As a follow up to my last post of daffodils in full bloom, we came back to the valley a few weeks after that visit to see the tulips in full bloom. These flower fields are located in the Skagit Valley just west of Mt. Vernon, Washington (north of Seattle). Skagit Valley is a fertile farming valley that typically has field upon field in full bloom with daffodils and then a few weeks later tulips this time of year. I’m sharing some of my captures from this year as the fields were more robust than last year (heavy rains last year damaged many fields in this river valley).
The following captures give you a perspective of just how large these fields of flowers are.
Capture 1Capture 2
You are allowed to walk around these fields along designated paths between the rows of flowers, which of course is what I did. I then took some captures more close-up of some of the different rows of colorful blooms.
Capture 3Capture 4Capture 5Capture 6Capture 7
And I finish this post with some of the arrangements they have planted as landscaping when you first come into the property.
Capture 8Capture 9Capture 10
(My next post will be slightly delayed as I am traveling to Italy with my youngest daughter, but that should lead to some interesting posts going forward!!)
Thoughts? As I have said before, everyone reacts to visual art techniques and looks differently, so I am not in the least offended by opinions.
It’s that time of year again for the flower fields to be in full bloom. In this post I’m showcasing the fields of blooming daffodils. My next post will revisit the tulip fields in bloom similar to last years visit to Tulip Town. The flower fields are located in the Skagit Valley just west of Mt. Vernon, Washington (north of Seattle). Skagit Valley is a fertile farming valley that typically has field upon field in full bloom with daffodils and a few weeks later tulips this time of year. A few weeks back, we had a sunny day (after numerous days of rain), so my wife and I decided to take advantage of the sunshine by visiting the valley to see the daffodils in full bloom. These fields bloom before the tulip fields, so we also made a return trip a few weeks later to catch the tulips. We weren’t disappointed with the beauty of fields of daffodils in full bloom and many other fields just starting to bloom. In all candor with or without the blooms, the valley is beautiful all by itself. I have attached five captures from our time there. Enjoy!!
Hockey anyone?? I go from digital art styles to hockey in this post? Hello, Kirt…what’s up? Let me start back in 1962 (ok I was a young pup back then, but hang on…) when the worlds fair was here in Seattle…thus the infamous Space Needle and the surrounding area became the site of that event. As part of the fair, an indoor arena was built and after the worlds fair, the arena was taken over by the city to house entertainment venues. Ok, let’s fast forward to 2018 when the arena was being deconstructed down to the bones and being re-built primarily to house the new hockey team coming to Seattle. During that process my wife and I were lucky enough to get an on-site tour by our son-in-law of the facility as it was being re-constructed. He works for a large commercial construction company that was very involved in the re-building of the stadium. It was literally bare bones with the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system being installed. You rarely get to see that type of a structure in that status up close and personal. We found it very fascinating and surreal.
OK, the purpose of the re-construction was to create a home for the new hockey team. The new team is called the Kraken (The team’s name comes from the mythical kraken of Scandinavian folklore and its resemblance to the native giant Pacific octopus, which is found in the waters of the Puget Sound, near Seattle). Ok, now we are in the present time frame and after having moved up here, we were anxious to go to a Kraken game and see the finished arena. We had that opportunity a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to share some captures of the new arena now called Climate Pledge Arena. When we entered the arena with our son-in-law and daughter for the game that night our minds were blown away. The name of the arena is a serious commitment as is apparent with the photos.
This part of the arena has a “live wall” to support the “Climate Pledge”.
This wasn’t anything I ever expected to see in an indoor arena.
And of course I must share the actual hockey arena when we went to our seats to watch the game.
The sepia tone in photography creates an old look to any capture and in todays world of digital art and processing it’s easy to do. I chose four captures to share this week. They are all barns, one in Oregon and the other three in Iowa. I’ll start with the Oregon Barn…
I was doing a photo shoot of covered bridges in Oregon off the beaten path when I came across this barn. I loved the setting and the architectural appeal of this barn. To add to that “old…historic” look, I created some subtle texture to the photo to recreate the type of paper that it could have been printed on back in the day.
The next series of barns takes us to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and barns south of the city with one exception….
This particular barn was in the South East quadrant of the city just off a busy highway and up against new housing construction. I really liked the look of it and had to stop the car, pull over and hike back to it for this shot. I was anxious to make this in the sepia tone as it was truly old and probably isn’t standing anymore. I also added the textured photo paper look.
The next two were located south of Cedar Rapids in typical farm settings.
My wife and I were Los Angeles a few weeks ago visiting our middle daughter, her husband and two of our grandchildren. They live in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles which bumps up to Griffith Park. If you are not familiar with Griffith Park, it was created in 1896 and is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. It is home to the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the American West, the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign. Along with that, golf courses, picnic areas and hiking. It encompasses the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, which provides some awesome trails to hike or horse back ride. The trails are wide and take you up into the mountains with stunning views. For more details: Wikipedia
So onto the hiking part. I have hiked some of the lower trails with my grandchildren (4 & 6), but those are the ones that follow the valleys and are close to their home. Having said that, I have always wanted to hike up the other trails, but they are too much for the kids. I had an afternoon open while they were both in school and did a spur of the moment thing and took off hiking. I did not take my camera and all of the shots in this post were from my cell phone (just wanted to make that disclaimer).
The first capture is the first picture I took (I hadn’t even thought about taking pictures when I left, but as I got higher up the trail…….). This capture is looking down at where I started. The green lawn with the building in the middle is one of the golf courses and is close to where I started the hike. On the right side of the picture, you can see the trail as it starts to wind up the mountain.
The next capture brings into perspective the trail I had hiked. This particular morning had been foggy, but it burned off about an hour before I started. I add this to let you know that the buildings in the background is downtown LA and that isn’t smog, but remnants of the fog. I also mention it because you will see a completely different look to the sky when I get to the top and show you the other side of these mountains.
You see the trail as it climbs up in elevation.
The next shot is still following the trail I had hiked to get to this point.
You can see how it follows the terrain…..
This capture brings you up to where I had stopped to take these shots. Notice the width of the trail. It almost looks like a road, but again it handles horse back riding and pedestrian hikers.
I took this shot at the top and it looks back to the Santa Monica Mountains that form the park and go all the way west to the ocean dividing the Los Angeles Basin from the San Fernando Valley.
Turning around from the shot above is the top I hiked to. What you are now seeing is the city of Glendale which lies at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in between Burbank and Pasadena.
This shot shows one of the golf courses that bumps up to Interstate 5 heading north into Burbank. This is literally where the LA Basin winds around the end of the Santa Monica Mountains and feeds into the San Fernando Valley.
There is still that haze in the air, but notice in these last two shots, clouds developing over the mountains. They turned into afternoon showers in the San Fernando Valley later in the day
Thoughts? As I have said before, everyone reacts to visual art techniques and looks differently, so I am not in the least offended by opinions.
I thought it might be interesting to see the process I typically go through on a photo shoot. I start with the fact that most of my photo shoots are spontaneous and not necessarily pre-planned. Having said that I do take my 35mm camera with me as a “just in case” on most “outings”. A great example of this was done last month when my wife and I asked our oldest daughter if she wanted to go over to Whidbey Island for the day! Whidbey is right across the sound from where we live and is accessible via ferry from Mukilteo (10 minutes from our home) or via a long bridge on the north end of the island (about an hour drive from our home). We did the bridge going over and then drove the length of the island taking the ferry home. One of the stops we made was Fort Casey (more info here) which is a fort constructed in the late 1800’s and used during WW1 and WW2. Within the park is Admiralty Head Lighthouse, which our daughter had never seen. I did a photo shoot of it years ago and thought I would do another one to see if I got anything different or better than the prior shoot. Having said all of that, I thought it would be interesting to see how I handle spontaneous shoots. I have attached 6 captures highlighting the process.
The first capture is looking across the field from the fort towards the lighthouse.
Admiralty Head 1
The next picture shows the same capture, but edited to straighten the shot up and focus on the subject matter.
Admiralty Head 2
I wanted to replace the current black and white capture I had of this lighthouse on my gallery website, so the next image is the same cropped shot in black and white.
So you can see how I compensate for “crooked shots” and other aspects to arrive at the final product.
Another great example is the next set of shots. I had done a series of captures walking around the lighthouse and thought the next set would be a unique framing of the lighthouse.
Admiralty Head 4
Apparently I stand crooked and you can see my wife and daughter patiently waiting for me. The next shot is the cropped version.
Admiralty Head 5
And then the B&W version:
Admiralty Head 6
Thoughts? As I have said before, everyone reacts to visual art techniques and looks differently, so I am not in the least offended by opinions.
The attached prints are of a cabin in the woods near North Bend, Washington. North Bend is nestled in a valley of the Cascade Mountain Range east of Seattle. I found this scene when I was hiking along the river that runs through the valley. I immediately saw it as a sepia print. I used a sepia tone finish on the photograph for that old rustic look. The sepia brown tones originated with film photography as part of the process to develop the prints in the 1800’s. Today, we can recreate that same vintage look digitally. And speaking of digitally, I added the red color on both prints to create an accent point in both pictures.
As a follow up to a post I did on January 4, 2015, I am celebrating my all time top selling print which is the Griffith Park Observatory with downtown Los Angeles in the background. On the original post, I was asking for input (Griffith Park Observatory in Black and White) on which prints were favored so I could narrow it down to a few to post in my art gallery. I featured six captures I had narrowed down from a series of them. The three captures I ended up posting in my gallery were #1, #4 & #6 now known as Griffith Observatory and Downtown Los Angeles, Open For The Telescope and Observatory In Art Deco. I thought it would be interesting to see what the vote was from the original post. Number 1 received the most votes with #4 coming in second. #6 didn’t receive votes, but it struck me as a nice compliment to the other two to finish out the series. All in all, all three of the ones I picked have done well, but #1 has blown the roof off.
My wife, our oldest daughter and myself did a day trip over to Whidbey Island last week (Whidbey is just “off shore” in the Puget Sound north of downtown Seattle, but literally just west of where we live in the northern suburbs of Seattle). It doesn’t matter where we go, I always have my camera ready as you never know what you will see that hits you as a photo opportunity. One of those opportunities occurred right after lunch and just before we were going to catch the ferry back to the mainland. We had stopped at a nice outdoor restaurant for lunch and next door to it was a massive nursery with tons of flowers and plants. It caught my wife and daughters eye, so after lunch we ventured over to check it out. As the three of us ventured around the nursery, we came across some stunning Dahlia plants with very (and I mean at least 12 inches/30.48 centimeters) large blooms. The photographer in me immediately went to work on capturing the largest blooms, framing those and then taking another shot as a macro close-up. I have attached eight captures of four different blooms.
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