This one is quick. A tree has broken and the trunk – not a very thick one – had not only broken but twisted as it fell. I was fascinated by the shape it took and the way in which the fibers of the wood had distorted as it fell over. It showed the inner structure of the tree in a vulnerable way which is obscured when the tree is intact.
On a previous visit to Haneda I ended up getting a photo of a Japanese Coast Guard Gulfstream. This time, the weather was not great so I ended up staying on the side which should be backlit but wasn’t since there wasn’t much light! A turboprop showed up on approach which I hadn’t noticed online and initially wasn’t bothered about. However, I shot it and it turned out to be a Japanese Coast Guard Dash 8. I was pretty pleased!
Drive south from Tofino and you come to the wonderfully named town of Ucluelet. There are some great trails near the town that take you around the coastline and one of them goes past a lighthouse. The Amphitrite Lighthouse is a great looking lighthouse. In the days of modern navigation techniques, the concept of lighthouses seems a little out of date but they still serve a purpose and they do provide a nice focal point to a view of a rocky coastline. The lighthouse was one of the first things to see on the trail we took and I should probably post some of the other views in another post at some point. In the meantime, here is the light to keep you going.
I shot this Singapore A350 landing at Haneda in January of 2020. When I was reviewing the shots, I saw something odd on the roof. At first I thought it was markings for rescue areas but it really didn’t look that good. I am wondering whether the original paint job was pretty shoddy and the paint is peeling off. It doesn’t look good to me.
The cable cars are a staple of the San Francisco tourist scene. I still grab the occasional shot of them, even having seen them more times than I can recall. As we were walking back one evening after a fun night out with friends, we crossed the street at Union Square as one was heading up Powell. I figured an evening shot was worth the effort.
I first saw the Douglas World Cruiser when Hayman and I were were skulking around Boeing Field prior to an ISAP symposium. The aircraft was being worked on by a restoration team and we chatted to them for a while. When I moved it up, it had moved too and now it lives at Renton. I have seen it plenty of times as it sits in its open ended hangar at Renton. However, it clearly is moved as, on a recent visit, the nose was pointing out of the hangar rather than in. It is not in a great place to shoot but a bit of live view and holding the camera above the wall and you can get a shot.
My wait at Boeing Field for the 777X coincided with some very changeable weather. The wind was strong and gusty for the whole time but what started out as wet and dreary gradually cleared up to be a sunny end to the day. I shot a couple of 737s as well as some corporate jets. When the 737 Max 7 test aircraft came in, it was absolutely hammering it down and the plane was pretty obscured by the rain. When a Max 8 on a test flight came in later, things had cleared up quite a bit. It wasn’t sunny at that point but there was a hint of light improvement which was making the green protective film shine a little more. By the time the 777X came in, the sun was out!
If you want to get from street level to the Salesforce Park, there is a more unusual method. A gondola runs from the ground up to the park level. We first came across it as we walked through the park and passed the top station. For some reason they only want you to use it in one direction so we watched the car come up and then moved on.
After we had come back downstairs, we checked out the base station. It was not a busy day so there wasn’t any form of line but there were customers taking the ride to the top. It was a simple device and slightly odd. The car was a box with no effort made to style it in an interesting way. However, it did provide a point of interest.
This 767 was parked right beneath me at the terminal in Haneda. The crew seemed busy at work fixing something on the wipers on the first officer’s windshield side. I watched them at work for a while before they seemed happy to have the jet fixed and ready to go on its next service.
When my buddy, Mark, was visiting, he wanted to get a little floatplane flying in and took me along for the ride. Kenmore Air have a ticket you can get for a ride along with the scheduled service. You don’t know exactly where you will be going but you will head out to the Gulf Islands and will be out for about three hours. Originally, they said we would stop off at Lake Union to pick up and drop off but that ultimately wasn’t needed although we do do a flyby as I covered in this post about the Space Needle.
The weather wasn’t too sunny which actually made for some smooth flying conditions. We were in a piston Beaver and probably never got above 1,000’ when transiting. Some of the sections were a bit below that which meant a great view of the scenery. We also saw some boats and they got a post here as well. We skirted passed some islands and over others as we made our way. Our first stop was Friday Harbor and the second was Deer Harbor.
There was a small airfield on one of the islands that we passed close by. A brief look down the runway as we crossed the center line but then it got harder to see. It was surrounded by trees so was hard to make out. These shots are a selection of those that I got as we made our way around the islands and across the bays and inlets. With spring coming, I think I might need to book another one of these trips.
