21 Jun 11. After tiring of working with the anemone I shared yesterday, I walked a few feet, perhaps less then 10, and noticed a very dark red object with white spots over it, so I got down close and found yet another interesting anemone, the likes of which I've never before seen, either in real life or in the books. Probably means I don't get out enough, have the right books, or both. In any event, this critter looked as though it had decorated itself with a lot of broken shell pieces in the form of a necklace. It brought to mind an old joke whose punch line goes along the lines of "what else would you wear with basic red." While I've seen other marine animals that decorate themselves with materials that help in camouflage, this is the first time I've seen an anemone do it. Of course one could argue that it didn't, and that these pieces of shell just happened to fall on the creature or something/someone else had put them there, but I think this somewhat unlikely based on our being there pretty much ahead of anyone else. Regardless of how they got there, it made for an interesting observation as well as image. ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 9. 105mm macro lens.
22 Jun 11 . Tuesday morning, while parked for less than a minute at a local (chain) grocery store an individual walked past our vehicle and slammed the open door shut with a sarcastic comment about closing it for us. A rather rude approach to a group of visitors/strangers, to say nothing of mishandling another's personal property. As I was thinking about what would prompt such behavior, I came across this image taken at my cousin's home early last fall. As we were about to sit for dinner, we observed this vessel running very close to the shoreline in front of his home. A few minuter the skipper simply beached his vessel on my cousin's property, put down a ladder, and a crewman walked across his property to go fetch some beer at the corner grocery store. No permission was requested, no apology provided, and certainly no thank you was forth coming. The absolute and total rudeness of such behavior, to say nothing of running a vessel while consuming alcohol was,/still is, simply over the pale. Likewise the slamming of a vehicle door belonging to another. One begins to wonder what has happened to common courtesy in our society, and this in a country setting where such behavior is truly not the accepted. Perhaps it is an example of the trickle down theory. ISO 200; 1/320 sec @ f / 8.
23 Jun 11. About a month back the rains were so heavy that the water in Lake Washington was way too high and the spillways at the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks were wide open allowing for a large volume of water being released into Puget Sound. The velocity of the water cursing over the spillways was such that it created its own waterfall looking effect, and I wanted to capture the effect. No single exposure, no matter what I tried, could do it justice, so I opted to go with an HDR approach in order to capture more of the mist making it look much more like what the eye was seeing. There was a bit of a breeze blowing at the time I took the photo, and you will note that it is blowing in the opposite direction of the water's flow, so that may help give you an idea of the amount of mist being created by the outflow of the lake water. You may also notice several wires stretching across the water. They are there to curtail fishing birds from eating all the little smolt that are exiting Lake Washington to Puget Sound. If you haven't visited the Locks and live in the area, or are visiting the area, I highly recommend a visit there during times of high rains and/or the salmon run in mid summer to early fall. ISO 200; 1/100 sec @ f / 22 (middle of 5 exposures).
