It's Begun!

This is a very exciting day for me. Remember that project idea I said I had a couple weeks ago? Today's photo represents the first concrete step forward in making it a reality. This is Bryan at the Sandpebble - a fun gift shop in Friday Harbor. He graciously agreed to allow me in to shoot photos of him and his store. I apologize I can't say more about it yet - need to have a few more days like today before I can unveil it. So.... there will be more on this soon, but for now... Waaahoooo! It's rolling!

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Kayak Droplets

Almost an abstract one for today. Not quite, but almost. This is the bottom of Shannon's kayak as it sits in our back yard on sawhorses, waiting to be sanded for a fresh coat of varnish. We had a bit of rain so the varnish will have to wait.

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The Landing

Here's another shot from last night's little excursion down to the waterfront. This time, looking away from that sunset toward Spring Street Landing.

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Port Sunset

I looked outside just before sunset and said, "Honey, let's run down to the port and shoot a photo!" Well, you know me - about 134 frames later, I came up with something. Luckily, she got a chocolate ice cream and rather than being bored and impatient with me, she said "No worries - I'm golden".

I'm pretty sure that's why photographers call it Golden Hour.

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Roche Harbor Resort

Roche Harbor Resort on Memorial Day Weekend. This was shot during the Colors ceremony - their daily retiring of the colors (taking the flags down) at sunset.

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Nut Brown

Mmmmmm mmmmm good! We discovered a new treat today at the grocery store. Red Hook Nut Brown Ale. It's one of Red Hook's seasonal brews. Good stuff to start the Summer off right. And another treat, Marketplace's own chicken bratwursts, boiled up in... can you guess?.... That's right - Red Hook Nut Brown Ale. What a glorious day!

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Wheelbarrow

It was a gorgeous day today and we're hoping for more of the same tomorrow so we can get outside and play in the backyard. We might be putting this old boy to work hauling some dirt around to make a raised-bed garden. Or we may just sit there on our patio and relax and think about hauling dirt around.

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Nighttime in the Neighborhood

The view from our driveway, long after sunset.

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Little White Flowers

OK, I thought this was Alyssum, but I just googled it and now I'm thinking not. Anyway - it looked kinda cool so I shot it.

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Project Idea

I was sitting there in my comfortable office chair thinking about business plans and marketing and fun stuff like that, when suddenly a light bulb turned on. I have a project in mind and I'll share it here on this blog as it begins to become a reality. Hopefully within the next couple three weeks or so...

Dandelion Sunset

A little bit of orange sunset sky dancing on the driveway with the dandelions. (with a little HDR thrown in for added drama).

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Bubbles

Filling the aquarium, the stream of water from the kitchen faucet makes a lot of bubbles.

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Another Splash

Here is another one I liked from the series I shot the other day. This time with a penny instead of a stone.

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Zoom

I had to wait for a while to get this shot, unlike the similar one last week in New York. For that one I just had to set up the tripod and shoot. There was plenty of traffic. But tonight, I had to wait a while for a car to come along with its lights on. That's life in our sleepy little town in the off season. Maybe it will change next week for the summer.

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Splash!

Strobes and water and a little flat stone.

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Half n Half

The Half & Half Splash. I messed around with strobes and splashes a few years ago (you may remember this shot if you followed my blog back then), and I thought I'd try it again. I'm gonna do some more this week too, but for now, this is the image for today.

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Elwha Arrives

This is the ferry Elwha coming into Friday Harbor.

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Birdhouse

Shannon put Cody's birdhouse up on our shed, oh maybe 2 years ago, and now we finally have a couple of birds raising a family in it. I sat in a lawn chair this afternoon with a pair of binoculars on a tripod and put my iPhone up to the binoculars and a got a few shots. Anyone know what kind of birds these are? Let me know in a comment -

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Dandelion

OK, I've been trying to think of a clever little tie-in to Mother's Day with this one, but I guess it ain't happening. The best I come up with is something about all those little seedlings riding off on the wind and it's not all that clever, so I'll just not go there. Instead, it's just a close-up of a weed.

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Locks of Love

Last week when we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, we saw a padlock on a cable. Then another on a bolt. Then another on a piece of metal. As we walked further, we kept seeing padlocks all over the place, and it took us a while to figure out what was going on, but finally Shannon noticed they were written on with permanent marker. Things like "Joe and Sarah - May, 2011", or "Shawn and Jennifer - 1/27/12", and so on. It seems we were seeing locks of love...

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Gig Night

We have a lot of gigs coming up. We'll be pretty busy this Summer. There might be quite a few more guitar-themed photos on this blog because of it. Tonight we were at the Rumor Mill. Next week, we're at Herb's.

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Ring

I was playing around with strobes and my macro lens with very narrow depth of field and I had a "mistake" shot similar to this - one where I had the aperture too wide open and I totally blew out all the detail in the photo, so I worked at it and finally got everything dialed in the way I had originally envisioned - but then I took a closer look at the mistake shot in Lightroom, and I noticed the how nice the wood grain looked in the reflection of the ring, so I threw out my original idea for the shot and went with this instead.

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When All Else Fails....

So when all else fails you gotta go with what you got. So all else failed and this is what I got today. I tried doing an HDR of this but it looks horrible, so I just grabbed the best one from the set and enhanced it a bit. Funny thing is, it looked pretty spectacular when I was shooting it.

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E. 51st St. and 2nd Avenue

OK, ok, I know - this photo was not shot today, but rather several days ago. I didn't do a photo today. Why? You want excuses - I got all kinds... I was getting caught up. I was suffering Jet Lag. I had lots to do. I was tired. The inspiration never set in. Shall I keep going? (I did mow the lawn though). Anyway, this was shot on our last evening in New York, not one block from our apartment. The corner of East 51st Street and 2nd Avenue. Kind of a cool corner, because every morning when we would set out for our day's adventures, this was the intersection where it all began.

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Travel

As much fun as it is to travel, man it sure can wear you out. Enough so that I didn't shoot a photo today. (Well at least not one worth posting anyway). This was shot on the flight back to Seattle yesterday.

The Big Apple

Wow a week goes by quick when you're having fun, huh? Well we're on our way home now and looking back on a great time in New York City. So much to do, we didn't get to everything we would have liked to, but we did hit the main things on our lists.
My favorite thing about the whole trip was the mass transit. Public transit. The busses and the subway rocked! Never a long wait for a ride, they're dependable, get you where you want to go, easy to transfer to another connection and it just works. The subway was awesome. Reminded me of going all over Switzerland on the rail system. And all of this - 7 days of unlimited rides, for a $29.00 Metrocard! I love it. $29.00 and it's unlimited - the city is yours...
And one more thing - This was very nice. Contrary to the  popular belief I've always heard about, New Yorkers are NOT rude. In fact, they were anything but - Cheerful, helpful, talkative, ready to offer travel tips, advice, you name it - They were very, very cool. Maybe even more so than I've experienced in Seattle. Anyway, it was a great trip and we are taking great memories home with us.

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Little League on the Hudson

Today we decided to check out the west side of Manhattan after a quick jaunt on the Roosevelt Island Tram (on the east side), (which we got on by just swiping our MTA cards). (Gotta love those things). Anyway, after that a quick bus ride to the west side and a great lunch at the Boat Basin Cafe, followed by a stroll along Riverside Park only to find out the bike rental place was closed. But what a great park! Kids playing little league in the shadow of an old abandoned elevated freeway, and lots of cool stuff to look at on the waterfront too.

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East Waterway

That's the bridge we walked across yesterday and tonight we went down to get a night shot of it and lower Manhattan. And again, too many shots to pick just one, so here's a couple more. The night shots are from Brooklyn Bridge Park and the cute little fuzzy things were shot in Central Park.

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Brooklyn Bridge

It was kind of a grey, rainy day today so I didn't get many decent photos. But we had a great lunch at a deli near the WTC site (that philly cheesesteak was one of the highlights of my day). Then we walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and I shot this on the way across. Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

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Bethesda Terrace

We explored part of Central Park today and saw the hawk Pale Male and his nest. After that we walked over to Loeb Boathouse and Bethesda Terrace & Fountain. What a beautiful peaceful place in the middle of all that metropolis! On the way back for the night we passed St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th Avenue and East 50th St. and I just had to peek inside. So again today, I couldn't pick just one photo.

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