BetterPhotoJim

Recent Photography Around My Home

As I work from home today, wearing noise-cancelling headphones while my house gets pressure-washed, I can't help but feel grateful. This week has been a fantastic week for photography in the Pacific Northwest! Just what we photographers hope for - frequent showers, cloudy days, with the occasional dance of special light. I love it here.

Let me share a few photos with you. First, my favorite... a close up flower photo, shooting through the yellow of a sunflower. Although the iris are blooming (the tulips are almost all gone), I shot cut flowers from the store for this photo:

In a rare moment of clear skies, we had to decide between photographing the sunset from above the falls or photographing the falls illuminated by the final rays of the day. Boy, am I glad we opted for the latter. This last light colored the Salish Lodge perched above Snoqualmie Falls with such an amazing warm firelight glow. This is the second-fullest I have ever seen the falls. This is a beautiful place to photograph if you ever get a chance to visit this area east of Seattle.

And this final image was photographed in the first light of the day at a nearby golf course, before the traffic of the day started travelling through. No, I did not make those footprints (but I certainly would have, if the original passerby did not do it for me).

Have a great week photographing wherever you happen to live. Spring/Summer is a wonderful time to shoot. Drop me a line when you upload images to share :)

Thanks,
Jim

Recent Outting to Seattle

Hello friends,

Denise and I recently escaped to Seattle's Pike Place Market for an overnighter. It was fantastic! We feel like we discovered a new form of travel. Instead of spending 5-10 hours getting somewhere distant, we felt like we were "on vacation" as soon as we pulled out of the driveway. You can probably tell it's been a while since we felt able to get away.

We enjoyed photographing the Market and the surrounding Seattle city scenes. But a few of my favorite images are less about place than subject. They almost could have been captured anywhere. This first image is a "drive-by" - a view of clouds from the floating 520 bridge.

I love the simplicity and symbolism of this next image. It was a surprise to me at how well it turned out. We were shopping in a very cool store called Watson-Kennedy. The place was full of interesting things that one of the owner had discovered on his travels to England and France. I borrowed this key and placed it on their brick floor in the sunshine.

Finally, this is a backlit Orchid with the window of our hotel room in the background. Denise and I are already eager to do another local photo trip - maybe they will let us out of the asylum again in another couple of months! :)

Talk soon!

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Carnival in Venice, Italy © Jim Zuckerman

Colorful Ladybugs © Lewis Kemper

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More Photos From the Bike Trip

Just a couple more pictures today... Will write more as soon as I can. For now, I have to get back on the back and put some miles under my tires...

Sunrise in Port Angeles

Yesterday morning I rode down to the ferry terminal in Port Angeles and photographed some silhouettes as the sun rose. Gorgeous morning - well worth the 5am wake-up call.

First I did a self-portrait, setting the camera into the timer mode and cycling quickly to get into position. This took several ride-bys...

Capturing silhouettes like this is actually simple, as long as you can lock your exposure. If your camera allows you to point the camera at a particular area, press down a button to take and hold an exposure meter reading, and then recompose... you're in business. Meter off the sky, without including the sun itself and you should get a nice, rich black silhouette.

I also had fun experimenting with Bogen's Magic Arm. Bryan Peterson turned me on to this cool device a few years ago but this morning was the first time I actually tried it out. I had a blast. Mind you, these are my first attempts... I hope to capture a few more exciting images (with a dramatic, scenic background and a greater expression of motion) during the next three days of riding.

Wish me luck, if you believe in that sort of thing :)

A Few Friends I've Met When Cycle Touring

At the end of the second day, fellow cyclists (who knew I was into photography) had stopped ahead of me and flagged me down. They had spotted a family of sea otters on the shore. I had just enough time to switch my street zoom for a 75-300 telephoto.

Just after that I came up to this friend critter, a little less wild than the otters above...

After I asked the owner if I could take the Bijon's picture, the owner - who was from out of town like myself - said that "Pepe" had been getting a lot of attention. His picture was in the paper that day. Pepe had just won a blue ribbon at a local "Bijon Frise Bash".

On the Road Again

I am typing this as I sit in my tent, camped out on the lawn of a school in Port Angeles, Washington. I am here with 199 other cycling enthusiasts but I'll wager that I am one of the few who opted to drag along their laptop. I justified the extra weight with the fact that, as a digital photographer, a laptop provides the best way to offload images from my Compact Flash memory cards. I could use another portable storage device such as a Flashtrax, but I like the fact that the laptop offers additional uses - such as the ability to write this blog entry.

Of course, the downside (besides weight) is the fact that I must always be on the lookout for power. It's like I feed on electricity, always keeping an eye out for outlets to plug into. Right now I have 80% of my battery left, which gives me another 4 hours. As I will be more out in the boonies over the next three days, I plan to "stock up" on electricity at an internet cafe while I upload this blog entry.

We started our ride yesterday in Bellingham, which is just shy of the Canadian border. While most people camped out at the start line, my family and I stayed at Hotel Bellweather in the Waterfront district. This hotel has it's own dock and many guests boat in to spend the night. It also has one very expensive room with three levels in a mini lighthouse; it comes complete with a butler.

We opted for a "regular" room but even it was so nice that we decided to stay in and order room service for dinner. And whoa.. was it ever delicious. I felt like I was having my last meal before the execution - a slow torture over about 400 miles to the Oregon border. Hopefully the photos will be worth it. Here are a few from these first 147 miles:

I share more details and pictures next time...

East Meets West; Old Meets New

Mid way along the bike ride I mentioned last time, I came across this railcar. A friend suggested I prop my bike up against it. I love the result:

Which do you like better - the color or the sepia version?