September 30th - Fall Leaves

Maple trees with leaves turning their Fall colors. These are the trees by the upper parking lot out at Roche Harbor.
1/125th sec. f/4.5 iso 400

September 29th - Falling Leaves

Well this image finally turned out kind of how I envisioned it... I was dropping leaves in front of the camera with a gridded strobe overhead, but try as I might I couldn't get a good grouping of leaves falling in the frame. They kept spreading out too much. So finally I just said heck with it, I need some sleep - I'll get Photoshop to help me out...
1/200th sec. f/16 iso 200

September 28th - Barbeque Weather?

OK, well I missed a post yesterday, AGAIN. So this rain was actually today, the 29th. But either way, it doesn't look much like BBQ weather. And I'm thinking maybe our late summer is finally going away and we're heading for Fall.
1/80th sec. f/4.5 iso 200

September 27th - Neon

This week's theme is "Neon". Thanks Lance! I had kinda wanted to shoot some neon when I was in Seattle, and then again in Anacortes, but never made time for it, so I was a bit apprehensive, wondering where I would find any neon in this sleepy little seaside hamlet, but lo and behold, there's neon here! I actually saw about 6 signs like this when I looped through town tonight.
1/60th sec. f/5.6 iso 400

September 26th - Oyster Run

It's Oyster Run weekend in Anacortes, which means lots of Harleys. It's a pretty spectacular event - I wish I could be there Saturday or Sunday to just walk around a gawk at all the chrome. I wouldn't want to have to drive around though. Traffic gets pretty heavy. This photo was shot Friday night - I kinda missed Saturday's photo so I'm posting this instead...
0.3 sec. f/4 iso 1600

September 25th - The Star Bar

Coming home from a business trip and missing the ferry isn't necessarily a bad thing. I hooked up with Shannon who had attended an employee meeting at the hospital and we went to the Star Bar for dinner and enjoyed hearing a great blues band - The Chris Eger Band out of Mt. Vernon, WA. Check out their myspace page and you can hear some of their music.
0.6 sec. f/4 iso 1600

September 24th - Sweet Suite

When I travel, I like to find comfortable, affordable, quiet hotels (which, it's difficult to find one place with all 3 of those things), and for extended business trips it's always nice to find one with a kitchenette or at least a microwave oven and mini fridge. I scored this time. This suite is like an apartment! And for a reasonable price too - especially when you consider how much I'm saving by eating meals here instead of at restaurants.
1/10th sec. f/4 iso 400

September 23rd - Space Needle

I'm on the road again for a couple days, working with a client near Seattle shooting some photos. On my way down tonight, I swung through downtown and got a few shots of Seattle's famous landmark.
0.6 sec. f/3.8 iso 200

September 22nd - Last Light

I happened to look out the back window just as the sun was about to set and was impressed with how nice this somewhat ugly plant looked in that last warm light of the day. Most of the year this thing is just ugly green leafy things and even when it blooms in the fall It's nothing special (or at least I never thought so before), but tonight it sure looked nice.
1/125th sec. f/4 iso 200

September 21st - Exoskeleton

I found this poor little guy dead on the kitchen floor so I thought I'd do another bug close-up photo. In wondering what to name today's post I found this interesting little tidbit out there on the web (under "encyclopedia").
1/250th sec. f/16 iso 200

September 20th - Crab Pots

Today's theme is Rule of Thirds. I was at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes on my way home tonight and saw this stack of crab pots illuminated by a street light (dock light?) just after sunset. I put them in the left 1/3 of the frame and then played around with the image in Lightroom. The orange floats really "glowed" under the dock light and I wanted to emphasize that here against a somewhat colorless sunset sky so I muted all the other colors.
1/15th sec. f/3.5 iso 800

September 19th - Jet Lights

I'm posting this shot a day late. And because I didn't actually shoot a photo yesterday, I just went ahead and picked one out from a couple months ago that I kinda wanted to post on the day it was shot, but chose a different one instead. This is a long exposure of a jet flying overhead. I want to do a better job on a shot like this so I might go try it near the airport sometime.
13 sec. f/16 iso 200

September 18th - Watercolor

This was TJ's inspiration although it didn't come out exactly as he envisioned it. We'll need to work some more on it. (hehe- he said "moron"). Anyway, this is the kitchen faucet pouring on the stainless steel double sink (that's the divider between them), and the water droplets are frozen with 2 strobes - one with a red gel, and one with blue.
1/250th sec. f/8 iso 200

September 17th - Spider on the Ceiling

Sure are a lot of spiders around this time of year. Especially outside. We have webs all over the place. I wanted to get one this morning with dew on it, but couldn't find a good enough one. Maybe in the coming weeks... Anyway, tonight I saw this guy on the ceiling so I thought I'd get a close up with my macro lens. At first I used the on-camera strobe, but his shadow was so vivid it was hard to tell where the spider left off and the shadow began, so I pulled out my 42" shoot-thru umbrella to soften the light a bit. Now you can't see his shadow at all... just kinda looks like he's floating there.
1/250th sec. f/9 iso 200

September 16th - Pachyderm

Shannon got this ornament from a good friend last year. I saw it on the shelf and thought maybe I could get a decent photo of it, so here's my photo for today. This is Ellie the Elephant.
1/250th sec. f/18 iso 200 Shot inside light tent with 3 strobes - top, right and left

September 15th - Speaker Housing

Another busy day in paradise. I got to the end of the day and realized I hadn't yet shot a photo for today. I snapped a few things around the house and settled on this. It's the top of an alarm clock and this is where the sound blares out when it's time to get up.
1/8th sec. f/3.5 iso 800

September 14th - Raleigh

This bike was in the yard when Shannon's friend bought her house. It's just been sitting there for almost a year. Her friend let Shannon take it so now she has a project bike - one to fix up and make it rideable again. It's going to take some work, but it will be a classic when she's done!
1/40th sec. f/4 iso 200

September 13th - Emotion

Our theme this week (which you may have noticed we got away from themes for quite a while there) is "Emotion". Shannon and I spent the day kayaking around our favorite kayaking place - Sucia Island. The weather was awesome and the crowds weren't too bad. Although we were surprised at how many people were there after Labor Day. Anyway, this is a happy Shannon here, viewed through the forward grab hole on my kayak.
1/160th sec. f/6.3 iso 100

September 12th - Spiral Log

I've seen trees up high in the mountains with a spiral growth pattern and always wondered what causes that. Here's a huge log we found on the beach and it has quite a spiral pattern as well. Anyone know what causes that?
1/320th sec. f/9 iso 100

September 11th - Going Away

Shannon and I took the boat for the weekend, just the 2 of us. We got a late start and saw the sunset over Waldron Island.
1/60th sec. f/4 iso 100

September 10th - Pencils

I just laid these down and shot them and then wondered what to write about. I googled "pencil" and came across this - a band I really like and I didn't realize they had a video. Pencil Fight by Atomship.
1/250th sec. f/11 iso 100

September 9th - 09:09:09 09/09/09

Here's a departure from photography for one day's image. Unless you consider a computer screenshot photography. This is a significant number event in some circles. Read more here.
Oh and if you're a person who blows past the title of blog posts without reading them, look at the title of this post. Then it might make more sense...

September 8th - Tamper-Resistant Torx

This is an example of one of the types of tools I photograph professionally for a big client of mine. I don't normally get in this close unless it's a detail shot being done in addition to a standard product shot. But for my blog I wanted to show the color and detail here. This is a gorgeous high-end screwdriver bit set with a quick-release bit holder.
1/250th sec. f/11 iso 100

September 7th - OOF

Christmas lights strung up in the garage, shot intentionally out-of-focus (OOF). I want to do this as a background for a portrait, but I need a willing victim volunteer to model for me.
1/20th sec. f/4.2 iso 800

September 6th - Water Bottle

Aluminum water bottle from Switzerland with the Swiss Railway System logo on it. One gridded strobe above pointing straight down, one strobe camera-right, and white foam core reflector camera-left
1/250th sec. f/18 iso 800

September 5th - Laptop Keyboard

This is the backlighting on Apple's Macbook Pro laptop. Looks kinda cool when the lights are dimmed.
1.3 sec. f/16 iso 800

September 4th - CFL 2

Last time I shot a CFL, it was lit entirely by external means. This time, I'm letting the thing do most of it's own light, with a couple of bare strobes off to the sides just to give a bit of definition to the base. This was inspired by Hotter Than...'s post.
1/250th sec. f/16 iso 200

September 3rd - Kill the Television

One of my favorite bumper stickers is "Kill Your Television". We only use our TV for rented movies because for us, most of the stuff on the tube is mind numbing garbage. (I just wish I could order a football channel and nothing else). But whatever - anyway, tonight we watched a movie and when it was over, I was thinking I need a photo for today; I turned the TV off and saw this familiar pattern that always flashes across the screen when we turn it off, so I thought I'd try to capture it....
1 sec. f/4 iso 400 - Shot at 50mm zoom

September 2nd - Harvest Moon

OK, well I'm not sure if it's a harvest moon or not. But it's almost a full moon. And it's about harvest time. And I thought those clouds looked cool.
1 sec. f/4.5 iso 800

September 1st - No Mutiny on This Bounty

Our friends went to Hawaii and we raided their garden. Actually, we're watering their garden while they're away and they said we could have some of the harvest, so this is our first pickin's. I don't even know what half of this stuff is, but they say it's edible.
1/250th sec. f/9 iso 400

August 31st - Foggy Morning

Time for a day trip to the mainland and the airport in Seattle. Good thing I took an earlier ferry because it was a bit late due to fog.
1/320th sec. f/9 iso 400