November 30th - Saddened about what I saw last night

Well I think I figured out what the lights were that I saw last night (that was in my post yesterday). Judging by the map on this page, and the news story on this page, I'm guessing I saw flares that were part of an after-dark search and rescue operation for the victims of a crashed float plane on Saturna Island in Canada's Gulf Islands. I feel very humbled that my excitement and curiosity turned out to be something so tragic for the people on that plane and their families. My heart goes out to them...

November 29th - Speedo

OK, I thought that title might get your attention... Anyways. This post is not about the photo today. It's about those crazy lights in the sky to the north. Can anyone (locals) tell me what I saw way up north tonight from the ferry between 8:00 and 9:00? Looked like it must have been up Northwest of Waldron or maybe even the Gulf Islands. At first it looked like emergency flares from a boat (the kind with little parachutes) that drift slowly down, down, down... but they would have had to have been HUGE and way high altitude for that (given the apparent distance involved). Kinda orange-yellow in color, very bright... I remember seeing on a nautical chart years ago, some kind of military area up in Georgia Strait near Texada Island. I wonder if this was some kind of military exercise??? Anyway, if you can tell me what they were I'd sure appreciate it - my inquiring mind wants to know!

About the photo - This is our Toyota 4Runner. Shot this right when I got home. That's how many miles I drove today on the trip meter, and the odometer is how many miles the thing has driven all told....since the rollover. Yes, we rolled the odometer once already. This thing just keeps going. Gotta love Toyota.
1/5th sec. f/4.2 iso 400

November 28th - Chester the Splash

Whoops. Here it is Sunday and I missed a photo again. Been a busy weekend with family here and all and me not feeling too well with a head cold. Anyway, here's one more shot from the other day. Not to be outdone by Sheba, Chester splashed through a big puddle for the camera.
1/125th sec. f/5.6 iso 400

November 27th - Sheba the Streak

Here it is Saturday and I just realized I never did a photo for yesterday so this is from the walk the day before. This is Eric's family's dog Sheba one of the many times she streaked past.
1/20th sec. f/3.8 iso 400

November 26th - A Grand Day Out

After a good meal today the whole family went out for a nice walk in some nice clear November weather. The wind calmed and the rain gone, we had a great time. I shot 48 photos and this is the 48th one.
1/10th sec. f/4.5 iso 800

November 25th - Macbook Pro x 4

T'was the night before Thanksgiving and all through the house, nothing was stirring, because we forgot our mice and used the trackpads instead.
1/100th sec. f/1.4 iso 800

November 24th - Mt. Vernon Station

While waiting for the train this morning to take Shannon's dad to Portland, I wandered around taking snaps of whatever caught my eye. This one is the winner for today.
1/800th sec. f/1.4 iso 400

November 23rd - Les, Shannon and Cody

Les is going home tomorrow (well after a Thanksgiving in Portland) so we thought we'd try for a 3 generation family portrait. Luckily the rain let up for a bit and I was able to get these 3 to step outside for a few moments and we got this nice image of them.
1/200th sec. f/1.4 iso 400

November 22nd - Final Approach

"What's our vector Victor?" "One-niner-five, over" "Roger!" "Huh?"
1/1000th sec. f/1.4 iso 800

November 21st - Dining Room

Here's another room in the house for sale.
1/60th sec. f/8 iso 400

November 20th -Perspective

Not too many people on the late ferry tonight. Good chance for me to get a photo without bothering anyone. Snuck this one in at the last minute, right before we arrived at Friday Harbor.
1/40th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

November 19th - Overhead Walkway

This is the overhead pedestrian bridge at Kent Station. You can go up a few flights of stairs to get to it, or take an elevator. Or just walk over to where the street crosses the RR Tracks and use the crosswalk. But I think the overhead would be more fun. Probably a good place to watch a train go by.
1/4th sec. f/8 iso 400

November 18th - It's a coming...

...She's gonna blow...
...With the next shift of the tide...
Yep. It blew today. Gusts to sixty-five according to weather station at Smith Island. This was shot in the "protected" waters of San Juan Channel. That's Turn Rock Light in the foreground, and the South end of San Juan Island in the background. We ended up taking the storm route to Anacortes - over the North sides of Blakely and Cypress Islands. When I got to my hotel I checked the news and saw that they cancelled 2 ferry runs tonight because of high winds and heavy seas. My favorite part is when the whole ferry shakes and shudders when getting pummeled by the waves. Kinda puts things in perspective...
1/125th sec. f/1.4 iso 400

November 17th - The Living Room

I had a photo gig this afternoon shooting an interior of a home for sale. This is the living room. What a great house - I love that stained glass by the entry door! I'll be back shooting some more tomorrow.
1/4th sec. f/7.1 iso 200

November 16th - Old School

This was the state of the art when I studied graphic design back in the late 80's. With these markers, you could make fat lines OR thin lines! Way cool.

And I'm killing two birds with one stone again: 1- Getting a daily photo, and 2- Making another comparison with this 50mm prime lens I rented. I wanted to see the difference in sharpness between this lens and my 28-105mm zoom. This image is of 2 photos, one shot with my zoom lens layered over the other in photoshop with some holes in it so the layer below (shot with the rental lens) can show through. I don't see a whole lot of difference...
1/125th sec. f/16 iso 200

November 15th- The Facilities

OK, this is the 2nd time I've shot public restrooms at night. I promise I'm not stalking them or anything; I guess I like the lighting and the architecture. For today's post I would have preferred a good shot of my ferry ride home which was only a few hours after Eric shot this photo, but the best one I came up with didn't quite measure up to my high standards. So it's restrooms at night again...
1/30th sec. f/1.4 iso 400

November 14th - Drywall

I know this image isn't very interesting to anyone outside our family, but for us it's huge. We finally got this part of the project almost done and will now be able to put energy into other things. Very happy to have that insulation covered up!
1/5th sec. f/6.3 iso 400

November 13th - Depth of Field Comparison

I got a 50mm Prime lens from rentglass.com and thought I'd see how some real narrow D.O.F. compares with real wide D.O.F. The image on the left was shot at f/1.4, the one on the right stopped all the way down to f/16.
1/60th sec. f/1.4 iso 400 and 1/15th sec. f/16 iso 400

November 12th - Got Giant Leap?

Tonight's image is a classic example of it's late, I'm tired, and I need a photo for the day. This is another area of our remodel that could use a giant leap like yesterday. I'm hoping that this will be finished soon, but so was not the case today.
1/15th sec. f/4 iso 400

November 11th - Sawzall

Today our remodel project took a giant leap forward - (we won't be done until about 38 more giant leaps forward, but eh.. this was good today) anyway, today we got our new patio doors installed. We replaced a low quality sliding glass door with a beautiful set of French Doors that will open out onto the patio. This is one of the installers getting ready to make some more noise with his Sawzall. (Raw file 3.5 stops underexposed with photoshop)
1/60th sec. f/4 iso 400

November 10th - Sweet Seventeen

My son is 17 years old today. Happy Birthday TJ! Hope you're having a great day!
1/13th sec. f/4.2 iso 400

November 9th - The Ripple Effect

Kind of abstract image for today. This is the water down at the port docks. I had to turn the camera to fill the viewfinder with nothing but water. Otherwise the dock I was standing on was in the lower right of the frame. So - turned the camera, then bumped up the saturation and contrast with photoshop.
1/180th sec. f/7.1 iso 400

November 8th - Diver Down

Today was the 2nd meeting of our newly-forming photo club, and this time we actually got outside and did some shooting. It was a fun, informal group walking around taking pictures of stuff down at the port docks. I shot this one at the bottom of Spring Street, and somehow it was my favorite from this outing. If you're wondering why I titled it "Diver Down", click here.
1/350th sec. f/3.8 iso 400

November 7th - Rainbow

Good thing I went out in the rain this afternoon and shot a few attempts on this rainbow, because here it is 11:30 and this is all I got for today. I had to pump up the vibrance and saturation in Lightroom to get the rainbow to show up better.
1/500th sec. f/11 iso 200

November 6th - Kitchen Floor

We're in the slow process of remodeling (which, you may already know that if you've been following this blog), anyhow today we finally picked out some floor coverings we're going to order - tile for entryway and kitchen, and carpet to replace the old stuff. This is how our kitchen floor looks now. Nuthin' but a big slab of concrete. I'm gonna kinda miss it - this is about as low maintenance as you can get...
1/15th sec. f/3.5 iso 400

November 4th - Rain

Wind, rain and blue skies. (I'm posting this Friday morning - a little late for Thursday's post). Thursday it was windy as all get out. This morning I woke up to pouring down rain. The cats and dogs kind. So I shot a quick photo of a low area on our back patio, and now here I am posting it about 15 minutes later and I see blue skies out there. Go figure!
1/250th sec. f/4.5 iso 400

November 4th - Ring Around the Moon

I shot this earlier today. Like about 22 hours earlier. It was a little after midnight and I was getting some water from the kitchen and I saw the full moon shining into the room, so I looked outside and saw this huge ring around the moon. When I was a kid I remember someone saying that a ring around the moon meant snow the next day. But that didn't happen or I would have posted a snow picture instead...
2 sec. f/4 iso 400

November 3rd - Model Railroad

I did a shot similar to this one a while back in May, but this one has a new twist - This time I'm going to giveitaway-giveitaway-giveitaway-now... That's right, I'm getting rid of these boxes that have been laying around waiting for someday. Whoever wants some H.O. scale model railroad stuff, get ahold of me. (I'm in the phone book, or you can find me at the website link at top right on this blog page). I have 3 boxes of stuff: track, switches, rolling stock, locomotives, power packs, scenery stuff, buildings... First come, first served. But - you take one box, you take it all; No cherry picking.
And by the way, it's all FREE to a good home in case that part wasn't clear...

Photo of model 5 sec. f/16 iso 400 shot under tungsten room lamp. Superimposed over outdoor shot of Eastern Washington, using photoshop.

Nov 2nd - Billabong

Chester is doing much better. Thank you everyone for your concern and comments. He's going to have stitches for a while though, and without intervention he would probably tear them out with his teeth not knowing any better. All you gotta do is put something in between his mouth and his stitches. However, the "buckethead" thing he was wearing before was wreaking havoc on our house; he didn't seem to realize that he was suddenly quite a bit wider - and he didn't seem to care, so he's been scraping and banging and annoying, so Shannon came up with this much milder alternative. And it's hilarious because he doesn't seem to even be aware he's wearing a bag on his head!
1/125th sec. f/4.5 iso 200

Nov 1st - Contains: Peanut.

We like to read food labels in our household. Sometimes for our own edification and to make better dietary choices, and sometimes just for amusement. Today's photo is an example of the latter. I'm really glad it doesn't say: "Contains No Peanuts"... I've eaten a lot of these in my time and it would not sit well with me if that's what it said. Click on the photo to see what food this is...
1/125th sec. f/4.5 iso 100