December 30th - Reflections in a Mud Puddle

Walking home from town today the sky cleared up for a bit and I saw the sky and trees as I looked down.
1/200th sec. f/7.1 iso 400

December 29th - Guitarheads

The guitars actually let me take their photo without the kids!

(yes - I'm running out of ideas....)

1/250th sec. f/11 iso 200

December 28th - Kids

My kids actually let me take a photo of them without their guitars.
1/250th sec. f/11 iso 200

December 27th - Another Birthday

Once again it's birthday time. This time it's Courtney's 15th! My how time flies. It doesn't seem all that long ago she was a brand new baby. But she'll always be my baby. Happy Birthday Corts!
1/6th sec. f/4.5 iso 800

December 26th - Did Someone Say 50?

It's another "50" day today. Happy Birthday Lance! Hoping you had a great day!
1/10th sec. f/4.2 iso 800

December 25th - Lens Envy

Eric and Lance have recently posted videos showing how they achieve some cool results in-camera with some pretty simple materials. Not wanting to be outdone, I too have now made a video. However, I don't have the right lens for it so to compensate, I need to make a much more precise cutout in my paper, something which is difficult to achieve with ordinary run of the mill hobby tools.

December 24th - Briggs Lake

We had lunch today with my folks followed by a nice walk up to Briggs Lake. It was a beautiful day to be outside with not a breath of wind on the lake.
1/125th sec. f/5.6 iso 200

December 23rd - Chocolates

Shannon got these from a co-worker whose boyfriend has a business on Lopez Island making chocolates. Check out Orpheus Chocolates if you'd like to see more. They look delicious but we're not dipping in til Christmas.
1/80th sec. f/8 iso 200

December 22nd - Bokeh Bandwagon Not

My original plan for today's post was to jump on the bandwagon and do a photo like Eric or Lance. But I didn't have much luck. I'm thinking I need a wider aperture lens, or more precise cuts than I can do with a utility knife and my limited amount of patience. So maybe some time in the near future I'll do better, but for now, it's just Shannon and me with a nice quiet evening at home, and a few somewhat out of focus Christmas lights in the background.
1/10th sec. f/7 iso 200

December 21st - Winter Solstice

This is a piece of hanging stained glass art that Shannon's sister Marnie made for us as a wedding gift. I'm not showing the entire thing here (it has chains hanging down with more pieces of colored glass) but rather I'm showing the top part with a strobe illuminating it from behind. Today is our 6 month Anniversary so I thought I'd do a photo fitting the occasion.
1/250th sec. f/11 iso 200

December 20th - Family Portrait

It's family portrait time again! Had a great time doing these shots even though I forgot my tripod! (note to self: remember that checklist you made...? Use it next time, will ya?) Luckily these guys were very forgiving and we got some great shots without the tripod. Even the dog had fun.
1/125th sec. f/5.0 iso 200

December 19th - Chocolate Mouse

Oh I love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on they tiny feet

1/160th sec. f/6.3 iso 400

December 18th - Refinery Redux

Thinking about it after last night's post, I thought I'd try to get a daylight shot today, and sure enough as I pulled into work at my client's office, I saw a pretty nice sunrise, so I got some shots of it. But then, driving home tonight, I saw the refinery lights reflecting on the bay and I thought one more night shot wouldn't hurt. This looks much better than my sunrise from this morning.
13 sec. f/18 iso 100

December 17th - Lights Again

Here's another nighttime photo. It can be kind of diffu- diffa- hard to get a daytime shot this time of year. These are the holiday decorations at a park in downtown Kent.
6 sec. f/22 iso 200
(that diffu - diffa - hard thing there was from a Dennis the Menace comic book back in the 70's. Thanks Hank! To this day I still chuckle remembering things out of that book...)

December 16th - Seattle Skyline

- Note: - If you had trouble with this image earlier, try hitting your Reload or Refresh button on your browser. I've fixed it now. Thanks -

I've been wanting to do a shot like this for a long time, and I finally found a great location for it. I shot this on my way to the hotel tonight. I'd like to try again a little earlier in the evening before it gets quite this dark. So now that I have the right location, the right timing will be my next goal. (FYI - that's a jetliner headed for Seatac Airport flying over the Space Needle)
6 sec. f/9 iso 200

December 15th - More Portraits

These are the 2 children of a wonderful family I had a portrait session with. Sometimes they can be quite a handful when they're this young but we got some great shots I think. This is one of my favorites.
1/125th sec. f/7.1 iso 200

December 14th - Not Much to Look At

It doesn't look too good from the outside, but it sure feels a lot better on the inside! Holy cow what a difference this little project made on the temperature in the garage. Now the little space heater doesn't run constantly, and it's actually quite pleasant in there. And yes it was pleasant a few days ago too while still freezing outside and before I put the final boards up.
(oh and because it is not much to look at, and it was shot on such a gray day, I went ahead and messed with the color and saturation in photoshop to make the image a little more interesting)
1/125th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

December 13th - Alleyway

We had our 3rd photo club meeting today down at the Naked Bean coffee house. As I was leaving, I went to unleash the dog and I saw this view down the alley and something struck me about it (maybe the perspective?) so I shot a few frames. One thing I would do to improve this if I remember next time is, move to the right about one step so the line on the tile looks vertical in the photo.
1/125th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

December 11th - Framing

It's been pretty freaking c-c-cold out lately... And in! The boys room is now the garage and it's not insulated very well with the drafts coming from that garage door. So we decided to do something about that today... This is Cody helping me frame it in.
1/80th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

December 10th - Spring Street

This is our town late in the evening after everyone has gone home. And well with holiday decorations too. It doesn't always look like this.
5 sec. f/16 iso 400

December 9th - Chester is Safe

We figure Chester is probably safe now - at least for the Winter. Next Spring we'll probably get the kayaks down, and then he'll need to be careful again.
0.6 sec. f/3.5 iso 200

December 8th - Orion

It's that time of year again. Orion, The Pleiades, Taurus. I always remember my astronomy class at Western Washington University when I see Orion. One of my favorite college classes.
2 sec. f/1.4 iso 800

December 7th - Holiday Lights

This is one of the contestants in our town's holiday decorating contest.
3 sec. f/16 iso 400

December 6th - Holidays

This is the same place but shot at a different time of night with different settings and closer viewpoint
6 sec. f/22 iso 400

December 2nd - Chester in the Sun

The sun was shining through the kitchen window this afternoon and when Chester walked through our dimly lit hallway I just had to get a photo of him. Of course, by the time I grabbed the camera he had moved, and then, well if you've ever tried to get a dog to "stand like you were a minute ago"...you'd understand. Anyway, this came out pretty good but I wish I'd had the camera when I first saw him there. I also wish I would have had something for some fill light, but I wanted to get this before the sun moved too much.
1/640th sec. f/1.4 iso 200

December 1st - Moonrise

A friend of mine asked me to go shoot the moon for him today so off I went to see what I could do. I borrowed a camera with a 200mm lens because my 105mm doesn't quite pull it in (although as it turned out, I could have done this shot with mine). I was using a borrowed Canon which I'm unfamiliar with. When I got there I was surprised at how cold it was outside. So being very cold and unable to make the camera do a few things I wanted it to, I fired away for a few minutes before giving up and jumping in the car and cranking the heat. This photo is processed a bit in photoshop to bring out the color of the sky (but not too much) and also includes a 2nd shot of the moon at a better exposure showing more detail. The original moon in this one was a solid white area with all the features blown out.
Main photo - 1/60th sec. f/5.6 iso 400
Moon photo - 1/500th sec. f/8 iso 400 (This is what I needed the borrowed lens for)

November 30th - Berries and Droplets

I went and caught myself a head cold last week sometime, and it's been pretty miserable but I think today I'm finally starting to feel better. Anyhow, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it as to why I didn't post a picture (AGAIN!) for yesterday. However, I did manage to shoot a picture yesterday, I just never got around to posting. It poured rain in the morning and then the sun came out briefly and I saw all these drops of water hanging on the bushes over the back fence so that's what you're seeing here.
1/640th sec. f/4.5 iso 200