Day 244 - Turn on the NASCAR

My dad has a love for all thing NASCAR.  To prove it, I would have to show you the "shrine" in his house.  It's all crammed into a bedroom--The bedroom myself and my two brothers shared while growing up.  Everything you can think of that is related to NASCAR.  Lots of collectibles, cars, food products, cleaning products, drinks--You name it.  He has a lot of stuff.  He couldn't have gotten the amount of stuff he has without my brother Don who lives in Georgia.  They have way more NASCAR things than we do here.

This is the last thing you see when you leave the room:  The light switch.  I made sure to leave the grime on the wall around the switch for effect.  Actually, I tweaked it slightly to make the grunge pop even more.  I didn't have the desire for a tripod shot or I would have taken a much better picture than this, but it'll have to do.

Day 243 - Ghetto Christmas?

Although you can't tell, it's really not a ghetto--Just an old part of town.

I was walking in downtown Kent today and was drawn to the look of the brick.  When I got closer, I realized that the plywood candy cane might have had something to do with my interest too.

Day 242 - "Clothes Are Dry..."

I did something similar to this back in Day 186 when I put my camera in the woodstove.  This sort of shot can be an interesting perspective and fun to do.  When you think about it, you can put your camera in just about anything to give you that "inside, looking out" view of the world.  Okay, except maybe a toilet...

I had to play with the colors of this shot a lot because of the fact that there was a daylight window behind me and an incandescent light bulb inside the dryer.  It made for an interesting "dual-color" sort of shot.

Day 241 - Green Valley Road

We were on our way home and had just turned off the freeway exit when the foggy hill beckoned.  I turned down Green Valley Road... Wanting to just drive down a little ways to see what kind of view I could get.  There was no complaint from Sue--She thought it warranted a little "look-see" as well.

This picture was not embellished at all except for a slight brightening of the overall picture.  The green of the grass was real.

Day 240 - Droplet Splash

All around our house today snow was melting.  Everything seemed to be dripping.  I saw this small outdoor chimney that lives on our deck doing the same--Drip, drip, drip, from the melting snow on top of it.

I took this picture at a slower speed than I should have.  I wanted it to freeze the drop when it hit the water, but didn't quite make it.  It came out pretty cool looking.  The flying droplets were streaks instead of being frozen in midair.  I'm happy with what I got though.

Day 239 - Cassady

I was sitting at the table at my parents' house today with my niece, Cassady during the family Thanksgiving festivities.  I naturally had to drag out my camera and take a few shots... After all--That's what I do!

I ran this shot through a filter in Topaz to get this look.  It smoothed and darkened the picture to an interesting degree wouldn't you say?

Day 238 - Light Show

This was a scene repeated all too often in the last few days.  Since the snow descended upon our area, cars and trucks have been plowing into each other.

One might say I cheated on this shot--Having shot it as I was still rolling in my car.  Oh well... You have to have a camera at your beck and call all day long... Ready for that quick snap, right?  Who knows when I might get something newsworthy!

Day 237 - Snow Scene

We got a lot of snow last night but I opted to go to work this morning.  The day was pretty sunny (albeit cold) and I felt a little miffed that I missed the primo "sun-on-snow" shots of the day because I was working.  I was hoping for some fairly close-up shots of snow on leaves or snow on pine needles.  I wanted to add a crisscross filter to see what kind of sparkle effects I could get.  Unfortunately, the virgin snow was gone from all those areas by the time I got off work.

This scene presented itself on my drive home tonight though.  When I looked at it, it reminded me a lot of a jigsaw puzzle, so to complete that effect I ran it through a smoothing filter.

Day 236 - Winter Hits the Bird Feeder

We got snow, hail, sleet, and lots of cold today, and I'm sure the birds that love our back yard were loving the fact that the feeder still got filled.

This poor guy is sitting here in the midst of a snowstorm, probably thinking, "What am I doing here?  Shouldn't I be flying somewhere warmer?"

Day 235 - Flicker

Flickers are one of our favorite breeds of birds.  They only show up when the hanging suet block is there for their enjoyment.  They apparently don't like anything in the feeders.

This is probably the best quality shot of a bird I've yet gotten in our back yard.  The shot itself is not great because there is a Junco in front of it trying to steal the limelight, but the clarity of the subject is pretty good.  I don't know if it's my new lens or that I just got lucky.  My lens does not afford me the luxury of zooming in on a bird from a long ways away because it's only 70mm at its fullest.  I'm relying on the fact that the suet block hangs right outside our bedroom window.

Day 234 - The Market

We went downtown Seattle today.  We were on a quest for pictures of course, but also for a little shopping for oddities.  Eventually, we found ourselves at Pike Place Market like so many people do.  The main reason?  We had to find and photograph the famous (or infamous) gum wall!  While both of us got plenty of good pictures (yes, even the gum wall), this one was far and away the one that jumped out at me when we got home.

Day 233 - Prison Benches

Okay, not really.  This is actually outside a restaurant in Federal Way called Jimmy Mac's Roadhouse.  I guess this is "spillover" seating for people waiting for a table.  I liked the way the mortar was oozing out from between the bricks, and I also liked the overhead lights.

It was a natural candidate for black & white wouldn't you say?

Day 232 - Trees in Rows

This is the street in front of REI Co-op headquarters near where I work.  I drive by this place all the time and it's kind of amazing that the leaves are still on the trees.  Almost everywhere around here the leaves are getting down to the spindly point.

Apparently these trees are the right variety to line a street with eh?

Day 231 - A Boring Old Hat

It was another dark, nasty weekday night.  What to take a picture of?  None of the snaps I made on the way home from work were worthy of posting, and considering the lack of thought that went into them it didn't surprise me.  That started me looking around the house for a subject.

I settled on this hat I bought at a thrift store a couple weeks ago.  It's a great quality hat and I love it.  It's my new outdoor hat when it's raining or whatever.

It's kind of a challenge to shoot something like this because it has no "hard" edges to it.  The whole thing is soft to the point that the camera refused to focus on it automatically. I played with it a bit and hit on a flashlight-lit effect (which I have used several times before) and added a very slight vignette.  I like the finished product much better than I thought I would.  Sure, it's boring, but it's a pretty well done boring.

Day 230 - Evening in the Neighborhood

I must have looked quite the sight tonight... Wandering down the street carrying my camera on a fully-extended tripod...  I know a few folks saw me because a few cars went by me at one time or another.  Not much going on in our neighborhood at night, and that made me feel creepy.  I was stopping here and there, flipping my tripod legs out and snapping timed shots of this and that.

I was like the neighborhood cat burglar--Trying to be quiet.

On the way back home I happened to look over at Kevin and Shirley's house and it caught my eye.  Perfect light and an interesting scene.  I just had to snap it!

Day 229 - Driving While Shooting

No, it's not the same as hunting out of your pickup truck in South Dakota.  I was going down the road today and got the wild idea of putting my camera up on the dash for a shot out the windshield of the car while it was moving down the road.  I took a few, but all of them but this one were bad, bad, bad.  This one was slightly less bad--I'd give it one bad.

I don't know what it is about movement shots, but the effects that I've gotten from movement shots are unusual, and apparently they strike a chord with me.  I like this one though.

I cropped out the lower part of the picture because it showed my windshield wipers, then I added a little color to the upper corners for a little added drama.

Day 228 - Autumn Rain

Suzie and I both spent quite a bit of time wandering around the back yard with our cameras today.  From birds, to drops of water, to leaves--It was all fair game.  Being as dreary as it is this time of year it's not always easy to get technically good shots.  There is usually a considerable lack of sufficient light to make things go the way you want them to.

I did okay here though--This shot had interesting composition, color, and detail.  A few others came close, but the wet leaf clinched it for me.

Day 227 - Light as a Feather

This is some kind of feather--Possibly ostrich--Of the style that makes up a lot of fashion accessories.  It's actually colored a very light pink.

I lit it with a blue-colored LED flashlight and shot it with the 100mm macro lens on the tripod.  The flashlight was the only light in the room so the colors are almost overpoweringly purplish.

Anyway, it shows a lot of detail that most people never get to see when looking at a feather.  It almost looks like morning frost doesn't it?

Day 226 - Plane in the Clouds

On the way home today I saw a biplane taking off from the Auburn Municipal Airport.  I had been wanting to get a picture of it for some time now, so I hurried over to a parking lot near the airport hoping to catch him fly overhead to land.  When it did I saw that it wasn't the plane I had seen several months earlier, but instead  was some sort of a Stearman stunt plane or similar.  He did do a few takeoffs and landings so I was able to get some good shots.

I like this one.  He's coming around to do another landing, but because the sun is almost behind him I got a large lens flare in the picture.  I thought it actually added to it.  I enhanced the picture just enough to get a little color here and there on the edges.

Day 225 - Tower of Neon

Those of you that live in our area most likely know where and what this is.  It's just an extravagant feature on the roof of a local theater complex.  As with most neon, it's tough to get colors to come out just right without having a "fuzzy" or soft edge on them.  The fact that you're usually shooting them at night doesn't help either.  Lots of weird contrast.

It's just a shot of interesting color really... And I guess the pattern is weird too.  Just my style.

Day 224 - Hot Beer

I brought home one of our photography fun tools today:  Dry ice.  We took several pictures, and as usual some were much better than others.  It's hard to capture the swirls and and tendrils of "smoke" when you have limited equipment like we do, but it's a lot of fun to play with it regardless.

I chose this one because it was fun.  It was cheesy.  It was different.

Day 223 - Trailers in a Row

You start with wondering.  Then you start wandering.  Then if you're lucky you find something that you can use for a picture.

I left work wondering what I was going to use, and ended up wandering up and down all sorts of roads and behind buildings.  This row of semi truck transport trailers lined up in the dark afternoon light caught my eye.

As I like to do on occasion, I tweaked it a bit.  It was shot in a grainy ISO so the picture is noisy, but I think it adds to it a little.  I also added some color pop filtering to add some more reflective light and give the clouds more drama.

Day 222 - The Continuing Theme

The theme?  Leaves!

I was on the way home tonight and saw these guys on opposite sides of the road, about a half block apart, blowing leaves into piles with the jet-engine powered noisemakers.  I saw a shot and zipped into an apartment complex and jumped out.  When they faced opposite directions it even made it better!

Lining up the shot was almost too easy.  I decided to give it a little "extra" and I ran it through a Topaz filter to smooth it a bit and make the colors pop.

Day 221 - My Oasis on a Dark Day

Today is the first day of Standard Time.  The sporadic dark rain clouds that floated over just added to the darkness of the day.  By the time the middle of the afternoon rolled around it felt and looked like it was more like 7pm.

I spent the day in my garage working on my new project bike.  When I finally decided to come into the house where it was warm, the bright lights of the garage looked pretty good out there with the bright orange of the tree.

Not any kind of "photography" per se, but because of the lighting a striking picture nevertheless.

Day 220 - Rainy Night Lights

I thought I'd venture out into the rainy evening tonight to try out a new 6-point start filter on the camera.  I didn't venture too far--Only into Covington--But I figured it was close enough but yet still had lots of lights.

Funny though--The star filter didn't make as much of an effect as the colors of the reflecting traffic light did.

Day 219 - Post-Halloween Moat

This poor, forlorn-looking place didn't look quite so bad until the rain hit the area earlier this week.  The once bustling haven for Halloween family fun has passed on.  In its present condition it's kind of a funny thing:

"Go on... Pick one... I dare ya."

Day 218 - Tongue Wagging

See, this is why you should always have your camera handy--No matter where you are.  I was going down the freeway today in the work truck and saw this car go by me.  I reached over and opened up my camera bag and caught up with it.

How can you pass up a happy canine like this?

Day 217 - Kitchen Clock: Revisited

This clock resides in our kitchen, undoubtedly bought at one time--Not to tell time--But because it had "the look" that fit the decor.

I took it a little farther.

I shot this using a fisheye lens and tweaked it with a specialty filter in Topaz, called "Sketch Pencil".  It turned it into a strange work of art instead of just a picture.  Suzie didn't even know what it was when she saw it.

Day 216 - Auburn City Park

I stopped here on the way home today with the intent of trying to capture a picture of a leaf swirling to the ground.  I thought it might be cool if I could capture a leaf fairly clearly while having a background motion blur to show that the leaf was falling.

Easier said than done.

I spent a while watching them fall, snapping away from various places.  The lighting was perfect, but I couldn't quite catch one right.  I guess if I had stayed there long enough I might have eventually gotten a usable one.  In between falling leaf shots I snapped a few others here and there.

I like this one because the sun behind the tree added a nice aura to the picture.  I adjusted it slightly to add more of a difference between the blue and white is all... Basically enhancing the aura slightly.

Day 215 - Wood and Garlic

Again the same thing happened:  Nasty, rainy day outside... Warm as toast inside.  Not exactly feeling like venturing out.

What's this lying on the counter?  Hmm... Cloves of garlic just screaming to be placed somewhere correct for a picture.  What better place than a cutting board?  The wood of the cutting board needed the wood of this knife to go with it.  A well-textured shot of very colorful... Browns.  I ran them through a little Topaz filtering for some contrast tweaking, but not much else. 

Not the best shot in the world, but pretty good for me.  Plus I stayed warm and dry.