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Pre-Dawn Over Tahoe

Some work commitments meant I was unable to get out of Sacramento on Friday evening as I had originally planned. Instead I had to come home on the Saturday morning. A direct flight was available at 6:30am which, while it meant an early start, did mean I had a good chunk of the day left when I got home. It was still dark when we took off and headed east. The route home takes you just south of Lake Tahoe.

As we flew by, the sun had still not come up on the lake. One of the features of being at altitude is that you get sunrise before the ground below you. However, we did have some pre-dawn light on the lake and I managed to get some shots of it. It wouldn’t have been too long before the hardier skiers were out and about no doubt!

Napa

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A weekend break took is to Napa in the California wine country. This wasn’t a trip about wine (although a few glasses may have been consumed while we were there). Instead it was a chance to look around the area and enjoy some temperatures a little above those in Chicago in March!

Napa is a pretty little town on the whole. We had a good chance to wander around and to see some older buildings and some very attractive houses. The markets had great food and there were plenty of places to dine. A nice place for a weekend away and probably somewhere we shall explore further at some point.

Century Link Field

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Just south of the station in Seattle is the pair of sports fields that house some of the cities franchises. Century Link Field is the home of the Seattle Seahawks and the Sounders MLS team. Beyond that is Safeco Field where the Mariners play. I had a quick look at Century Link Field while I was passing. Since the season was over, everything was very quiet. The field was gated so I couldn’t go in. There may have been tours available but I wasn’t there with enough time to look around properly.

The field was quite open next to a large parking lot so getting a full view of it was not tricky. The evening light was very directional with the harsh shadows but it was still not too bad. I also climbed up the steps to peer inside. You could see a good portion of the ground but the light was again quite harsh. Below I also include an aerial view taken when I was coming in to Seattle.

Seattle Union Station

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The main station in Seattle is King Street Station. It is served by the Coaster commuter trains and the Cascades service that runs from Oregon up to Vancouver in British Columbia. What I didn’t know is that there used to be another station nearby. Union Station ceased to have rail service many years ago and deteriorated over time. However, as part of a redevelopment program in the area, the building has been restored and now is part of a larger development area.

Inside the station is a main hall that is really quite impressive. It does not appear to be terribly busy. A few office workers would transit through but a bunch of other people seemed to be hanging out inside since it was warmer than outside! I couldn’t resist taking a few shots and also had a go at a 360 pano to boot.

The One That Got Away

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No photo to show here. This is about one that didn’t happen. I was driving back towards the city just after sunset. The Kennedy Expressway runs east towards the city away from O’Hare for a while and the line of the freeway is the same as the approach path for one of O’Hare’s runways. As I drove down it, there was a line of aircraft on approach, each showing up with their landing lights on and with the closest aircraft showing clearly against the remnants of the light in the sky.

Add to this the enormous full moon that was almost perfectly in line with the planes and you had the sort of shot that you see online every once in a while and think how cool it looks and maybe it was faked. This wasn’t faked. however, my cameras were in the trunk and I was driving on the expressway so there was no way to get the shot. You will have to take my word for it. It was that good!

Cabs are Shrinking

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When we arrived in Chicago nearly ten years ago, the cab fleet was almost totally homogenous. If you got in one, it was almost definitely going to be a Crown Vic. Over the years, a few Prius (should that be Prii) started to show up. Now the a Crown Vics are becoming a minority as newer vehicles that are predominantly hybrid take over the fleet. Having slightly smaller vehicles makes a lot of sense given that there are often few occupants. However, as I walked home the other day, I passed the lone of taxis outside the IBM building and the car at the front of the line caught my eye. A Ford Fiesta! Now that really is a shrink!

Seattle From Above

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When the wind is coming from the south, the approach to Seatac airport between Seattle and Tacoma takes you almost directly over downtown Seattle. We actually could see Everett off in the distance with a lot of large airplanes parked up awaiting delivery but that was too far off to get a usable shot, particularly with the lens I had fitted. However, approaching Elliott Bay, we got a really nice view of the lakes and the downtown area.

Cities always look very different from above. What is large on the ground seems far more insignificant from above and what is a long journey on the surface is passed by in a heartbeat. That is part of the fun of being in the air. Of course, it does mean you have to grab the shot quickly!

O’Hare Excursion

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Another benefit of the recent trip to O’Hare was getting into a conversation with some guys who know the area better than I. One of them suggested a location I hadn’t tried before. It is on the west side of the field so gets better light as the day wears on. Moreover, the departure routes were favorable on this day and the sun was proving very cooperative so I decided to check it out.

The location is very good. If the aircraft turn out towards you, the angles are very good. Some of the local crews are quite aggressive on their turns and come very close overhead. Even the aircraft heading out or turning away look good. You do have a view of them on the runway but the combination of power lines and foreground junk mean these shots are not too valuable. All of this got better and better as the sun went lower and the light got warmer. Then, to top it all off, the moon rose in the background. What a great end to the shoot. Thanks guys.

Snowy Mountains

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One thing I don’t seem to give up on is the hope of getting a good shot out of the window of an airliner. My experience has been that it is hard to do. The quality of the windows is not great and the distance is sufficiently far that haze and other issues can result in something that just looks a bit washed out. Post processing to try and overcome that has limited results. Translating what you see into an image on the screen is rather tricky.

However, I don’t give up. Even if the shots are not the greatest, they do show a view that you don’t normally get and are worth having just for that recollection. Snowy mountains, however, do seem to translate better. Maybe it is because you are slightly closer to the peaks or maybe it is because they are almost a gray-scale anyway that color shifts are not a problem but they seem to reproduce better. I was flying across the Cascades recently and grabbed these shots as we went.

Trump Tower

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Walking back from Navy Pier, I came back along the river towards home. Since it was getting late in the afternoon, I was effectively heading into the sun. Not ideal for taking pictures but the reflective nature of the Trump Tower ahead of me seemed to be picking up light from all sorts of directions. It seemed like a good shot to take. Shooting the Trump is something that requires some thought. It is rather tall and fitting it in the frame without making it distort too much means being quite far away. I also played with a little HDR to see if that helped and it turns out it did!