Author Archives: Rob

Bizjet Departures from Airside

I was kindly given some airside access when some F-15s were operating from Boeing Field for flyovers in the city. While the fast jets were our primary interest, they took off and landed in amongst some of the more familiar movements at the airport. Business jets are a constant part of Boeing Field ops and being so close to the runway made it easy to get some interesting shots of the bizjets. Fortunately, the amount of the runway that they needed coincided well with where we were for the F-15s. Here are some of the shots.

The Last Days for These Salmon

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Puget Sound gets runs of different species of salmon throughout the year. I had heard of some of them but only recently became aware of chum salmon. Not particularly good to eat, by all accounts, these run in the October to November time-frame. Carkeek Park in Seattle has a river that they come to in order to spawn. We paid it a visit. The salmon stop eating once they leave the sea, so they are using up their remaining energy to go upriver before the mate and die.

The river was quite shallow, so they had to work hard to get up against the current and up some of the steps the riverbed took. The river was scattered with the bodies of dead salmon. I don’t know whether they had already mated and then died or whether they didn’t have the energy to make it upriver. Some of the fish still swimming had taken on the yellow look of the dead fish, and I wondered whether they weren’t going to make it much further.

While there were loads of fish, getting good images was a challenge I didn’t seem to do well with. Even with a polarizer, the reflections on the surface and the low light levels made things tricky. A fish underwater is not a great subject anyway. Watching what was happening, I felt that video was going to be the better bet, so I filmed the fish as much as I took stills. Below is a video of some of the highlights from our visits.

Flyby Planes for the 100th Anniversary

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The 100^th anniversary of the round the world flight by the Douglas World Cruiser was celebrated in an event at Magnussen Park in Seattle – the location from which they had departed a century before. I didn’t go to the park for the celebrations themselves but instead decided to be at Boeing Field from where the participating planes were due to launch. This included the B-29, Fifi, which had been sitting on the ground since its arrival the previous week as discussed in a post I wrote earlier.

The selection of planes taking part in the flyby was a little odd. High point for me was a Bellanca replica that lives across the state but came in for the event. It was to be one of the last planes taking part. A WACO was also included but then it came down to a selection of more modern light aircraft including some types that had no obvious connection to the event.

Initially, everything was parked up on the ramp at the Museum of Flight. You were able to wander around between the planes and have a good look at them. I arrived a little late to the event and only just in time. I wandered through the planes for a while and then they started clearing everyone out to be ready for the start up and taxi out. At that point, I needed to change locations anyway since I wanted to photograph them from a different place.

They all launched out in sequence for their times over the event before returning – except for two that went straight home afterwards. Not stellar conditions for the event but it was something different and the more unusual types were worth a look.

Off to Alaska to Go Fishing

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During the summer, the locks at Ballard are heaving with leisure craft. As the days get shorter and colder, some boaters are still out and about, but the traffic through the locks has a more commercial nature. One Sunday we were there and there were a string of fishing boats heading out. Judging by the conversations on the side of the locks, they were heading up to Alaska. Family and friends were alongside saying their goodbyes to the crews before they headed out.

The boats were ready for the voyage north. Each of them had a smaller boat either towed behind or mounted on the aft deck. These were basic aluminum hulls and motors. Nothing superfluous for these crews. The decks also had netting stored awaiting their time in the fishing grounds. The crews were not too busy as they went through the locks, but they clearly had stuff to do. Once out of the locks, they were off to the Sound and ultimately the open ocean. They will be up near Alaska for a few months. I guess the catch is transferred to the processing ships rather than held on board. Hopefully they all stay safe.

Alpine Helicopters – Part One

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When we made our trip to Kelowna, we were driving into the city as we came off the hills and stopped at an intersection while we waited for the light to go green. On our left was a place called Alpine Helicopters. Moreover, a Huey was powering up while we sat at the light. I figured I needed to check this out before we left. I managed to get back there at some point over the weekend. Sadly, things were rather quiet unlike the weekday on which we had first arrived. A selection of nice-looking helicopters was on the ground, and I do wish I had been able to see some of them at work. Some other airframes seemed stored so a bit of a missed opportunity.

Angel’s Flight Railway

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I first heard of Angel’s Flight Railway in one of the early Harry Bosch novels that was named for it. Prior to that, I had never heard of this funicular railway in Los Angeles. More recently it was also the subject of a TV series that I started to watch but never continued with. In my many trips to LA, I had never actually seen it. Work took me there a short while ago and my hotel was only a few minutes walk from the railway and, since I seem to have sought out some funiculars recently, I figured I would head to this one after work before it got dark.

I ended up arriving at the top of the railway. Apparently, it has undergone some rehabilitation and modernization, and it certainly seemed it great shape. The top station still has a vintage feel to it, though. There is a stairway that runs down the hill parallel to the track so, rather than ride down, I walked down the stairs to watch the trains as they passed me. The cars are on separate tracks, but they are only spaced to pass halfway up the hill. At the top and bottom, the alignment comes closer together. As the cars approach each other, they move to the side and them come back towards the middle once clear of each other.

The loading is done through end doors at the top and bottom so no need to worry about complex platform issues. Everything seems to be managed from the station at the top. When I got to the bottom, it seemed that people would board freely, having to pay when they made it to the summit. It does provide a good way up the hill, but it isn’t that big of a hill, and I wonder why the railway was necessary when it was built. Now it seems to be a tourist attraction as opposed to a key element of the transit system. Good to have finally seen it, though, and another funicular to visit.

Kenmore Rush Hour During the Show

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One more in my selection of posts from Seafair and, specifically, the gap in the show when movements were allowed for a while. Boeing Field is a busy base for Kenmore Air. They operate scheduled services to various locations along with some pleasure flights. These tend to be undertaken with their Cessna Caravans and Grand Caravans although the occasional PC-12 will be included.

The Cessnas are more than capable of operating from the short runway at Boeing Field and so, when things opened up, they fired up some of the planes to get out while they could. I imagine the schedule had to be amended during the show but at least they could continue to provide service. One would be lined up on the runway ready to go with another pulling up at the hold just behind it. They got out with some precision before the field closed to non-air show operations a little while later.

Early Start at Moraine Lake

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Departure from Canmore before the light was up was necessary for us to get to Lake Louise early enough for a slot on the shuttle bus into the town. We got there in good time and took the bus down to the lake, but we immediately switched buses to get a ride down to Lake Moraine. This was about a 15-20 minute ride down some pretty interesting roads – particularly in a large bus. It dropped us at the bottom of Lake Moraine (by which I mean one end – not at the lowest point of the lake) and we walked the short distance to the lake itself.

There were quite a few people around but, given how beautiful the location was, it was surprising how few people were there. A large pile of rock at one end of the lake did provide a spot to climb and some were taking advantage of this. I assume this is the moraine that results in the name of the lake. Instead, we decided to take the trail that went up the side of the lake towards the falls entering it at the far end.

There were definitely a lot of people doing the same thing, but it never felt like there were too many people around. The early morning, the soft light and the low temperatures might have made for an uncomfortable time but instead it felt tranquil and beautiful. No one was crowded and everyone seemed to be in a friendly mood. The trail provided plenty of lovely views of the lake and wound gently along the shore until we were up at the location of the shallow falls where the water ran into the lake from the surrounding hills.

The whole place was absolutely stunning. I experimented with some straight shots and some HDR brackets because the shadows of the hills were deep compared to the sky above. It was hard to believe that it could be so lovely. (When we headed back to Lake Louise, the contrast between the peace of Moraine Lake and the mayhem of Lake Louise was jarring.) By the time we retraced our steps along the shore, we were feeling a little chilly so a stop in the café was in order. (I did chuckle to myself when one of the staff casually turned down the volume of the music during an Alanis Morissette song at just the right moment to avoid causing any offense!) With Nancy reinforced with a warm drink, we continued on our explorations.

If You Have an F-104, Wouldn’t You Mount it on the Wall?

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The California Science Center has featured quite a bit in previous months with the various aircraft and that are preserved outside. There is one I haven’t included previously and that is a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. This one is a bit more dramatic. It is mounted on a structure attached to the wall of the museum giving it a rather dynamic pose. Seems appropriate given the nature of the Starfighter. It does look like it could do with a repaint, though.

Generative Remove in Lightroom

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As with all software tools, Lightroom has been constantly evolving since the initial release. If I were to see the original version of the software, I would probably be shocked at how limited it was. I do come across old edits and, when I convert it to the latest develop presets I have created, it is shocking how much of a change can result. One area that has gone through various updates over time is the tools for healing or cloning. They have been okay but definitely had limitations – not least pulling in odd artifacts from other areas.

A recent addition to the tools has been Generative Remove. This is an AI driven method for selecting and removing elements of the image. I try to do any of this before any cropping because I have previously found cropping to confuse the healing tools by leaving stuff out of sight that it tries to reincorporate. I don’t know whether this matters for Generative Remove or not, but I have stuck with the same sequence just in case.

The selection process is really simple. Brush around an area and it will fill it in. You can refine the selection with brushes to add or remove areas. I have used it a lot to remove power lines where a click at one end and shift click at the other gives you a quick straight line. Then let it do its thing. It will provide three options for the solution, and you can decide if one of them works or make it try again. Generally, I have found the results to be very good and no obvious artifacts as a result of the healing. No doubt they will continue to refine the process, but I think it is a big step forward in cleaning up elements of images that you don’t want and is now something I will consider for images that I would otherwise have cast aside.