kate.hailey

I've moved....

2011-10-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

After several years of using Blogspot for my blog I've moved over to a new name and domain at Kate Hailey, so look for the continuing saga of my photographic journey here!

Thank you for reading!! :)

greenlake park, seattle.

2011-09-22T22:42:00.000-07:00

I ventured to Greenlake park this evening to check out the Illuminata event, a celebration of the Autumn Equinox and I captured a few images before the sun set. It's actually been sometime since I've been to Greenlake, I really rather like it. There's a nice trail for walking, and views of the lakes. People can rent kayaks and rowers practice here. A nice little getaway in the midst of a busy city.

It really is nice to take a break, a stroll, and enjoy the surroundings!

These first two images were taken with my D90 and a 50mm lens, cropped with some minor tweaks in Lightroom 3.

This images is an iPhone photo, 8 images stitched together via the Autostitch app, then a quick run through BleachBypass for some colour tweaks and border.

portraits in Georgetown

2011-09-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday night I met up with some photographer friends, with a personal goal in mind to create a few portraits. Utilizing a simple, one light setup comprised of a Nikon SB-800 speedlight and an Apollo 28" softbox, we explored the Georgetown Trailer park for some interesting scenery to shoot in.

Leilah

Stephen

Jason

A big thanks to my models, it was a lot of fun!!

light, beauty, pretty things, squared.

2011-09-05T22:38:00.000-07:00

A continuation of the post from a few days ago, more selects from my outing at the Ballard locks. It would seem, when I'm out and about strolling through parks and neighbourhoods, I like to take pictures of pretty things, some may go unnoticed.

flowers at the Ballard Locks

2011-09-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Today I started a Holiday weekend with a mini-outing to the Ballard Locks. The locks are pretty cool to visit, it's nice to see the boats, the water and there are even some gardens. While the day started out very overcast, by the afternoon the sky was clear and it was warm. I even got a little bit of sunburn!

I thought I'd share a couple of images from the outing. The content is same, but there are subtle differences. One taken horizontally, one vertically, one has more elements in the foreground, the other not. I'm always curious about composition and what people find appealing. What do you think? Which do you like better?

the Tin Gypsy visits Seattle

2011-08-21T17:15:00.001-07:00

Today, I got my portrait taken (for a change) from a traveling portrait studio offering Tintypes, The Tin Gypsy. A project started by Meghann Mary Gilligan, who's based out of Portland, Oregan. You can read about how the project began here: Who is the Tin Gypsy.

Several weeks ago we saw an announcement about her maiden voyage heading to Seattle, myself and a few other film and alternative processing fans knew we had to check it out! Meghann provided a tour of the traveling darkroom, including showing the process of creating a tintype, discussing the different chemicals and materials used.

Most of us hung out to watch each others portraits be shot, and processed and then to be able to bring the tintypes home...

Here's a few photos from the day:

The Tin Gypsy

Meghann and Lindsay working on taking a photo

Meghann, Lindsay and Dan Carillo

And here's the result of my Tintype:

Alki Beach on a Summer Day

2011-08-20T17:49:00.001-07:00

Summer in Seattle is in high gear, finally. I don't mean the finally in a bad way, I rather appreciate the chilled out temps of the Pacific Northwest. Yes, sometimes it can get a bit monotonous, but, 82 degrees in August works for me. I am from Atlanta afterall, where there are months of 90+ degree temps and a billion percent humidity... so yep, I'm a fan of 82 degrees!

Anyhow, let's move on to some photos... I got to spend some time today with my Flickrite homies, we met up in West Seattle, at Alki Beach (specifically), to stroll about, take in the sites and take some photos.

As I did a first edit of a few faves, I realised only one of them was created with my own cameras and lenses, haha. I borrowed a Fisheye from a friend yesterday, because he had one and I haven't used one in sometime. And a fisheye lens at a beach, is a lot of fun!

See??:

And then Jana, let me borrow her Fuji X-100, I continue to hear good and bad things about the camera, but the more I hear, the more I'm intrigued. The ups for me so far on that camera are it's compactness, it's prime lens, and it actually fits pretty well in my hands. The downs are the user interface, which once I learn it, I could roll with it, so borrowing Jana's for a few frames is quasi dangerous... if you know what I mean.

Of the few I took, my fave shot is of Jana, she'd just bought a hat and I was like, yep, we need a photo!

And my last shot, for this entry, was taken with a D90 and a 50mm f/1.4G lens. The sun was getting pretty high in the sky, not always the best time of day to take photos, but, if you try, you can find a way to take advantage of the ball of fire in the sky...

Our lady of liberty:

iPhone Image Highlights - July 2011

2011-07-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Things have been busy lately, unfortunately this means a distraction from the fun and personal projects that I most often post on the blog-a-roo here. I have however, been a good girl and have been capturing my iPhone 365 photos everyday, and even posting them on Flickr since this is really my year long personal project to create something, for me, daily.

Soooooooo I thought I would share a couple of recent faves and what applications I used to create the final image.

chaise lounge

Taken at Pike Place Market this week after I had a light dinner & drinks at Maximilien with a few friends. As we were leaving we walked past this cool bench, "Chaise Lounge". I think what struck me first was the colour, then, that I'd realised I'd not seen it before. I've been to Pike Place Market at least a dozen times in the few years I've lived here, I was surprised that I could have missed it! So I stopped, and looked, contemplating the composition.

After snapping the photo I started with Dynamic Light to add a punch or two of colour, then into the original version of Photoforge for a little straightening/crop. There is also a newer version of Photoforge, Photoforge2, lots of peeps love the new version, but since I have both, I sometimes migrate to the originals until I get comfy with the newer versions.

I finished up with the image Vintage Scene app. This app and offers lots of options for adding textures to your images, as well as frames. Definitely one of those get in there and touch all the options kind of app.

the trees in Golden Gardens:

I have a favourite spot in a favourite park in Seattle, these trees stand tall between the grass and the water along the sandy beaches at Golden Gardens Park. Golden Gardens was one of the first places I visited in Seattle when I came here to find a place to live. And more than 4 years later, it's still a favourite!

I also have a few favourite apps for my iPhone, Hipstamatic. Now I will say, I've spent more $$$$ on this app than I have any other, however, it is well done. For $1.99 you get started with a set of lenses and variety of film to play with, and there are additional packs available to add to the experience. That's where the $$$ add up. Regardless, it shoots in a Square format, which I'm a big fan of, and many of the possible combinations are pretty rad.

The image above was created purely in Hipstamatic.

That's it for now. Off for a busy weekend with Mikey and Andy from Lighten Up and Shoot and creativeLIVE.

How much is too much? A commentary on social media...

2011-07-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

So, how much IS too much?

We have:
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
Yahoo
YouTube
LinkedIn
Foursquare
Meetup
Tumblr
Posterous
Blogger
Wordpress
500px
iPhoneArt

and most recently Google+.

This list is just a list of media sites that I use on a fairly consistent basis and doesn't include things like MySpace and a smattering of other older sites.

Within the past year or two, I've connected my Flickr posts to Twitter and Facebook, via an email of all things, with the goal of simplifying and covering all those bases. I felt like I had it down, but now... with the introduction of Google+ I was immediately wondering "how much is too much" and I have friends and acquaintances who are thinking the same thing.

Thus far I think I like the simplicity of Google+, and I've already started connecting with people I might not have connected with via Facebook or even Twitter, but I also have this concern about duplication, spamming, you know, if I have a friend(s) who's on all these same networks, they're getting spammed already, so I suppose I shouldn't worry about it too much and just go with it.

I guess for the time being I'll figure out how to connect Google+ to Facebook so that my Flickr uploads send their links to Twitter which updates Facebook.

Confused?

Me too.

What's your favourite social media connection tool/app? (And why?)

Fun with Instant Film - al a Impossible USA

2011-07-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

I, have been a long standing fan of instant film. Yep, when I was growing up we had one of those Polaroid One-Step 600 Cameras, with the white on top and a rainbow stripe, you know which one I'm talking about. I remember it being around quite a bit in the '80's and somehow it got lost in a move, over the years... :(

The good news, is that instant cameras can sometimes be relatively easily discovered at thrift stores and Goodwill stores alike. Sometimes for as little as $1.99 and most of the ones I've acquired work! While the cameras can be inexpensive, the film, unfortunately is not! Especially since Polaroid discontinued making instant film a few years ago. Fortunately companies like Fuji decided to carry on the tradition in their own way by offering instant film that works in a variety of Land Cameras, as well as many of the Polaroid backs that fit onto medium and some large format cameras. All at a nice price of about a dollar a shot. Not toooo shabby.

Another group of folks decided that no longer having instant film was a bad thing, so they took upon themselves to find a way to start making their own, a group called The Impossible Project. These folks offer film that fits in a variety of Polaroid cameras and Polaroid film backs, ranging from those old 600 One Step's to folding SX-70's to Spectra's and beyond. It's actually pretty cool, because they've taken the concept and created their own thing. The Up Side is that film is being made, there's a belief in analogue in general, the down side is the film can be a little spendy, so, as is generally the norm when shooting film, you do so deliberately, with meaning and forethought, as you don't want to waste something so very precious.

Recently the folks over at The Impossible Project had a batch of their PX600 Silver Shade Black Frame, which reportedly had some defects. Meaning anywhere from 1-4 images within an 8 image pack could be defective or look super funky. So they offered the film up in Poor Pod Packs, 6 boxes in a pack for less than $40, an amazing deal, even if only a portion of the frames worked out. So far I've only shot a few boxes from my mini-stockpile of film, below are a few of the images.

Thus far, I'm digging the results!

On a Farm in Ebey Island, WA

The Coulee Dam, Grand Coulee, WA

Douglas, WA

And most recently a trip up to Edmonds, WA

the Long Shot, Pt. 2

2011-06-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I did a post about The Long Shot, Part 1. Today I'm presenting Part 2 with images created solely on the iPhone... by created I mean taken with an iPhone 3Gs and edited via numerous apps on the iPhone...

To see the entire series so far... the Long Shot on Flickr...

Port Gamble, WA:

Discovery Bay/Point, WA

Sekiu, WA

Highway 112 (en route to Neah Bay, WA):

Neah Bay, WA:

Ruby Beach, WA:

the Long Shot, Pt. 1

2011-06-27T16:14:00.001-07:00

On Friday June 17th, I headed out on the road with a couple of friends. Our goal was to take photos on the road, in support of Photographic Center Northwest & The Long Shot 2011. Many friends were going to do things in the Seattle area to support this non-profit, but the three of us had an idea in mind of a day trip, just to see something new and different.

We met at the ferry Terminal in Edmonds, we crossed water the to Kingston, then drove north towards Port Gamble, then towards Discovery Bay continuing on 101 through to Port Angeles, eventually reaching Sekiu where we had a motel booked for the evening. The following morning we woke up to go all the way to the tip of the peninsula in Neah Bay, then headed south on the 101 till we eventually reach Aberdeen, then crossed over to Olympia and about 24 hours after our departure time we reached Seattle (home).

Below are some of my fave images taken with my D90. I have a smattering of iPhone photos, as well as some Polaroids and 35mm film too... but wanted to start with these! So here goes!

Discovery Bay:

the road to our motel in Sekiu:

the beach along the road to neah bay, wa:

a few miles from neah bay, wa:

fern at ruby beach:

sea stacks at ruby beach, wa:

process and perspective

2011-06-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a creativeLIVE workshop with Photographic artist Doug Landreth. Doug plays with images in a way that elevates the creative process. Many of us snap a photo and are done with it, which if done well, can be an amazing thing. But it's another kind of artist that takes an image and creates something different from it.

Over the past few years, in my artistic journey I've often explored adding texture and other elements to my images. But viewing the images that Doug creates, as well as those I've found via the Landreth Flickr group and other texture groups on Flickr, I've been inspired moreso to play around with making things look funky, moody, dark, vintage, grungy, etc...

from a bridge in south lake union...

(edited via Iris PhotoSuite, photoforge2, focallab, pictureshow)

to a flower in in ballard...

(edited via cameramatic/photowizard/100camerasin1)

to vines on brick in south lake union...

(edited via photoforge2/irisphotosuite)

to a walk along a tree covered street...

(edited via Cameramatic/100CamerasIn1/Photoforge2)

simple things in our daily lives, documented, toyed with, to create something else, or at least a sense of something else.

on the farm.

2011-06-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Today I met up with a friends in Everett to explore some farm land in the Ebey Island area.

I'd visited this same area a year ago, and I recalled a farm that had loads of pigs, some chickens and even a goat or two. We were able to locate this farm again. This time around we were able to meet up with one of the people who runs the farm, and she provided us with access to see some of the little babies!

Here's a couple of pics of my friend Jenny, holding a wee piglet!

And here's a photo of an escaped pig.... apparently she has discovered a way out of the fenced area, she goes for a stroll, has a snack, then goes back into the fenced area.

p.s. this was taken with a Polaroid 600 One Step, with the Impossible Project PX600 Silver Shade. (Just got a big batch of this and am looking forward to all the fun!).

the Long Shot - 2011

2011-05-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

What is The Long Shot?

The LONG SHOT is an event that celebrates photography, creativity, and our greater community, while raising funds for education and outreach programs at Photo Center NW. It is a fun, marathon fundraising event where photographers hit the streets to capture a theme, community, or subject of their choice. Just a few dollars per hour can help us bring new tools to the Photo Center, keep our doors open 7 days a week all year, and support public programs, outreach, and exhibitions.
The event is open to everyone, using any camera, anywhere. At least one image from each participant will be featured in the LONG SHOT exhibition at Photo Center NW on July 23, 2011. (from PCNW's website)

PCNW is a non-profit organisation offering a variety of courses in photography, from black and white processing, to working with Toy Cameras to Large Format cameras. Along with their course offering there are smaller workshops and you can even rent time in a darkroom.

This is something that I wanted to do last year, but was unable to, however this year, I'm participating and supporting PCNW with a couple of friends and we're taking our Long Shot on the road! The route is set, a hotel/motel is booked, I have a rather large stash of film, the biggest dilemma will be, what camera to take, like I'll take just one!

You can support me (in my support of PCNW), by making a tax-deductable contribution to the Photo Center. There are a couple of ways to do this... one is just to let me know and I'll handle the paperwork... the other is to check out this donation form. Every $$ helps keep a good thing going!

Thanks for reading and for your support!

Zombies in downtown Seattle

2011-05-31T11:39:00.001-07:00

Images from a gathering of Zombies, Friday, 27 May 2011...

For more info about the Seattle Zombies... and Seattle Zombies on Facebook who knew they were so into social media ;)

Early bird captures the Tulips

2011-04-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

My day started around 3:15 AM. That's early for a night owl to get up. But there was a reason for the crazy hour, you know, to go take some photos. I met up with a few photographer friends (i.e. Flickr peeps). We drove about an hour and a half north of Seattle, to Skagit Valley/Mount Vernon to catch the golden light that arrives with the sun. I took several cameras with me as I wanted to embrace the lovely saturated colours of some Fuji Velvia, so I ran a roll of the Velvia 50 through the trusty F5 and a roll of the 100 through a fun little holga! I still have a few frames left on each roll and will have to finish those off and then process, so I'd anticipate there might be a follow up to this post in a week or two.

In the mean time here are a couple of faves from this morning.

Sunrise (a la iPhone and Instagram):

A single tulip - Lomo-esque (a la iPhone and Lomora2):

Taken with the D200 and converted into Black and White via Lightroom:

Taken with the D200 and a Lensbaby:

How did she do that? Anatomy of an iPhone image...

2011-04-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

As some of you may be aware I am in my second year of doing an iPhone 365 project, I suppose technically it could be called "iPhone 730 project", but when I wrapped the first year (2010), I wasn't completely sure I would do a year 2 (2011). However, I knew, that after the commitment of taking an image everyday, I would do a similar project this year, whether on my iPhone or not, even if it was just of my dinner or a tree. I felt I made progress as an artist, as a creative individual, I knew I'd want to continue in some way...

It's kind of like when you get that shiny new digital SLR and you just say to yourself "oooooooo with a 16gb memory card I can take hundreds of images", it sounds fun at the time, but then you take that card and have to transfer the files to your computer, then you have to review and edit them; at this point hundreds of images no longer sounds fun! A project like this can help focus you, to look for something interesting, and just take one photo, or perhaps a few then you have an option to choose a fave for the day.

It goes towards practice, commitment, creation. Most days the images were created of things that were around, perhaps a tree or flower I'd pass while walking, or a bridge, and some days I'd put something together, a little toy with a background and a light, and then some days, it was just dinner, or the realisation that it was 11:45 PM and I hadn't done my shot yet! 2010 was my first successful 365 project and so far in 2011 I'm on Day 111 and I haven't skipped a day!

Now on to the guts of my post today. I consider myself an avid iPhoneographer, many of my friends follow my results as I share them through Twitter & Facebook via Flickr. I often get questions on my process with the images. Let me preface this with one simple statement, an additional commitment I have with my 365 project is that I take all of the images on the iPhone and process them on the iPhone via various Apps. I like to use the Apps like layers in Photoshop to create effects, or black and white conversions, add texture and beyond. Let me also add that I have been floored by how powerful some of these Apps are (and some of them are even free!).

What I thought I would do here today was show the original image, and then each image after I had done some editing... so here goes:

Original image (A tree in Fremont, near the Lenin Statue):

I then put the image through Cross Process:

Then through Dynamic Light:

Then through Iris Photo Suite:

Then through Shock My Pic creating the final image:

So there you have it, the anatomy of an iPhone photo by yours truly. I don't always use this many apps, but I do normally use at least one! Do you take camera phone pictures/smart phone pictures/iPhone or Android and such, pictures? What do you like to do with them? Would you like to see more posts like this?

Thoughts and feedback are welcome!

-Kate

A Cupcake Party..

2011-04-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I had some friends over for a cupcake party :) For the cupcakes, I went to Cupcake Royale. I picked up a dozen, 6 different flavours. The general plan for the evening was to be social, have some food, take some photos of the cupcakes, wrapping things up with eating some cupcakes (of course!).

While we were socialising we set up some lights, and some seamless, we started with white then eventually went to black. We also used two Nikon Flashes, a SB-800 and a SB-900 (thanks Nikko). For the SB-800 we used a snoot to have more directed light and the 900 was diffused via a shoot through umbrella. Our settings did vary a bit as we used different setups, Nikko was trying to take notes as he shot, I mostly remember turning the flashes down to their lowest or almost lowest settings, especially with two lights as I like to shoot wide open more, however a few of my shots were actually done around f/8 so weird for me!

Anyhow, here's some photos from the evening, only one cupcake was harmed in the creation of these images!

Royale with Cheese (hehe)
At least I believe how it's named there, a chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

The Kate
Vanilla cupcake with pink buttercream frosting (and yes, it really is called the Kate cupcake!)

The Kate (squared)
(this one has more of the directional snooted light here, so it is a bit brighter, but I like the shadows)...

Salted Caramel
Chocolate cupcake with Salted Caramel frosting, um can ya see the salt!? (Can we say YUM!!)

Somewhere in the midst of creating these photos, Jenny had a thought... she wanted to capture a cupcake kind of flying, well dropping, see if we could catch it in motion. So we chose a Coconut cupcake (Vanilla topped with a creamy coconut goodness).
We did several attempts, with Jenny capturing some photos, and I know that NIkko did too, but I haven't seen any of them yet.

Here are a couple of mine...

Before:

After:

So far from the evening only one of the peeps has uploaded any photos so here's a couple from Stephen:

Stay tuned for some pretty nature pics!

Night Photography in under the I-5 Bridge

2011-04-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I was driving home from Capitol Hill towards Ballard, via the UW Bridge and Wallingford. I drove under the i-5 Bridge and looked back briefly and thought, wow, that's gotta look cool at night. I immediately (well when I got home and was no longer driving) sent an email to a friend say "hey, let's go do some night photography" and mentioned the shot I had in mind. Both of us had been wanting to do some night photography and time doesn't always permit... so you have to find ways to make these things happen...

A week later, ish, on Monday, I was heading on this same route again and decided hmmm I've got the "good camera" so I'm going stop and shoot and see what I get, see what I like. You know a bit of location scouting really...

Here are the results:

I knew pretty quickly, I had something I liked, but I still really wanted it at night, the lights, the drama, oh my!

Then come Wednesday night, I met up with a couple of friends, with the original plan of taking photos, but getting side tracked by a desire for food and a stronger desire not to take photos in the rain. After food, the rain dissipated and we went out to shoot.. taking a few images, I settled on the one below, because of the lines, mostly, but the sparkly lights help!

After a about half an hour or so in this area, we decided to scope out another location, a more traditional view of Seattle from Gasworks Park.

Here's some lessons for these kinds of outings:

1. Take a tripod (I did have one of these)
2. Remember the quick release plate for your tripod
3. Take an extra battery, even if you check the camera before you leave home and the camera says it's full, it could still fail (this happened to me... a draw back to third party batteries is they don't last as long as the manufacturer batteries).
4. If you can invite peeps who shoot the same model or close to that with you, because you just might be able to share batteries.
5. Extra memory cards, just in case yours goes crazy.
6. A cable release (in a pinch you can use the self timer)
7. Bring at least one person with you, to have your back just in case. :)

Questions, comments, thoughts are very welcome!

Treats...

2011-03-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about and talking about making Tollhouse cookies for a couple of months. Tonight, even though I probably should have been doing other things, I committed to making the little yummies...

Keeping with the traditional Tollhouse cookie recipe, I make the following commitments:
I use real butter (unsalted)
I tried Sea Salt this time
I use Pure Vanilla Extract
I leave out the nuts
I under cook them just enough to be chewy but not kill ya!

I think the most impressive thing was I didn't burn a single cookie! And since there are soooooooooo many, I will be sharing with friends :)

So now onto the photography part of this little post. I of course had to take a photo, I'm a photographer, it's what I do. I decided to use a small bamboo cutting board I have to "plate" a pile of cookies, then I piled them high.

Lighting Setup:
One SB-800, 1/8th Power, right of camera with a reflective umbrella triggered via Cybersyncs.

I took a few angles, but the image above was my fave.

P.S. this is straight out of camera, remember lighting can be your friend!

Don't they look yummy? Seriously, you know you want one!

Food Styling and Photography Group - is back!

2011-03-27T21:00:00.001-07:00

Today, I was a busy girl. I went to one event with the Seattle Flickrites earlier in the day (which I will blog about later) then I was off to the monthly event with the Seattle Food Styling and Photography Group. I'll be honest, with the weather and timing I wasn't quite up for the event, but it was good to see a couple of regular peeps and meet some new folks too.

Jason, is the main organiser of the group and is a gourmet in the kitchen. He had a plan of making croquettes and allowing each of the members to plate their own dish, then we would shoot it.

My role in the group is generally more focused on lighting and some styling. I spent some time working with a couple of members to setup their shot, with lighting, a bit of instruction on using my wireless triggers and a little discussion of exposure. Then I kind of took a backseat and let people do their own thing, stepping in when it seemed like someone could use a hand.

Finally joining in the photography fun towards the end I put together a few shots, using plates that Jason and Deb (?) put together. Adding elements of placemats, moving the lights a bit and trying some fun angles, below are my fave shots.

These are all lit with one SB-800, to the right of the dish, diffused with a shoot through umbrella (45" I believe). The joy of using lighting and proper exposure means the only post processing I had to do was to downsize images for the web... :)

Sunset on the Waterfront

2011-03-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

I am noticing a trend, things are getting busy and it's been more and more challenging to make time for me, for my work, So Tuesday night, I took a break with a friend. We headed down to the waterfront to try to catch the sunset, we caught a little...

St. Patrick's Day Parade 2011 - Seattle Style

2011-03-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

So what exactly is a Seattle Style St. Patrick's Day parade? Um one where it rains? hehe. :)

The morning began with Top Pot doughnuts and a latte.

Joining about a dozen Flickrites for a stroll down 5th Ave, to Pike at Westlake center, to stake out a spot for the festivities.

Finding a spot was surprisingly easy, as it was raining pretty consistently. We managed to find a bus stop (covered) that was closed for the day, because of the parade. This was pure luck and wonderful, as it allowed us to stay relatively dry while we waited for the parade to make it's way to us.

Drunmmers:

Pirates:
Quote: "They're shooting us with Canons!" then he turns to me and says "Oh, you're OK, you've got a Nikon!" hehe

More Drummers:

Check out this adorable Irish Water Spaniel:

Once the parade started to wrap, we took advantage of a free ride from Westlake Center to Seattle Center via the Monorail, then on to T.S. McHugh's for a beverage and snack!

Guinness...

So that's how I spent my day, how's about you?

Call for Brides, Grooms and Wedding Parties

2011-03-11T11:18:00.000-08:00

Hi!

So my friends at creativeLIVE have a workshop coming up with Bambi Cantrell next weekend! (March 18th through the 20th). If you're a fan of creativeLIVE and have seen any of the workshops you know a lot goes on, it's crazy, it's fun, it's educational, it's philosophical, it's awesome!

Many of the details from this next workshop are under wraps, but we need a few people to fill some specific roles. We are looking for people or models who would be interested in being involved in some wedding themed photos. Maybe you recently got married and want some kick ass pics done, or you are a cool couple and want to play dress up! You don't have to be a model to fill the bill, but you'll want to be comfortable in front of the camera (as this will be broadcast on the interwebs!).

Here's a run done of what we are seeking on which date:
Friday, March 18th: We need a couple, Bride and Groom
Saturday, March 19th: We need a couple and bridal party? :) Bride, Groom, and a bridesmaid (or 2) and groomsmen (or 2).
Sunday, March 20th: We need a plus size Bride.

What do you think? Are you down with meeting some great people, having some awesome photos created and an all round good time?

If you are interested or know someone who would be interested, have them give us a shout @ kate [at] creativelive [dot] com.

Cheers!
Kate

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away...

2011-03-08T22:28:00.000-08:00

October 31, 2010, I got together with a few friends and shot some Kodachrome. This was with the knowledge that the last lab in the world to process this film would discontinue processing this film as of December 30th... 2010. We had ideas of embracing the memory of Kodachrome even further by having an old school slide show.

Tonight we had our slideshow. Those of us on our game (who could make it tonight), shared some of their images with the group. (Sadly, I missed the deadline and am still trying to decide how I'm going to process mine). Three slide projectors, 8 or so carousels, a screen and some wine (and snacks), we were ready to move back in time (in a way).

While looking at many familiar sites, Space Needle, Pike Place Market, friends, with this older, expired, film, I was taken back in time, truly, to my childhood, little flashes of memories of how that film looked then bursting forth with each click of the projector. It left me with a desire to go home, you know to mom's, and troll through the boxes of slides and remember.

It also makes me wonder, when you take a picture, do you ever really look at it again? In five years will you look at photos you took in 2011 and remember where you were, who you were with, what you were thinking and feeling?

This photo above is a picture of a picture on a projection screen.
Paul holding out a box of Kodachrome, the original photo was taken by Hank.

Mukilteo in Winter

2011-02-21T20:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, was another beautiful day in Seattle. It was still pretty chilly, but the fact that the sun was out and there were those nice puffy white clouds helped! I met up with some of the Seattle Flickrites members in Mukilteo for our monthly photo stroll. We started around noon, along the beach, near the lighthouse, past the ferry terminal, and to Diamond Knot Brewery, and actually still being around to catch the sunset... Here's a few of my fave images from the day.

the beginning...

the rocky beach...

obligatory ferry shot...

thorns of a bush...

and as the sun sets...

things I like about Seattle

2011-02-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

Parks, Coffee, Walking, Neighourhoods, Community. These are just a few of the things I like about Seattle. Today I took a few minutes (it is freakin' cold and windy out!) to enjoy a park.

A park with a view of snow capped mountains, waves of water, sandy beaches, seagrass and trees. Golden Gardens remains one of my favourite spots in the city, which I probably do not take enough advantage of, but on a day like today (i.e. the sun came out to play in winter in Seattle), I felt a need to go to the park.

Here's my absolute favourite set of trees in any park I've found here (so far).

(that's an iPhone shot, processed via Autostitch and PictureShow).

Here's the base of my favourite set of trees, with the snow capped mountains on the other side of the water.

After about 15 minutes of getting blown around by the super wind, I gave up or gave in to the warmth of my car and headed home. On the way there, I found one more view point (which I'd not noticed in all my treks to Golden Gardens). There's a bunch of waterfront housing here, and I noticed this house below, it feels as though from another time, and place, most certainly.

And one last image from my outing.

a Rose in Low Key

2011-02-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

I purchased this rose just about a week ago, of course falling in love with the fact that it was so colourful. I did a series of images with low key lighting, as I wanted to highlight the rose itself. In the images you can see the light building, as I set things up, to arrive at the final shot.

This is the first image, lit by one SB-600 with a snoot at fairly low power.

Repositioned the light to see how the light would fall.

Adding a second light, a SB-800 at about 3/4 power, with a shoot through umbrella. I wanted to highlight the stem and have more even light on the front of the flower but still have rim lighting on the tips.

Of the images I took, this is my fave. I like the light on the front, where you can see the veins of the leaves, as well as the angle, and detail.

Salted Caramel Goodness

2011-01-30T18:13:00.000-08:00

Food photography is something I definitely enjoy, however, I am not the best chef in the world. As a result I occasionally support local shops, like Cupcake Royale, buy purchasing a lovely treat and snapping some photos of it. It serves many purposes, well, firstly it's a yummy treat, I mean who doesn't like a Salted Caramel covered chocolate cupcake? Along with that, I get to set up some lights, put some styling together and create a pretty photo.

This is a full on Strobist type rig. I often like to do a simple one light setup, but I thought I would mix things up and use two. For the front lighting I used a SB-800 diffused through an umbrella and for the rear, fill light I used a SB-600, with a snoot, both were triggered with CyberSyncs.

Lunar New Year Celebration - 2011

2011-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

The Lunar New Year is upon us, it falls on February 3rd this year, which is a Thursday so the main celebration in the International District was today. I was one of many people (including some fellow Flickrites) which went down to the festivities, even in the rain, I think that makes us hardcore haha... anyhow, with the rain, it's really just another day in Winter in Seattle, but that didn't stop the festivities from taking place, one bit.

Here's a few of my snaps...

Analogue West Seattle

2011-01-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

I spent some time with friends yesterday in the West Seattle area. We started at Jack Block Park and then headed to Lincoln Park. My first time at both locales. I was mostly shooting film (but I of course took iPhone shots and a few shots with my new point and shoot), but I wanted to share some of the film images. Not just straight up film shots either, some of the film was E-6 and I had it cross processed, the colours are way awesome!

Looking towards Seattle through the lens of a Canonet 28.

Looking towards the sky and birds flying by...

Reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Lamp Post

Baked Apples

2011-01-20T19:49:00.000-08:00

Last night I decided to take a couple of Golden Delicious apples I had and make mini apple crumble goodness.

This was completely on the fly, no real recipe, but I thought I'd include my ingredients for fun (bear in mind the measurements are approximate and I did some tasting along the way).

For the filling:
2 Large Golden Delicious Apples
3 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla
1 Tsp Lime Juice
Splash of sparkling white zinfandel wine (thought about balsamic vinegar but thought I'd try this).

For the crumble top:
2 Tbsp Butter
Some Flour and Rolled Oats
Dash of Cinnamon (probably a Tsp)

I melted the butter in a saucepan and stirred in the brown sugar and granulated sugar, letting it melt into a thin caramel, adding a splash of vanilla and sparkling wine. While those ingredients were simmering, I cut up the apples into chunks and spritzed just a bit of lime juice on them (normally do lemon, but I only had lime). I added the apples to the pan and let them get coated a cook a bit. (Before I put the apples in the ramekins I added just a little flour to thicken the sauce a bit).

For the crumble topping I took 2 to 3 table spoons of soft butter, using a fork I mashed the butter with some flour at first, eventually adding in some rolled oats and a dash of cinnamon. Once that was in small chunks I put the apple mixture into some small ramekins, then the crumble on the top, then placed them into the oven at about 300 degrees. After about half an hour of cooking I wanted to brown the tops so I increased the temperature to broil and left them in a few minutes more (lesson learned, watch this close because a couple of them got a little burned!).

I let them cool and had one last night, a nice small dessert. It was quite yummy, I must say. And not too sweet!

Blackberries and Cupcakes

2011-01-19T00:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of diptychs I I put together yesterday. Continued work in lighting, a bit of styling, and plays on angles. Both sets of images were lit with one light, a Nikon Sb-800 flash unit, through a 45" shoot through umbrella at about half power. The light being in front, to the right and above.

Fresh blackberries, yum! (These are super with vanilla yogurt).

a Raspberry Chocolate Cupcake (a la Trophy Cupcakes and Party in Wallingford).

A Sunday stroll

2011-01-17T17:06:00.000-08:00

Sunday the 16th marked the first outing with the Seattle Flickrites for 2011. We do monthly photo strolls and other events, where we explore the city (sometimes beyond) and socialise with like minded photo geeks. It being winter in Seattle, the weather is well, generally wet, so we had some concerns about an outdoor stroll, but historically we've been lucky and we were once again.

We strolled through the Fremont Sunday Market, a bit through other parts of Fremont, then had a beer and snacks at Dad Watson's, then headed to Golden Gardens as the weather cleared enough to enjoy the views there. Of course, it was freakin' windy and cold! However, between my iPhone and my D200, I captured a bit of fun...

In the market, a hat on display...
iPhone 3Gs/Hipstamatic

A gathering around a 4x5
iPhone 3Gs/Hipstamatic

Tower of Power
iPhone 3Gs/Photoforge/Camera+/IrisPhotoSuite

John Cornicello poses for what becomes the infamous 4x5
D200/Lightroom

Bench
D200/Lightroom

Thomas
D200/Lightroom

Seagrass
D200/Lightroom/PS-CS4

My favourite trees, at least in Seattle
D200/Lightroom/PS-CS4

Hello 2011

2011-01-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

Wow. I'm amazed at how quickly 2010 whizzed by, most of it seems to be a supreme blur. Good thing I'm a photographer and know photographers, you know, to document stuffs. 2010 was definitely a year of ups and downs, from personal internal struggles in work, to family emergencies, to making new friends, staying in touch with old friends, and daily creative processes.

In 2010 I embarked on a 365 project, which was successful, yes I created 365 images on my iPhone, one for each day of the year. Well, if I must be honest, I created thousands of images on my iPhone, with a purpose, in mind of the goal of making an image each day. Some days I felt truly accomplished and others it was like, "whoops it's 11:30 PM and I haven't done my shot yet, take a picture of a lamp", regardless, I did it, I completed it, and it was good. Did I mention all the images in the project where not only taken with the iPhone but they were all edited on the phone too?

I've been amazed at what can be created with my iPhone, and yes I am aware of other devices by other companies that do cool things too, but hey, I have an iPhone, I have a bunch of apps, right now I'm not changing anything! Well except perhaps considering support for my iPhone App Addiction.

I spent much of the last week in 2010, contemplating whether I would embark on a part two of that project and by January 1st I found myself creating images, then on the 2nd, and on the 3rd. It's become a habit, the kind of habit that you want, so I'm keeping it (I could be doing worse things with my time!).

I have decided to give Tumblr a try, so far it's pretty easy, I'm uploading each image there, as they are completed for their given day, so if you're interested in seeing what's going on, check it out: a photo a day. You can also see them on Flickr 365 - Part Duex, there's not a lot there, yet!

In closing, I'd like to add, that this simple, yet complex device has allowed me the freedom to not worry about some of the technical stuff, but to frame an image, embrace available light, and know that I can potentially create something interesting. It boils down to having some fun, and being creative, and believe it or nothing finding bits of inspiration artistically. So for 2011, I continue to embrace these little things, while also focusing on work work, you know, paid gigs and all that. I also aspire to get some work up on some walls in the Seattle area this year, 2010, was lacking in this regard so I have a goal to turn that around in 2011. Not a resolution, a goal!

Oh my, another post with out a photo!

OK, Ok, here's one, a bonus image from today:

Year in iPhone Pictures 2010 - Recap!

2010-12-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

I'm almost there, I'm almost done, it's day 363 and I'm thinking to myself holy wow I'm going to knock this out! This project marks my third attempt at a 365 project and well, I'm going to call this one a success, I have two more images to create in the next two days, I'm pretty sure I can make that happen! I believe part of my success with this project is the fact my phone is with me pretty much everywhere I go, as well a love of creating images and of course a true fondness for my silly iPhone.

I thought I would share my favourite image from each month. If you're interested in seeing more of the images from the series, check out a year, an artist, an iPhone on Flickr.

January

At Golden Gardens Park, with a friend, Alex. Taken with my 3Gs, using the Hipstamatic App

February

At Fisherman's Wharf, during a Seattle Flickrites Stroll; 3Gs meets Hipstmatic again!

March

At Seattle Center, not the usual expected photos; 3Gs meets Hipstmatic (again, I think I see a trend!)

April

Clouds over Ballard; 3Gs meets two apps: Photogene/PS Mobile/lo-mob

May

Tulips leaning... 3Gs meets: TiltShiftGen/Plastic Bullet/PicGrunger

June

At Golden Gardens; 3Gs meets: Photogene/Sloppy Borders

July

On I-5, birth of a new series; 3Gs meets: Photogene/Plastic Bullet/PicGrunger

August

On I-5 again, another in a series; 3Gs meets: Photoforge/PictureShow

September

A little bit of the Northwest; 3Gs meets: Photogene/PicGrunger/PictureShow

October

Kitteh... 3Gs meets: Photoforge/TiltShiftGen

November

Winter Tree (another series, perhaps?); 3Gs meets: Vintagescene/Plastic Bullet

December

Somewhere Snow Falls; 3Gs meets: Cool fx/PS Mobile/VintageScene/PictureShow

Thanks for your feedback and comments over the year. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to do a Year 2...

Happy Holidays - 2010

2010-12-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note, some holiday cheer. I've been delinquent with my blog the past 6 weeks and do apologise. I've been insanely busy and am just now starting to breathe again! Happy Holidays and new year to everyone, may 2011 be filled with peace, happiness, success and love!

~ Kate

Catching my breath

2010-11-10T23:13:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I made a post, going on a month. Weird! I have been busy since my return from Atlanta, fun work and not so fun work. As a result I haven't had any solid focus on creative fine art kinda stuff. I have, however, managed to keep up with my iPhone 365 project. I know, hard to believe, right?!!

So I thought for my first post in a few weeks I'd show some recent iPhone shots, some from Atlanta, some from home.

This is Lucky. Lucky is my Mom's kitty. He's very cute, and sweet and likes to bite people... he looks a lot like a kitty I had a number of years ago.

"The other side of the tracks"

A New "On the Road" shot.

Looking ahead I envision a post about Help-Portrait Seattle activities, and getting out this weekend (if it doesn't rain too much) and creating something for me!

things to remember but let go

2010-10-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

About 5 weeks ago, a major event occurred, not a fun one either. My Mom had to go to the hospital, with a varied diagnosis, details of which I will leave out. Long story short, it was serious, it is serious, however she's on the mend, but she has a long road of recovery to go, and really a life change. She's in Atlanta, I'm in Seattle, and unfortunately due to a variety of circumstances I couldn't come out when she was first there, but now, she's coming home, so I did too.

I've made many realisations in the few days I've been back in Atlanta, cleaning, gathering, taking care of her kitten and making preparations for her return home. Partly a sadness that I wasn't able to come and see and support at the beginning of this ordeal. Partly a joy in knowing that family and friends were there for her, from checking in on the kitten at home, to bringing her some treats and just being there, letting her know she had support.

I have things at Mom's, you know when you move out you never really move out, especially when you move cross country, there are things, photographs, trinkets, things you can't move with you because you're moving in your car, but things you can't quite let go, so you don't. I have this stash of movies so I'm watching one here and there, last night I watched Thelma and Louise. Have you ever seen that? I won't spoil the ending, but if you look at the story of that movie, you'll see the good in it, the freedom of it and again, a realisation.

We need things, like a roof over our head, a bed to sleep on, some food, you know, those essentials, but do we need all that other crap? I dunno, I don't think so. A friend of mine mentioned something to me on the way to the airport on Saturday, in a nutshell when you hang on to all that old crap it's harder to look forward, at the future, what's ahead. And I'm feeling strongly that there's truth there.

One of the wondrous things of being a photographer, is the ability to capture memories, and store them, in a print, on a computer (backups!), etc... big moments, big feelings, our lives, our friends, our pets, others lives, so very much. But the results of this can be small, so small you don't realise the impact that they can have. So I'm thinking about what my future holds, where I would like to go, what the next phase is. I have ideas, I just gotta kick them into gear.

I apologise if this post seems a bit somber, there's happiness in there too, I just wanted to take a moment, away from my normal posts, to share where I'm at, what's been going on with me, as things have been a bit off for a while now.

The good news: Mom is well and coming home. Hopefully she'll take this opportunity to slow down a little, and retire or something, she is old enough to get away with it. I believe her next phase is recovery and hmmm painting? That would be awesome!

Portraits - Contrast and Simplicity

2010-10-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I hosted an event with the Seattle Flickrites, a Strobist/Lighting/Portraiture kind of event. The main premise is to bring together individuals who are experienced with lighting and portraits to work with those who are interested in learning about lighting and portraiture. We gather, hold a mini Lighting 101 session, for the "newbies" while the experienced folks setup their gear, and then we take photos. Sometimes we take photos of each other and sometimes we have volunteer models. It's a win/win/win/win situation. Anytime you take a photo you gain experience, whether you've been shooting for years or just starting out, the event is beneficial to all!

Since I was the organiser, I was running around a bit, but I managed to find time to take a few photos too! What I like about these are how two very simply lit photos, taken within a few feet of each other look so very different. Between position of lighting, exposure and processing, it's amazing what you can do!

This first image is of Jenny, captured with two off camera flashes and my fave 85mm f/1.8D lens.

Strobist info: 1 SB-600 about @ 1/16, with shoot through umbrella, immediate right of camera, and a SB-800 around 1/32, snooted as a rim/spot. Composed in camera for a square crop.

This second image is of Paul, the current organiser of the Seattle Flickrites, he provided his Harley for a few shots and modeled too!

Strobist info: 1 SB-800 about @1/4 with shoot through umbrella, immediate right of camera, and a SB-600 around 1/32 power, snooted as a rim/spot. Warm Black and White conversion via Lightroom 3.

Lots of fun, sharing of information and equipment with a great bunch of people! Photos from members of the group, check this: Seattle Flickrites Garage Shoot October 2010.

continued explorations in iPhoneography

2010-10-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks since I've done an entry on my iPhone 365 project. Sometimes with a project like this it could be easy to miss a day, you know, let life get in the way, it happens, it's happened to me, twice! But so far, I'm doing pretty good, today was day 278, I'm almost there! But the images below are a sampling of images I've done in the past week. Still having lots of fun and trying to experiment with processing and creating something fun.

Taken in the P-Patch in South Lake Union. I think it's a Dahlia? After all these flowery florals I've taken pictures of, you'd think by now I'd be better with the names! This was edited via TiltShiftGen and VintageScene (newly acquired app that I'm on the fence about).

Bonus shot from the same outing, processed via Swankolab, TiltShiftGen and Photoforge

I like the contrast of the images, in that one is very flush and bright and the other is faded and wilted.

The next day, in my own little neighbourhood I came across this petunia (thanks to my friends who tell me the names of all these beautiful things!), edited via Photogene, TiltShiftGen and PictureShow.

Yes, I really should invest on a book about flowers, know your subject! (Lesson learned!) :)

Making time for the little things (again and again)...

2010-10-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

A recurring them as it were. Life is busy, sometimes it's crazy, sometimes it's chill. It certainly has it's ups and downs (hopefully more ups than downs!). What's easy to bypass, are those little things that calm us, that make us smile, that make us feel good. The thought that life is short, we don't always realise how much so. I go back to my statement, of taking a look around you, talk a walk through your 'hood, see the little things, remember the little things, and well in my case, I like to capture them (I am a photographer after all!).

Last Friday I realised I didn't have much in the way of plans for Saturday, and I'd heard the weather was going to be nice (and those days can be few and far between in the beloved Pacific Northwest), so I posted a tweet, which lead to a Facebook update, which lead to a little note on flickr, which lead to a photostroll at the Washington Arboretum. Yay! So my hopes were that we 'd catch some of the changing leaves, you know those pretty fall colours, alas we were too early! But, we walked through the lushness and took some photos anyway, I mean how could we not!

Here's my obligatory iPhone shot of the day for that day, a pedestrian bridge that goes from the Arboretum towards MOHAI... the use of Plastic Bullet and Picture Show really gave this image an old time feel for sure!

My bag was filled with tricks, from my iPhone to my D200 with a Lensbaby 2.0 to my 85mm f/1.8D, lots of options, just in case... I captured this bench with the lensbaby and applied a warm- black and white/sepia tone to it via Lightroom.

And then these delicate little flowers, I have no idea what they are, I just know they're yellow, and very tiny. I did some split toning in Lightroom then added a layer of grungy texture via Photoshop.

Lots of fun overall, as usual, look for another update from my outing this past weekend, in Ballard!

Magnuson Park

2010-09-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

This month, the Seattle Flickrites had our monthly photostroll at Magnuson Park. I've only been to this park on two other occasions, the first it poured rain and I couldn't really explore the park. So this time we did a little exploration!

Magnuson offers everything from...

Big Hills:

Water views:

Flowers:

And abandoned structures perfect for jumping from:

Muffin with a Splash of Tea

2010-09-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today was another Food Styling and Photography event. We have these little meetings once a month (or at least try to). I hosted this month, with an idea of doing a photo deconstruction as the main focus of the day. There's a group on flickr started by Laura Ferroni called SLW: Photo Remakes. Laura will post an image and members in the group will try to recreate the image, with the subject matter, styling and lighting.

I realised after as I was editing the photos that I hadn't quite gotten the shot in mind, the goal, my angle was a bit too high, however I still really like my final image.

After everyone took turns with the lighting/muffin setup, we took some photos of another dessert and then things got silly. I've got a couple of friends who do this, but I hadn't tried yet. Jenny suggested it and we put a plan in motion. Splash images! We started with a cup of green tea and fired off a few shots, even got a couple of cool ones. But I decided to try again with a black tea, so that there would be a contrast of the lighting/background with the splash of the tea.

iPhone - driving and snacks.

2010-09-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

Life has been kicking my butt a little bit the past couple of weeks, and I haven't quite adjusted to making time for the updates that I normally would. So here's a little quickie!

I've been driving a lot lately, this extra time on the road is partly what I'm adjusting to, and I'm finding it's impacting things like my iPhone 365 project (and general sanity related to driving on the freeway). One of the things about a project like 365, it's not always easy to find something interesting to take a photo of. Our lives can sometimes be mundane, so some days I try to find a new angle, or processing method to create something a little different. But let's be honest, somedays you just take a photo of your dinner. When you really think about it, when you commit to a project like this, it really is a documentation of your everyday life, while a shot of your dinner, or a beer, might not be completely compelling, it could be cool, it could be funky, but it's definitely part of your life.

So here's a couple of recent shots, that are a part of my life.

Finding time and a little goodbye.

2010-08-31T10:30:00.001-07:00

Things have been busier the past couple of weeks. Which is good and bad, you know, you can get distracted from the things/projects you really want to continue.

This is a fave iPhone shot from last week:
the Lightrail tracks, taken from street level, edited on the iPhone with PhotoForge, TiltShiftGen and Lo-Mob.

A good friend of mine is moving back to Cali this week, we would go out on mini photo outings together and get coffee and chat and stuff. He's a writer, smart as hell and I'm definitely going to miss those gatherings. We did our last little outing at Greenlake. Sometimes it's great to go to a place, over and over again and look for something different, perhaps a different goal in mind with the images as well. The images below are florals, where I did some light processing in Lightroom, a little sharpening and desaturation. Then took both into Photoshop and added some mild textures. The more I do this, the more deliberate I become, the more I think, while I'm shooting, about what I could do with the final image, or how I might process it.

a day trip to Vancouver

2010-08-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been in Seattle for a few years now, and even though I'm a mere 2 and a half hours away I haven't made the trek across the border yet. So yesterday, I finally did it! A friend of mine suggested a day trip and I road trips are always better with friends so away we went.

Here's some shots from the day (I may upload another round later).

In Chinatown.

Downtown from Stanley Park:

Another view from Stanley Park:

We ended the day on Robson (I think!) with a little dinner, which is where this rockin' cab was parked.

We made our way back to the US around 1 ish and home to Seattle around 3 (that's AM). Today I decided to sleep in.. :)

Making time for treats

2010-08-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Things are busy, life is busy, and it's easy to forget little things that make us happy. Yesterday, I posted something on Twitter about deserving a cupcake. I've been a good girl, eating healthy and all so today, I opted for a treat! Trophy Cupcakes are awesome, moist cake and no too sweet frosting, at least on today's choices (I've only eaten one, I will save the other for tomorrow, maybe!).

Before I ate a cupcake, I of course had to shoot the cupcake. Trophy makes such great efforts to make their cupcakes special, I like to honour them with pretty photos. I took both of these images with the same lighting; (1) SB-800, off camera at about 1/8th power diffused with a shoot through umbrella). However changed up my aperture and angles to create to pretty, different images.

Very little post processing on these images, just a crop here and there and perhaps a little punching up or down. Simple styling and lighting.

Strawberry Lemonade:

Strawberry Cheesecake:

iPhone 365, Recent works...

2010-08-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to say I'm still chugging along with my iPhone 365 project! Today marks day 218, which means I'm over the hump.

I thought I would share a couple of recent shots, taken on the road here and there. p.s. Don't follow my lead and do this (you'll see what I mean!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

creativeLIVE & David duChemin

2010-08-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

I had the fortunate opportunity to help out the crew at creativeLIVE for their Vision Driven weekend workshop with David duChemin. It was last weekend, and lots of fun.

We started on Friday with discussion, a class of 5 students and a more intimate environment than that of the Zack Arias workshop in June. Friday after the workshop David, some of the creativeLIVE crew and the students went on a photo outing at a skate park in Seattle. They took some photos some of which were shared during the class on Saturday.

Saturday morning was an early call, for some of the crew, the students and David, we met up at Gasworks Park at 6:00, to take photos, walk, and we also worked with a model. Here's a few of my best shots from Saturday's outing:

Our model...

Rockin' out on a Harley with some shades:

After we spent time with the model David had a self assignment for the students (which I did as well), which was to pick a single word and take images that displayed that word.

My word was Lines:

So Sunday, had another early call, this time we went to the Electric Boat Company and took a couple of small boats out on Lake Union. It was a truly wonderful day for an excursion like this, the weather was perfect. It was also awesome being on the calm of the water.

Here are some of my fave shots on the water:

More photos from the weekend are on my Flickr stream.

Testing a slideshow from Flickr

2010-07-21T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is just a little test in preparation for the creativeLIVE weekend with David duChemin...

This is a Slideshow of the images from the Seattle Food Styling group on flickr.

just walking around

2010-07-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Monday I spent some time catching up with my pal Alex. We occasionally get together to do little photo outings or have coffee in varied neighbourhoods around Seattle. It's nice to go out with a friend and take photos, chat and be social. We walked around the Ballard area, often referred to as Frellard (due to it's bridging between Fremont and Ballard), however I like to call it Balmont (Frellard just sounds unappealing) ...

The landscape of the area ranges from industry to residential, in some cases all in the same block. Sometimes it's cool to take photos of the buildings and such, but since I had my 85mm f/1.8D lens with me, I was drawn to pretty flowers and nature.

Here are my two fave shots from the outing.

Magnolia Tree:

Taken with my D200, 85mm f/1.8D and edited via Lightroom for the black and white conversion.

Little Pretty Things:

Taken with my D200, 85mm f/1.8D, edited via Lightroom for some saturation and colour tweaks then Photoshop for texture.

Pic Grunger - iPhone App Review

2010-07-20T14:21:00.000-07:00

Are you interested in vintage photography, you know things with some texture and that old school feel? It's pretty popular right now, adding texture or "grunge" to your perfectly clean and sharp images, who would have thought? A lot of us might do this in Photoshop with Brush tools or an overlay of a grungy effect to create something unique and funky. There are also ways to do this on our iPhones. Of course the images you're starting out with might not be as pristine as those coming out of your fancy DSLR, but they can certainly be wonderful!

A few months ago I came across the Pic Grunger app through another photographer I found on Flickr, here's a link to her amazing work. She works with an iPhone some days and a regular camera others. She's also using tools for editing on the iPhone or an iPad. I became an instant fan when I found her iPhoneography. One of the things I really appreciate is that she's sharing the applications she's using to create her images, which I do as well (when I remember). It's really great to at least get an idea of the tools being used (but dangerous in the old iTunes store). Anyhow, it was through her stream I discovered PIc Grunger.

Pic Grunger

Let me start with that it's only $0.99, so it's cheap and it's really cool! The first version I had of the app was pretty awesome, providing about 10 different grungy effects that would overlay on an image. But the latest release is really great!

The new release offers the following options:

Resolution: the option to change the output, now it's not quite full size of what the iPhone can do, but it's big improvement over the previous version where you couldn't change the output at all.

Opacity: Once you've made your image selection and your effect selection you can now change the level of opacity (like you would in Photoshop), so if you want a milder effect you can have it. (Yay!)

Border: There is a simple option to have a border or not have one. At the moment there's only one border type, but it generally works with the grungy texture. I imagine in future releases they might enhance this further with some different border options.

Style: Ok I just noticed this and realised what it does! It changes the colours of the original photo, saturation and the like to create something unique.

Outside of those you have 11 "Effects" from Acid to Creased to Weathered.

It is a lot of fun to play with, for me I generally use the grunge effect in conjunction with another app, like Plastic Bullet, Pictureshow or many others.

Here's a couple of examples and recent faces of mine which include the use of Pic Grunger. I'd love to see yours if you have been using this app as well!

Food Photography July Edition

2010-07-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind on blogging this month and for no real good reason. So here's to catching up! :)

Sunday I had my monthly event with the Seattle Food Styling and Photography group, Jason had a few ideas in mind for food and we worked together to schedule how we'd shoot the food once it was put together.

My favourite shots from the day were done inside with the SB-800, first image is of Corn and Onion Fritters with a Yogurt sauce including mint and garlic. P.S. They were yummy!

This is homemade Blackberry Ice Cream (made with blackberries and kefir). Also quite tasty!

Just a side note about this group, we operate kind of loose, in a friendly, information sharing environment. As well we shoot real food as it's ready to eat. Therefore we need to set up lights (if we're using them), plan which plates and other accessories will be used. Since it was nice outside this time we did some shots outside (in natural light) and inside (with one strobe - a Nikon SB-800 fired with a Sync cord and a shoot through umbrella). If you're interested in getting involved with the group, please join us! Or if you have questions, please ask! :)

iPhone images in Black and White

2010-07-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

For most of this week I've been playing around with monochrome/black and white images on my iPhone. I've always loved black and white images, there's something simple yet complex in black and white. I think it can be a great medium to really focus on a particular suject.

Originally I was planning on doing an all black and white week, but the image I took yesterday was better suited to colour. So perhaps next week or in a few weeks I'll do an all black and white week. Until then here are a few shots from this week.

I took this one at Golden Gardens with the Hipstamatic App. Golden Gardens remains one of my fave parks in Seattle, and these are my fave trees, it's such a great spot with so much appealing around it!

I love the simplicity of this, the lines and the texture of the walkway. Again taken with Hipstamatic.

And finally a diptych of some trees and plants. Created with Hipstamtic and PhotoDesk.

Coming soon (possibly this weekend) another iPhone app review, on PicGrunger, just updated and it rocks!

Clouds Clouds Clouds!

2010-07-03T15:33:00.000-07:00

Clouds Clouds Clouds!

They move. They diffuse. They are pretty. They are moody. They hover. They disappear.

The weather in Seattle hasn't really moved into Summer yet, somedays it's getting there, then it pulls back again. I've decided I'm good with that! Especially when I contemplate the blazing temps of my hometown, Atlanta. Yes, Seattle can be humid, but we're just cooler, in many ways.

Here's a few recent shots of the clouds, their movement, their moods, and contrast.

Taken late last week, with my iPhone and edited via Swankolab and Photogene (mainly for the square crop). This was towards the end of the day, as the sun started to set, I took a look out the window and saw this great poof!

From last Sunday, driving home through the Capitol Hill area, I'd been wanting to check out this park. So I stopped and took a shot of the water, clouds and some trees to frame it. These clouds are layered, light and whispy, but it's still a bit overcast. I did some post processing with this image in Lightroom to add a pinch of colour.

This I shot last night. Another series of layers, light, dark, sunny and moody. Also processed in Lightroom, I actually reduced the saturation to almost zero, then played around with split toning to add some funky colours and a boost in blacks to increase the intensity and contrast.

Seattle Food Styling and Photo Meetup

2010-06-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

This months Seattle Food Styling & Photography meetup seemed to have a focus on desserts without any real planning, it just kind of fell into place. One of the things I really like about this group is the laid back atmosphere. However I'm hoping to create more "events" with the group, perhaps some months kick things up a notch and do some serious styling and planning. I can say in the year or so I've been involved with the group I've gotten some great images out of it, but I definitely have a desire to do more. So if you're interested in Food Photography, Food Styling, or are a Foodie, let me know if you want to get involved.

Here are a few photos from todays event.

Fumiko, has a variety of skills ranging from making Sushi and teaching (how to make sushi) to making some wonderful desserts. Today she made creme puffs and mini eclairs. I tried an eclair it was wonderful!

I made some Banana Bread. I'd been thinking about making some for a while I still haven't eaten any yet, but I think it will be yummy.

Abstractions via iPhone

2010-06-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Anyone who really knows me as a photographer, knows that when I take an image it is with the goal of creating as close to the final image as possible in camera. Especially in this digital age where we can easily snap 1,000 pictures with our fancy DSLR's and not think about what happens next, hours of editing in front of a computer monitor. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather spend more time shooting than editing... I would say "That's just me", but I know it's not.

So here's where I contradict myself. First, I suppose about 9 months ago I was introduced to Lightroom 2. Instantly my digital workflow went from using 3 programs (Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW and Photoshop) to just using Lightroom, at least for 95% of my processing. So a big thanks to Adobe for lending me and a bunch of other people a hand. (Yes, I heart Apple too, and Aperture does a lot of great things too, but Lightroom works a little better for me).

While I still maintain a goal of getting the image in camera, I now also take some time to process my images, with ease in Lightroom, occasionally moving into Photoshop, to create something more. In reality, the old school was to create something with your prints in the darkroom, so it's really not all that different.

At this point you might be wondering what does this have to do with a silly phone? :)

Well, it all kind of leads up to taking things a step even further. Manipulations of images from their original state to something completely abstract, leaving the viewer wondering what the heck it is. :) As many of you have heard the line "there's an app for that", it seems to be true. I'm continually looking at iPhoneography on Flickr and related sites, and getting inspired by what others are creating, as well learning what apps they're using to create their art. Often finding cool new apps to play with, many of which are free! :)

Below are a series of images, starting with a simple shot of a lamp in my living room, to a final, spiraling, hypnotizing piece of art.

Image taken with the iPhone 3Gs (no processing - yet!)

Image taken into StripeCam.

Image taken into iDroste.

Image taken into Plastic Bullet.

Are you dizzy yet?

Fremont Solstice Parade 2010

2010-06-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Every year in Seattle, in the Fremont neighbourhood, there's a parade to celebrate the summer solstice. It's on the Saturday of the weekend closest to the solstice (generally the 3rd Saturday) and of course some years it falls on the solstice. Activies begin months in advance in the formation of ideas, and creation of floats, costumes and more. In the days leading up to the parade Fremont becomes a buzz of activity to pull things together for the big day. Friday night the floats are moved through the city streets to their staging area. And early Saturday morning, characters, dancers, singers, painted bicyclists begin to arrive, saying hello, pausing to have a picture taken, and do that last bit of preparation for the event.

From here I'll let the photos speak for the fun spirit behind this annual event!

Characters arriving, some stopping for a pose, others posing unaware:

Bicyclists, Beads and Birds, oh my!

Dancing and Singing:

See more Photos from the Solstice Parade - 2010 on my Flickr stream.

Zack Arias and creativeLIVE

2010-06-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

I had a big opportunity this week, well a bout of luck really. Off and on for the past 6 months or so I've been taking classes with creativeLIVE (formerly creativeTECHS). They offer free online eduction for creatives with the opportunity to purchase a download of the class, if you want. But the main thing to note here, it's purely an option. A friend of mine, who's also been taking classes with them, got more involved, she starting hosting the online chat room for some of the classes. So not only can you take the class online for free, you can also ask questions of the teacher. Amazing, simply amazing.

On the news of the Zack Arias workshop pending, knowing creativeLIVE might need additional help for the weekend, I got involved too, participating in classes with Scott Bourne and John Greengo.

So here it is, Friday, June 11th and we're on the set, shaking hands, getting to know one another a bit, before things kick into gear for a weekend of what is undoubtedly filled with fun, eduction and adult beverages! :)

Chase Jarvis is partnered up with creativeLIVE to bring together these wondrous events, classes and workshops. He stopped by to kick off the event, introducing Zack, etc...

Craig of creativeLIVE making some more introductions, and giving prizes (yes along with education you can get prizes too!).

Coming back from a break, Zack waiting for things to kick off again, next to the white board with a drawing of him done by his wife, Meghan.

Due to some work I wasn't able to attend the events on Saturday, I'm still kind of sad about that, but you know, it's important to pay the bills too!

On Sunday, the 13th, things were kinda crazy, there were several models, a band, students in the class, shooting live, while Zack was shooting live. It was crazy and amazing all at the same time.

This is Will Valle, he came up from Cali to assist Zack for the weekend, super great guy!

Students shooting, Jeramie Shoda behind the camera and Rachel Thurston and Will Valle in the background. This was during the students shooting models while Zack was shooting a band.

Craig and Zack, before the last segment.

Zack taking photos of the finale of a model in the fish tank.

That's a wrap from this weekend...

Thanks to creativeLIVE and Chase Jarvis for continually putting great information out to the world. And to Zack Arias, Meghan, Hawke Danger, Dan, Sherri and Robin, for coming out from the ATL to represent! :)

All of you guys rock immensely!

More photos from the event can be found on my Flickr stream.

Here are some additional links:

creativeLIVE
Zack Arias
Meghan Zarias
Chase Jarvis

iPhone photo a day, an update!

2010-06-16T13:16:00.001-07:00

It's been another busy week for me, between weddings and a three day workshop with Atlanta based photographer Zack Arias. All the while, doing my best to remember that I need to take an iPhone photo each day. Sometimes I take the photo but process it a day or two later. I uploaded a few new ones to my Flickr stream last night, to get caught up.

Day 165 - Golden Gardens Park in Seattle.

Edited via Photogene and Sloppy Borders.

Day 166 - Lily's

Edited via Pic Grunger and Plastic Bullet.

Hello June in Seattle 2010

2010-06-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

It's been an oddly busy couple of weeks for me, which has distracted me from blog related things. Today I found time to get out around sunset, with my D200 and a fisheye lens. Even though the weather didn't seem to want to cooperate I took some photos anyway.

I drove over to Golden Gardens park, one of my faves here in Seattle, and strolled around the beach taking in the view, from different aspects, compositionally.

Here are the results (at least a couple). Did I mention, that it's June, almost summer and today's high was only 63?

This image really reminds me of something I took on my trip to the UK last year, specifically when I was on a boat on Loch Ness in Inverness, Scotland. Very moody clouds presented themselves today.

This one is where there was a clearing of sorts, I used a filter on camera, to enhance the colour of the sky a bit. Kind of kickin' it old school using the cokin filters, yes it can be done in post, but I'm still a huge proponent of creating the image, as best I can, in camera.

Tulips

2010-05-30T21:57:00.001-07:00

Last week I treated myself to a small bunch of purple Tulips. I enjoy having flowers around my place, to brighten it up a bit. I also like to take photos of pretty things, so it's good in more than one way!

On the first day I decided to put one of the smaller stems into a small coca-cola glass I have. I thought it would be cute and nice to have on my desk.

Here's the first shot I took, with my iPhone, edited with a couple of apps, including ShakeIt (which makes it look like a Polaroid).

These guys didn't have the normal staying power that I've experienced with other Tulips, within a couple of days the stems became limp and started to sink into the vase a bit. This was also captured with my iPhone and edited with Pic Grunger and Plastic Bullet. I really love the results here.

And the most recent shot was done with my fancy camera, using one single lamp to illuminate the petals.

I imagine getting a couple of more shots with these flowers before I must put them in the compost bin. But there will be more photos to come, of other flowers, this week I picked up some Lily's.

Plastic Bullet - a review

2010-05-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

With my recent iPhone 365 project, I'm capturing all of the photos and editing them solely on the iPhone. As a result of this I receive a fair amount of questions about what apps I use to edit the photos. Most recently I was asked how many photo related apps I have on my phone, I kind of don't want to answer that! It's a lot!!! Many of them were free apps, some I even got for free with coupon codes I'd lucked in to, and some, of course, I paid for (that's the part I don't want to think about).

So I thought that I might start doing my own reviews, on apps that I'm using, or have tried, what I like about them and potentially could be improved. It's simply my opinion, period of what works for me. :) I'm not sure how often I will do something like this, but I figure I can make it happen at least once a month.

I'm going to start with a recent app called Plastic Bullet. Plastic Bullet is a very simple app and really does all the work for you. You can take a picture while in the app or you can load an existing image from your iPhone into the app to process it.

Once you've loaded the image, the screen will display 4 images, with different colours/effects added to the image. If you want to see one larger you simply tap on the image, if you want to go back to the 4 images, tap on the arrow in the top left corner. If you like one of them, tap on it, then tap on the heart (yes very cute idea) to save it. If you don't care for the first round of processed images, click on the rounded arrows in the top right corner. That will reload the page with new versions.

What I like:

Fun colours
Faux-Cross Processed looks
Grungy Black Borders
Extreme colours
Simple functionality
Allows you to take a new photo or edit an existing one
It does a faux tilt-shift effect on occasion too.

What I'd like to see in future versions:

Larger file output (would be nice if I want to print the images!)
Some control over the output (sometimes the image you select is high contrast, so when you apply these filters it really blows things out).
Controls over the colours used as well.

Regardless, it's a lot of fun and a great start for a Version 1 app.

Here's an example or two:

Diverse Seattle Happenings - Trike for Beers and the Arboretum

2010-05-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday I had a day filled with diversity, for lack of a better word. In the morning I met up with a couple of friends and we strolled the Washington Park Arboretum. They offer free walking tours on occasional Sundays. The guide we had was very engaging and passionate about the plant life and flowers available for viewing and enjoyment.

At the beginning of the tour I was doing my best to take notes on the kinds of flowers we were viewing while also taking photos of those flowers. I started off pretty good, but kind of forgot about it after a while. As a result I know some of the names of the flowers, but not all of them.

The image below is of a Magnolia, (I'm pretty sure), which had some shades of purple on the outside of the petals. With this composition, however, I felt a black and white conversion would be more compelling. I'm very happy with the results here.

After the Arboretum, the three of us heading over to Queen Anne, for the 3rd Annual Trike For Beers event. It's a race down one of the hills in Queen Anne, adults on tricycles (mostly), with a few cheaters, walkers, and a load of photographers capturing the liveliness of the event.

This is a fun shot from the day, and more Trike For Beers photos from a lot of the other photographers who were on site.

Different perspectives at Discovery Park

2010-05-16T02:52:00.000-07:00

This past week I spent some time working with another photographer on a video project. We were at Discovery Park for some of the location work. I've only been to this park a couple of times, but this was my first time in this section of the park. I believe part of the park was used as military housing at some point, there are still a number of structures up, boarded up with no access to the inside, but it's still interesting to see them there amidst the really tall grass and views of water. I have a feeling it could take a ton of trips to this park to really see all of it, I look forward to my next trip there, I still haven't even seen the lighthouse! :)

On my first day there I did my iPhone shot of the day, showing a portion of one of the houses which seems a bit more run down than some of the others.

This was from the second day, with the "good camera", processed in Lightroom, just to make a few minor adjustments. What I like about this one is the trees surrounding it, plus the house itself appears to be huge, just made me feel like it would be a really nice place to live, especially with all the beauty surrounding it.

Earth's Laughter - Images by D.T. Rosenhoff - at Greenwood-Phinney Art Walk

2010-05-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

This Friday night at the Greenwood-Phinney Artwalk my friendDoug Rosenhoff has an show at Turabi Rug Gallery.

Doug's work is primarily in black and white, focused on floral beauty's. His use of composition and light is quite stunning! Check out more of Doug's lovely work on his Flickr stream.

This is the 15th Annual Greenwood-Phinney Artwalk, on Friday participating businesses will be open from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM and Saturday from 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM. So come out, enjoy the lovely weather and see some art!

Georgetown, Steam Plant

2010-05-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I met up with fellow Seattle photography enthusiasts, members of the Seattle Flickrites for a stroll in Georgetown, based at the Steam Plant near Boeing Field. I've heard many cool things about this location and was looking forward to checking it out. Along with the unique environment of the building, there were a bunch of Covairs on display and classic fire engines. Lots of interesting things to see and photograph.

The images below are a couple of my faves, to see more, check out my Steam Plant Stroll photos on Flickr.

Pieces and Parts that remain in the still functioning Steam Plant. I believe the Steam Plant is open to the public one Saturday a month.

Creative use of only a few megapixels

2010-05-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

So there's this book, it's called "The Best Camera is the one that's with you", by Chase Jarvis. Chase Jarvis is a Seattle based Commercial Photographer, who travels the globe to create great imagery. He's an advocate of information sharing and supporting the community, and he's a nice guy! I like this book for a few reasons, one it's a book filled with photographs, two there are a few gems of wisdom, three all the photos in the book were taken with an iPhone.

Some of you who've been reading my blog, may know I'm a fairly active "iPhoneographer", as a matter of fact today marks Day 125 of my Year in iPhone Pictures project! (I still have to take my shot for the day, but no worries this entry will include some recent work!). I have embraced the little iPhone, in the knowledge that I'll not be able to make massive prints, but that I will be able to create something interesting, sometimes pretty, sometimes grungy, but create nonetheless.

The concept behind "The Best Camera..." is simply, use what you have, it doesn't take a $30,000 camera to make a beautiful picture (okay, it wouldn't hurt to have a $30,000 camera, but...) it is the person behind that camera, their eye, their vision that creates the image.

Whether 3 Megapixels (iPhone 3Gs) or 10 Megapixels (my D200) or 50 Megapixels (that H4D that if I win the lottery I'll own), a photograph is a photograph, art is art. I see what I see, no matter the tool.

Here are a couple of recent shots with my iPhone, taken in Georgetown and in Ballard. Completely created (shot and edited) on my iPhone 3Gs.

"Ford Tough"
Georgetown, Seattle, WA

(Process: iPhone 3Gs/FilmLab/TiltShiftGen/LoMob)

"Aged"
Ballard, Seattle, WA

(Process: iPhone 3Gs/FilmLab)

For more iPhone photos from me click here.

Contrast

2010-05-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

The struggle for Spring seems to continue in Seattle (and some other cities). Today I met up with a few photographer friends, exploring an area I'm going to refer as North Lake Union. I'm still kind of new to Seattle (is three years in a city long enough to no longer be a newbie?), so I'm just not sure what to call this little area. It's near Wallingford, near the U-District. Starting at Gasworks park, we travelled east to Ivar's Salmon House and back again.

This image was taken along the path, from the north side of Lake Union, looking downtown. Edited via Lightroom, desaturating it for the most part, applying some split toning and a bit more to enhance the overcast mood of the day.

This is a Dogwood tree, image is essentially straight out of camera. I did crop it into a square format, and did a slight tweak of green to the leaves, but that's about it.

Spring please come back and stay a while!

2010-04-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

Whew! April is almost done, and spring is being finicky! I spent a bit of time on the phone today, with family and friends as it was my birthday. In some of the conversations we discussed weather. I'd mentioned how chilly it was today, it was pretty out, but still kind of chilly unless you were out walking in the sun. One friend said she was watching snow fall from the sky and a family member mentioned that it was still getting into the 40's each night (which is odd, considering she's in the southeast). This is what I mean by spring being finicky. In February we had super warm, gorgeous days, warmer than it's been the past few weeks in Seattle. So, personally I'm kind of ready for spring to kick back into gear, it is almost May!

In the hopes that spring is going to revisit soon, I have been trying to capture spring like things, this weeks best, most colourful entry is that of a bouquet of flowers. I came across these at Fred Meyer, and just loved how bright they were!

This is part of my April iPhone set on Flickr.

Self Portraits - "Bench Mondays"

2010-04-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

I have a few friends who are into photography (okay, perhaps more than a few!), but a couple of them are involved in a Flickr group called Bench Monday. The basic concept is a photo of a subject standing on a bench ideally wearing something nice or cute... Sometimes a bench isn't easy to find, so you get creative and figure something else to stand upon. Some images use traditional benches, some have chairs, some have books, some have stairs.

Generally these images show a persons legs and feet, often wearing cute shoes or sexy shoes, or funky shots. It's just an interesting perspective on things. I've been trying to do a self portrait a week, with the goal of doing 52 self portraits this year, for the 52 Weeks group. Some weeks I'm doing two, one for Bench Monday and one for the 52 Weeks, but some weeks, I just do one, and that one fits both groups. I suppose the biggest challenge when you get into doing some of these kinds of projects is trying to keep things fresh, using different props or locations.

Here's a couple of shots, what I've managed thus far.

This weeks entry: Warm days are upon us...

A few weeks ago: Harry Potter, Gargoyles...

pretty little things and the iPhone

2010-04-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

iPhone image, day 103 of 365 days. I'm making continued progress on this project. I came across these flowers, lying on a bench. I leaned in and snapped the image, having an idea of what I might do with it once I'd captured it.

One of the "rules" of the project is to take all the images with the iPhone, but also to edit them via the phone. There are so many editing apps to choose from, it's hard to know where to start sometimes. I've acquired about 40 apps for editing photos since I purchased my iPhone, but I always go back to about 8 of them consistently in my editing process.

With this image I first used Photogene to crop the image, I've been particularly fond of the square crop lately, and Photogene has ratio options that other programs don't offer. Then I went into Swankolab, created by the makers of Hipstamatic. Swankolab is becoming a quick favourite, as you get to "develop" an image with chemicals. There is a learning curve with what each of the different chemicals does, but so far it is fun. You can even save "formulas" that you create.

Here it is, Day 103:

Being a tourist in your own town

2010-04-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

I've been living in Seattle for a few years now, and I really dig it here. Often, when you live in a city that attracts lots of tourism, it's easy to overlook some of those tourist elements. Things like the Space Needle are hard to miss, but sometimes the Aquarium or even taking an Argosy cruise through Elliot Bay could be overlooked. And well, sometimes not in the budget either!

The past week I've had a very good friend in town, with her daughter, it having been her daughter's first trip here, we did lots of tourist attractions. We took advantage of a City Pass. The City Pass can get you access into a bunch of different places at a flat fee, saving you a nice chunk of change. So we City Pass in hand, we became uber tourists for about 5 days. It was crazy. Here are some highlights!

International Pillow FIght Day at Westlake Center - 3 April 2010

Fremont Market (along with the Troll, Gasworks, & Golden Gardens) - 4 April 2010

Butterfly House at Pacific Science Center (along with the Space Needle, EMP and SFM) - 5 April 2010

Arogsy Harbour Cruise, Seattle Aquarium - 6 April 2010

Woodland Park Zoo - 7 April 2010

I suppose I should include a picture of a real critter from the Zoo, but one of the main animals we went to visit were the Hippos. As I understand it one of the hippos passed away recently, as a result of the weather and probably the loss of a friend, the Hippos weren't really out and about. The photo above is my fave from the day. Our Zoo trip was cut short from weather too.

It was a fun week, great to see them and now I'm taking a little rest! Ha Ha!! :)

Mums in the Studio

2010-04-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

Now that spring is trying to spring, I feel myself compelled to decorate my space with flowers. My last trip to the grocery I picked up a small batch of white mums, very pretty indeed.

So far I've taken a couple of pictures of them, one was an iPhone 365 shot, using the CameraBag application:

The other created in more of a studio environment, using a Strobist setup including an SB-800 Flash Unit, diffused through a shoot-thru umbrella and Cyber Syncs for wireless triggering. Image taken with my D200 and a 35mm f/2 lens, edited via Lightroom.

International Pillow Fight Day

2010-04-07T01:00:00.001-07:00

Saturday, 4.3.10, was International Pillow Fight Day. In Seattle it was celebrated at Westlake Center, at 2 in the afternoon, in I suppose flash mob sorta way. This was the first I'd heard of International Pillow Fight day, connections through the Seattle Flickr group clued me and a few others in on the fun.

I have friends visiting with me this week from out of town, and we decided to do Pike Place Market and the pillow fight on Saturday. Since then we've continued to be mega-tourists (more photos to come).

These are a couple of images I captured during the Pillow Fight. I walked through part of it, mostly towards the end, as things were winding down, but managed to be above the masses during most of the event. My friends took pillows to partake in the fun.

During the pillow fighting fun:

At the end, everyone "took a nap!":

iPhone photo a day, continues

2010-03-30T22:24:00.001-07:00

I just realised it's been about a week since I posted something! Somedays I'm distracted with many things. I have however, managed to keep up with my iPhone 365 project. Simply, the goal is to take an iPhone image everyday for a year. Sometimes they aren't grand images, but somedays they are at least fun! As well it's a little peek into my everyday life, having coffee, or trinkets that I own.

Below are a couple of recent images, from the past few days.

Day 86: My favourite bookends.

Day 88: Latte!

To see the project so far, click here: iPhone 365

Ups and Downs

2010-03-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today, I explored my current city, as if I were a tourist, kind of, sort of. I met up with a friend and we took the bus downtown, towards the waterfront. We strolled the waterfront, stopping to take snaps at places of interest. My most interesting shot from the first part of the day was at the large pier, just north of the Seattle Aquarium. It's rather large and has absolutely nothing on it, making it look even larger, perhaps.

I decided to make use of my lovely 85mm f/1.8D lens, shooting at f/1.8, to create a dreamy look on the buildings in the background, leaving just a small area in focus. The light was a little flat, due to the time of day, so I use graduated filters and applied some usual colours in post processing (via Lightroom) to create the final image:

We trekked up to Pike Place Market, having a quick bite to eat. Then over to Westlake Center, a quick errand there, then a longer trek over to the Space Needle. A few weeks ago I picked up one of the Yearly Passes, it was a super deal, and finally today, I made use of it.

Even though we were unsure about how the sky would look, the light, etc... we decided to head up to the top and at least take a look down. This was my first visit to the Needle since I became a resident of the city. It was funny, as we looked out, I was like "Hey, that's Ballard, ooo Gasworks Park", etc... People event asked us about things (since we seemed to have an idea of what's up).

As expected the light wasn't great (but it's really pretty out and warm today!), but I still snapped away, in the hopes of something interesting. One thing I have yet to get a decent photograph of since I've moved here is Mt. Rainier. I tried again today, but it was just too hazy, oh well, next time.

I captured this image of Belltown and attempted to give it a bit of a vintage feel.

Spring is in the air, bunnies are around us

2010-03-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Look!

A bunny in the UW Quad, his name is "Bunny", his owner, takes him out and about, as he is very friendly, loves humans, as long as as you pet him. He was hanging out there on Wednesday, who knows he might make another appearance soon. He and his owner are very cool and fun to hang out with. Bunny was adopted by his owner while she was living in China, Bunny is about 2 1/2 years old. Bunny nibbled on my jeans while I pet him.

A snippet of the blooms in the UW Quad.

Very little processing on either of these images, cropped square in Lightroom. Both images taken with my D200 and 85mm f/1.8D lens.

Greenlake at Dawn

2010-03-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday of this past week I met up with a friend for what we hoped would be some cool photos at dawn. We missed the "magic" light, in a couple of ways:

1. We arrived about 30 minutes later than we probably should have.
2. It was overcast, "magic" light doesn't really happen when it's an overcast day!

Remember, if you want to catch that magical light, you have to either get up early, or wait till dusk!

Taking advantage of the opportunity, I opted for a couple of images, one, being Cherry Blossoms. The Cherry Blossom trees are in random states of bloom right now, some started blooming a few weeks ago, others haven't bloomed yet. The image below was taken with my D200, using the 85mm f/1.8D lens, cropped for a square look. I used Lightroom for about 95% of my editing, including the use of split toning to create more spring-like colours.

As well I'm still slightly obsessed with all of these trees, especially utilising silhouettes, this image was shot with the same camera and lens. Converted to black and white, adding graduated filters and a little more in Lightroom.

When handed lemons, make lemonade!

Embracing the little, and not so little, things around us

2010-03-12T23:24:00.001-08:00

I recently played a little bit of a tour guide from a couple from D.C., who are members in a D.C. Flickr group, (kinda like the Seattle Flickr group). They joined the Seattle Flickr group for an outing to the EMP to see the Taking Aim photo exhibit, and the next day, I took them through the Fremont neighbourhood, the Center of the Universe. There are many days where I'm carrying what I affectionately refer as "the big dog" camera, i.e. the camera with fancy knobs and lots of megapixels. But I find it refreshing, and easier on my shoulder, if I carry something small and simple.

Friday I took the Canonet 28 for another spin, it's a very compact 35mm rangefinder. It's very simple, you can do some manual control with the camera, but it seems to work best in "Auto" mode, with the right light and film speed. The film I ran through it is Kodak BW400CN, this is black and white film that goes through colour processing, i.e. you can take it to just about any drugstore to have it processed. While this is convenient, the film sometimes has a tinge of colour in it, for some images I embrace that tint, and for others, I edit them to create a truer looking black and white image. The images below were edited via Lightroom/Photoshop.

This is my favourite little bench in Fremont, I have to take a picture of it almost every time I go to Fremont, and many times I've been able to create something a little different with those images.

Gasworks Park, which sits on Lake Union, with a view of downtown Seattle, including the Space Needle.

the beauty of early light

2010-03-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

I met up with a friend for a quasi impromptu stroll of Seattle Center on Monday. During our stroll Alex made a suggestion of catching some early light, on a lake. Being a fan of landscape photography, and having done a fair amount of landscapes over the years, I know that there are really only two times of day when the light can be rather magical: Dawn and Dusk. So it was an easy yes for me (even though I do like to sleep at 4AM!).

This morning I awoke around 4:00 AM, and we headed to the east side around 5:00 AM. We waited for the sunrise to catch up a little, then walked out with the tripod, to take a few snaps during the magical dawn. Now this being Seattle, and us having a backlash of winter like weather, the sky was overcast and moody, but there were breaks in the clouds, allowing us to catch a bit of the rising glow.

This image is straight out of camera, the only processing is the crop to square.

(ISO:100, 15 seconds @ f/5.6)

Addition to the Flora/Fauna series.

2010-03-03T23:01:00.000-08:00

Spring is catching on, I continue to embrace it. I met up with a friend today, for some "shop talk" about gear, lenses, and the things you can do with them, over Cutie Pie's (for me) and regular Cupcakes for her. What I like about Trophy's Cutie Pie's is that they are small, and many times there are at least a few flavours available, so if you can't choose one flavour you have options!

The sky was indecisive today, without a doubt, one minute there were these awesome white cotton-like clouds, then a sheet of overcast goodness. This can be challenging when you want to do some street photography or find a pretty flower or two.

I found a little success in this tree.

Utilising an 85mm f/1.8D lens on my D200, shooting wide open, I was able to capture interesting colours, depth and bokeh. I'm loving this lens and am truly looking forward to putting it to work on some portraiture in the next few weeks.

Early Spring

2010-03-02T01:52:00.001-08:00

The past couple of weeks have been rather wonderful in Seattle. Warming temperatures and blue skies have many of us ready to embrace spring.

I recently made an upgrade to my photographic arsenal, which now includes a lovely 85mm lens. I had the fortune of one of these beautiful days when the lens arrived, as I was anxious to take it for the proverbial spin.

Very pleased with my results!!

Cherry Blossoms in February:

More floral beauty:

Adventures in Night Photography

2010-02-24T02:16:00.000-08:00

One of the things that can be challenging as a photographer is night photography. There are many things to consider, the biggest one for me is safety, there is much truth to the safety in numbers thing. Since I've been in Seattle, I've made a few photographer friends who are also interested in night photography, and occasionally, can be convinced to get out and do some (sometimes it's the schedules that need convincing not the humans).

Last Thursday several of us met up at the Amgen Footbridge in the Interbay area, to catch the sunset and do some night photography on the bridge. The bridge is an interesting construct that is supposed to look like DNA (as I understand it), however when you're standing on it, the way the lines lead, totally mess with me!

We made it in time to catch some of the sunset, there's a park within walking distance of the bridge, but lots of the area is fenced off, so you have to walk around a bit to get to the park, being the organiser of the meetup, I didn't want to venture off until I knew everyone had made it. Therefore I captured this shot from the top of the bridge, as the sun lowered behind the mountains.

After the sun was gone, the sky was dark fast, but when you have a tripod, and a shutter release you can capture a really rich sky, in conjunction with bright city lights and moving cars:

If you look close enough you might even see the Space Needle :)

early spring and dock exploration

2010-02-21T00:21:00.000-08:00

Today was a monthly photostroll with the Seattle Flickrites Photo group. Many people were surprised to see an early start, as we normally stroll in the afternoons, but, today, some of us started as early as 7:00 am. At Fisherman's Terminal in the Ballard area, hopeful of a nice sunrise, cool reflections, interesting lines and angles. The day ended up being gorgeous, clear blue skies, warm sunrise, yet it was still rather chilly out!

My first shot of the day, via my ever loved iPhone:

Another early one, via my D200:

Another great day, with some cool peeps and some great images. Yay!

Running to Stand Still

2010-02-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

The past week or so I've been putting images together with songs. on Monday I went up to Mukilteo with a couple of friends to check out the little park near the ferry terminal, before a pub night with some other photographer types.

The image below is an image of the waterway between Mukilteo and Whidby Island. I'm not sure of the exact name, but I'm guessing is part of Puget Sound, it connects to Possession Sound in Everett. Regardless, when I took a look at images from Monday night, a verse from "Running to Stand Still" came into my head.

Here's the image:

Here are the lyrics:

Running to Stand Still - U2

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lying still
Said I gotta do something about where we're going
Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain
Maybe run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah la la la de day
Ah la la de day

Sweet the sin
Bitter, the taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
You know I took the poison from the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day

She runs through the streets with her eyes painted red
Under a black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway
She brings me white gold and pearls
Stolen from the sea she is raging, she is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand still

Lake View Cemetery

2010-02-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday (wow it's already been a week), I went to Lake View Cemetery in Capitol Hill with a few photographer friends. This is where Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee are buried, as well as city of Seattle founders. I took a few photos (imagine that!), along the way, but one of my faves doesn't include any headstones.

Overbearing clouds, threatening a downpour....

As those clouds threatened, we made our way over to Volunteer Park where there's a greenhouse. Immediately our cameras and lenses fogged, so we had to wait the drastic temperature out so we could take photos of the flowers, cacti and other greenery. Unless you're like me... I decided to be impatient and see what happens when you shoot with a fogged lens and camera...

Not bad, eh?

I also had my close-up filter set with me, so that I could do some macro like shots. Worked out rather nicely, no post processing, except my fave square crop. :)

Thanks!

a stroll on Sunday

2010-02-10T02:07:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was, what turned out to be, a good day for a photostroll. About 15-20 members of the Seattle Flickrites group, met up in Ballard, near the Ballard bridge, to stroll through the neighbourhood. The day started out, and stayed nice enough, overcast a bit, but it's winter in Seattle, what can ya do? :)

I've been borrowing a camera from one of the other members, kind of testing it out, to see if I like it, and I may buy it off of him. It's a 35mm rangefinder made by Canon, called a Canonet 28. The images below are a couple of my faves, from the stroll with the Canonet. I think I'll do a separate entry with some digital images (or you can see the entire set here). These were also shot with some expired Photoworks film (expired a couple of years ago, so the colours are a little funky, and in some cases I made them funkier with some creative post processing).

Cupcake Crazy

2010-02-07T20:40:00.000-08:00

Seattle, seems to have a ton of Cupcake palaces. :)

There are two major (meaning more than a few stores) in the Seattle area, plus a few others one-offs, which I've yet to check out. It's amazing to me, how popular the cupcake has become. I mean, who doesn't like cake, with yummy frosting, in a cute package (small package, in some cases bite sized!). I suppose a few out there aren't fans, but well, that means more for those of us who are!

I've done a few photostrolls in the past few weeks with friends, one in Wallingford, which ended at Trophy.

Red Velvet Cutie Pie, creme cheese frosting, super yummy goodness!

And another today in Ballard, which ended at Cupcake Royale.

Red Velvet Babycake with Pink Frosting and sprinkles, just in time for Valentine's Day.

Man it's a good thing we walk a few miles sometimes in these strolls, all for the prize of a cupcake! (And some cool photos!!).

(Both of these images were taken with an iPhone)

It is the little things ...

2010-02-07T02:23:00.000-08:00

Life can be simple, if we want it to be. It is very easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life, therefore I try to make a point, on many days, to take a moment and stop. In Seattle, there are lots of places to do this. So many great parks (I mention them all the time). Below are a couple of images from one of my faves, Golden Gardens, which includes a marina, a little bit of sand, and a pier you can fish off of.

where things come together ...

have a seat and enjoy the view ...

Photostrolling in the International District

2010-01-31T01:18:00.000-08:00

Film cameras. Train stations. the International District.

Exploration through the International District, via film, here are a few images from a recent photostroll. Taken with either my F5 or my N70. And with some expired colour film!

Long Live Film!! :)

And one iPhone shot, towards the end of the stroll.

I really do love trees...

2010-01-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, simple things say a lot ...

Golden Gardens ...

2010-01-29T01:32:00.001-08:00

I think this park has just about anything you could need, for a park. Water, beach, grass, trees, BBQ pits, mountain views, a pier you can fish on and even a marina. One of the things I love about Seattle, in general, is these great parks and the fact there's water and mountain views. Where I grew up, we were pretty much land locked. Yes, there are some lakes, but no bays, or larger bodies of water. So I truly appreciate having access to such views, so readily! :)

Last week a friend and I headed over to Golden Gardens, the day was amazing. Blue skies with those lovely white puffy clouds, so nice and a bit rare in winter in Seattle. Whenever I go to Golden Gardens, somehow I always take pictures of this one set of trees. They're tall and skinny (I wish I knew what kind they were!), they create these great shadows and lines. Since I love them so much, I'm always trying to look at them differently, I mean there are so many times you can take pictures of the same subject, right?

Below is perhaps one of my favourite shots yet, of these lovely trees.

I of course had to do a few iPhone shots, this is the best one, at the marina.

Polaroids: Mapplethorpe

2010-01-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

I finally made it to this exhibition at the Henry Gallery on the University of Washington campus. A few friends and I have talked about seeing the exhibit since we'd first heard about it, but never managed to make it. Totally worth a visit. There are ninety images, all taken on Polaroid film during the early 1970's.

For me this exhibition represents simplicity and beauty in simplicity. I try to appreciate the little things around me (most days) and not take things for granted, an ideal many days. Something I believe many of us strive for, or at least hope for. It's easy to get lost in the big things, technology and whatnot. So a show like this, with little prints, where the composition is compelling and the lighting is dramatic, is definitely worth a look, to take a moment to appreciate.

The exhibition is only open until the 31st of January, so, if you feel so inclined and would like to see some Monochromatic dye diffusion transfer prints (Polaroids), taken by an iconic artist, head over to the Henry! Time is running out!! :)

Self Portrait:
"Sleep, Sleep tonight, and may your dreams, be realised: (U2 - "MLK")

Camera: Holga (with Polaroid Back)
Film: Fuji 3000B (since Polaroid film isn't currently being made)

Bridge over Lake Union

2010-01-21T03:20:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to a Lightroom 2 overview. I met up with a friend, prior to the seminar to take some photos in the Fremont area, and get some coffee. It was surprisingly warm out yesterday, I mean, i didn't even had to wear a jacket, bizarre for January, but all you can do is enjoy it!

The sun is starting to go down later, but it's still pretty much dark by 5:00 or 5:15, as a result we didn't have tons of time to take pictures, but I captured this one. Taken along the Burke-Gilman trail, along Lake Union, from beneath the Aurora Bridge.

Taking a few of the tips I learned in the Lightroom seminar, I took this digital image with my D200, originally shot in colour and creating this rather moody black and white version. Granted, the overcast sky do help the mood, I just helped it along a little.

I'm really enjoying truly creating unique via these kinds of tools, it's a lot of fun!

experiments in shallow depth of field

2010-01-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

Over the years in my involvement in photography, I've dabbled in many arenas, from broad sweeping landscapes to quasi-traditional portraits and many, many things in between. Each of these paths require a different way of seeing and composing your image. Traditional landscapes generally call for a majority or as much as possible within the image being really clear. Where as something like a macro image of a flower calls for the opposite, a single area of focus and a great loss of detail in the background.

I find I like to experiment, in these experiments I tend to lean towards a somewhat extreme perception of "depth of field". I normally shoot with prime lenses, as a matter of fact, as of today I no longer own a zoom lens. This is either good or bad, but for what I do, work or play, right now it works. As a result, my prime lenses are what some refer to as "fast glass", i.e. super wide apertures which can create extremely shallow depths of field.

Recent explorations, in urban settings (and train stations) include a couple of the images below, I see a grouping of these beginning to form in mind, perhaps resulting in a series and who knows, one day another show.

I crossed the line they said not to

waiting

an iPhone photo a day

2010-01-15T23:32:00.000-08:00

Towards the end of 2009 I began toying with the idea of trying to do a 365 project. A photo day, every day for a year. In 2008, I started an "everyday" 365 project, the concept being a picture a day of whatever, in our lives, unfortunately didn't complete it. It's not that I wasn't taking a TON of pictures, I just some how feel out of the habit of shooting daily.

In mid 2009, I started on a different version of a 365 project called 365 Days, the concept with this project is to take a self portrait a day, everyday for a year. That's a LOT of self portraits!! :) I made it to about day 137, when some things came up in my personal life, which kind of took over my shooting space. On top of that, we were moving into fall, where you can't always shoot outside in this part of the world.

Here we are, 2010, and I'm going to try again! I know a lot of people who have iPhones, many of them are taking cool pictures with their iPhone, and I've totally been loving on mine since I acquired it last summer. I've been loving the retuls, the fun, and the over all lo-fi feel of the images I can create on the iPhone. And I'm only a little addicted to the various apps available. After seeing a couple of different groups on Flickr, focused on an iPhone image a day, I decided to go for it. I've joined both a Year in iPhone Pictures and iPhone 365 to participate in the ever growing community that is Flickr, as well to share the images with my Flickr friends.

I'm 15 days into the new year, and thus far, haven't missed a day!

Here are a couple of my faves so far, more can be seen here: 365 - iPhone

Day 7

Day 10

Darin Shuler - Artist

2010-01-14T03:36:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I had the opportunity to meet artist Darin Shuler, to photograph a few of his pieces for an upcoming show. Really nice guy, interesting pieces (will let the photos speak for themselves). His show is at Ursa Minor, in Madrona (Seattle, WA). The opening is tonight, Jan 14th. Check it out!

Good luck with the show!!

"Breaking Brain"

Dimensions: 71"x80"

"This and that and so"

Dimensions: 68"x71"