography location for years to come. Once the new waterfront master plan is completed, Pier 62 could become one of the premium destinations for environmental portraiture and street photography, due to its prime location, identifiable backdrop and potential for high foot traffic.

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Multi-shot Panoramas.

Single row panoramas have always seemed to thwart me. Either the scene was never appropriate or they wouldn't stitch for one reason or another. After getting the stuff I needed to establish the nodal point on a couple of my lenses, I decided to give it another go from Kerry Park.

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Seafair Airshow 2019: US Navy Blue Angels

Shot the Blue Angels performing on Sunday from the top of my condo building. This year, I benefitted from both the autofocus speed of the Fujifilm X-T3 and the reach of the XF 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 lens. The result was being able to actually see into the cockpits during some of the low passes around downtown. This is also without the 2x teleconverter installed, whose 2 stops of reduced light gathering would have slowed down the shutter speed to being nearly unusable.

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Glazer’s Photowalk: Seacrest Park, and Breaking Old Habits to Create New Ones

Went on another photowalk, this one being a bit more fruitful due to the weather conditions at the start time. Why do I do this to myself? I'm generally asocial and not very talkative, especially around people I don't know, preferring to operate alone. Despite that, it's hard to learn without someone to learn from and it's difficult to be inspired by my coffee table, so I fight my urge to run away for the sake of education and practice. Regarding the setting, while it wasn't ideal for golden hour, the cloudy skies and convergence zone did make for dramatic views and a highly textured backdrop to the humdrum scene. I hit the shutter over 40 times, but the result was less than 15 kept, fewer still that I liked and only 3-4 that I've processed to completion so far. As for the evening, I took the Doc Maynard from downtown to West Seattle, meeting up with Kate Hailey and the attendees at Marination Ma Kai at Seacrest Dock. Two hours of rambling north, and then west, from the dock to Alki Beach as the sun set in the background behind a small convergence zone. Afterward, I jumped on the ferry back to downtown.

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Wine Country Camera Filters: Screw-On versus 100mm

Very simply: Does Wine Country Camera actually use the same glass and coatings between their filters? I wanted my filters to produce the same results between my filter sets to reduce post-processing time. Recently, I replaced my B+W and Haida ND filters with WCC because the results between the two would cause difficulties in post as I'd work to match the output if I used both during the same shoot.

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All the Ingredients for an Excellent Photo Went to Waste by Me. #SeattlePlayedOut

Went to Discovery Park's West point Lighthouse to observe a confluence of events: king tide, strong wind gusts and gradual clearing of skies. The hope was to get waves crashing near the West Point Lighthouse. Unfortunately, the tide began to recede quickly and by the time the light was good, the waves could no longer reach the point. The result was a bunch of mediocre photos that I decided to use for practice in Lightroom instead. Maybe I can sell a couple of these to a church for use as flyers or book covers or something.

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Silent Night. #snowmageddon #seattleplayedout

Normally in Seattle, we'll get a couple of inches of snow per winter. This winter, the snow showed up both late and in force, dropping 5 inches of snow on downtown in a single morning. This is on top of a few inches earlier in the week plus a few more inches a day later. As the snow begins to melt from slightly warmer weather bringing rain in the 24 hours since, I've managed to get a few photos processed that reflect the views around downtown in the early hours, shortly after the snowfall stopped. I walked around downtown at 4am capturing the empty city streets and landmarks between Chinatown and Pier 66. While not very significant compared to other parts of the country, and even the region, the snow was one of the largest single accumulations in recent history for downtown.

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Super Wolf Blood Moon Whatever… 2019 Western Hemisphere Lunar Eclipse

The first three were taken before the penumbra even reached the moon. The weather had just begun to clear but a few clouds still managed to cross the sky before clearing moments before the Earth's penumbra began to cast itself upon the moon's surface. The full moon's glow and reflection on the passing clouds created an eerie look that was just too good to not photograph. All three were bracketed shots but the second is an HDR stacked in Lightroom. The first and third were fully recoverable from single images at the proper exposure.

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Glazer’s Photowalk: West Seattle

It'd been a while so I decided to attend the Glazer's Photowalk on Sunday, Jan 13th in West Seattle. The weather cooperated despite being in the bowels of winter but it was a bit TOO sunny, creating harsh shadows and contrast for the outdoor exercise. I chose to shoot with my 85mm equivalent, the 56mm ƒ/1.2, allowing me to keep some distance between me and my subjects while permitting me to fill the frame with subjects should I choose to do so. The large aperture also allowed for shallow depth of field shots. To do so, I used a 6-stop ND filter, giving me the ability to shoot with a shutter speed that prevented motion blur despite the bright, cloudless skies. It also gave me enough leeway to add blur by drilling down the aperture only a bit.

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out of hibernation and back for the new year.

finally went out to take some photos since the Alaskan Way Viaduct is closing for good this weekend. i ended up hitting the Pier 66 Rooftop Park at sunset then moved back to the Pike Place Marketfront location above the viaduct. finally, i went through Post Alley on the way home. oddly, it was through Post Alley that inspired the shot i liked the most from the set.

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The Learning Continues…

So I've revisited a few photos from the past year and applied what I've learned in Lightroom since then. The hope was to take what I felt were good photos and try to make them better, possibly even worth printing, since I liked the views.

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Bhy Kracke Park was a failure, Kerry Park less so

So I had this vision in mind: I wanted to get a photo of the Space Needle superimposed on Mt. Rainier. Now that I have the 100-400mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 lens from Fujifilm, I'm able to get this shot... if it's even possible. I've seen others who've composited the Space Needle onto a photo of Mt. Rainier, or Mt. Baker, and even Mt. Hood (uh, wtf?) and the results always look less than stellar, mostly because I've lived here most of my life and I know those shots weren't possible using the angles they'd chosen of either object. I wanted to do this for real, all in camera, so I consulted a map and looked around Queen Anne hill and settled on Bhy Kracke Park.

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Seattle’s 5 Most Famously Photographed Spots and 1 Up and Comer

I'm going to list these 5, famously photogenic Seattle vistas with their proper names, address and an example or two from my own visits there, if I have one. Maybe you're new to town, a tourist, or even lived here a long time but could never find where a few on this list are. Mind you, this is in no way comprehensive; Seattle is full of incredible views with a skyline that's changing by the minute due to incredible economic growth. These are just the 5 most commonly seen and should be automatic for any local or tourist with a camera.

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