25 Apr 13. With macro photography allowing me to create my favorite kind of images, I feel compelled to share one every now and then, and so that is what you will be looking at for today. This is a table top production with the subject standing in a vase placed in front of a solid backdrop, although it is highly unlikely that the approach will be obvious from the shot. I used supplementary flash as my main light, as opposed to incorporating it as a fill light, in an effort to produce an image that was fairly flat.Not something one would generally do, but I wanted to severely manipulate it and as such wanted an image that was very evenly lit. You should be able to identify the object, but if not, the answer is in the title. I used several layer styles to achieve the final soft look, and employed a couple different plug-in filters to accomplish it, although it all could be achieved simply using photoshop albeit with significantly greater effort. Nikon D300s; 105 macro; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/60 sec @ f /3.5 with full flash.
26 Apr 13. One more of the cherry blossoms before they paint the ground pink for another year. Now growing up in the SW area of Lake Washington in the 50s and 60s meant that you spent a fair amount of time in either Seward Park or the shoreline nearby. At the time we were in high school there was a loop road around the perimeter of the park that closely followed the shoreline. There were also plenty of intersecting roads that took you through different areas of the park as well as many pullouts. The official speed was 25 MPH, and in fact you could drive that speed, but only on weekdays and bad weather weekends during the school year. The rest of the time it was cruis'n space for every red blooded guy and gal. If you were lucky, you might hit the loop on a summer day when the speed was greater than 3 MPH, but that would have been a rare day. Showing off your wheels and girl was the primo event of every nice day, and it would be hard to say what got top billing, the wheels or the girls in them. A fun time for all, and a great time to grow up. The shoreline would be packed with cars and teenagers in them nightly to watch the "submarine races", and to be sure, more than a few "tricycle motors" got their start from such activity. But it was great fun, and a time when life was far more light hearted. A time of Elvis, the Everely Brothers, and the Beach Boys. And muscle cars!!! Tim Allen kind of power! Now the loop road is gone, and all that remains is one short leg you can traverse in just a few minutes. So to all the great musical biggies, the muscle cars, and the good make out areas, now gated with cyclone fences and physically locked. You can of course still go see the beautiful trees, but the fun stuff is, I'm afraid, gone forever. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; 1/160 sec @ f /13.
29 Apr 13. On the advice of my physical therapist, we visited the Salt Creek tide pools taking with us the cherubs. At first arrival it didn't look very promising viewing the area from the main parking area, but another camper pointed us to a different location where we were able to park right at the cliff edge, take a ladder down almost to the beach, and then travel down a bit more over a steep rocky incline, but very short in length, until reaching the rocky area comprising the tide pools. The last jump down plus a few other short "hops" to avoid water gave my shoulder a little challenge, but Jan and the cherubs had no difficulties. It was worth the visit, and we will most certainly return when we can visit at the time of a lower tide, which will occur early this year, at the end of May rather then at the beginning of June. Considering what we could see with the -0.5 tide when we were there, I'm thinking the -3.0 at the end of May will likely expose a large amount of intertidal zone life. It should be fun. The shot for today was taken at the main parking area and is a composite to provide for a better view of what is there. For those of you familiar with California's Monterey Peninsula, this area looks surprisingly similar. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/ 100 sec @ f /13.
