Category Archives: photo

Quite a Locomotive

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I know a few of the regular readers of the blog are in to trains so I hope this one pleases them.  The Henry Ford Museum covers all sorts of engineering endeavors including a selection of rail vehicles.  This was one of the last things we saw before we left so I didn’t explore very much.  However, there was one rather large steam locomotive on display.  This thing was a beast and I imagine it was quite the sight when it was in regular usage.  Our visit coincided with the running of Big Boy after restoration so something similar to this can been seen for real once again!

Talk to Me Goose – Oh That’s Right, You Can’t

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Top Gun 2 is in production at the moment.  There has been much activity around the Super Hornets on the west coast and their involvement in the film with one jet getting photographed a bit in Pete Mitchell’s colors.  What I didn’t know was that the production has been on the road.  While up at Whidbey Island we saw a Super Bug launching towards us.  Based Growlers are of interest and Super Bugs less so but we still shot it.  As it got closer, it was clearly painted up differently and we realized we had Maverick’s plane in frame.  It flew a straight out departure and we didn’t see it return before we left but it was kind of a pleasant surprise to get it at all!

Looking Down on Vancouver

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I regularly head up to Vancouver to our company’s office there.  I have been going up for the last couple of years but I did not know something until a recent trip and that is that there is a roof terrace on top of the building.  I was meeting one of my colleagues and he suggested we take our lunch up there to eat while we talked.  The views across the city are really nice on a sunny summer’s day so, once we had finished and were ready to head down, I grabbed a few quick shots.  Might take a good camera next time!

Stacked Up the YVR Approach

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Getting a good angle on jets lined up on the approach is a combination of luck with where you can stand and the timing of the arrivals to be in sequence when you can get them all together.  It is also a question of whether you have the right focal length to catch them together but not so much that one is out of frame.  I played with this a bit at YVR.  Sometimes there would be a jet on the parallel approach too but combining the lot was more luck than judgement.

What New Shots Can I Get at Chihuly

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With new visitors staying, we were back at the Chihuly Museum in Seattle.  Since I had photographed there a few times already, I thought I would take in a different lens and just use that to try and get something different to that which I had shot before.  I took the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with me.  First, the big aperture would be good in the dim conditions.  Second, that wide aperture would allow me to play with some shallow depth of field (the longer reach of the lens helping to enhance that effect) and lastly, that longer focal length would mean I could experiment with tight crops or longer views across galleries.

Here are a few of the shots I got as we walked around the galleries.

Lots of P-3s, or One P-3 Lots of Times

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Paul and I headed to Whidbey Island on the hunt.  We would be happy to shoot a variety of stuff but P-3s were the goal.  Whidbey still has them but they are disappearing fast so get what we can.  As it turned out, we got a ton of P-3 action but it was all with the same plane.  It flew a bunch of circuits after returning from a training sortie and then finally landed.  However, it wasn’t done.  A crew change and they were back up.  That plane got some use that day.  We could hear another engine running but it obviously wasn’t going flying.  Here are lots of shots of one specific P-3 instead!

Squirrel’s Nibbling Won’t Be Disturbed By Us

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Walking through the woods at Meerkerk Gardens, we came across a tree that had fallen across the trail.  Sitting on the log was a squirrel.  This squirrel was happily munching on its food.  We weren’t going to continue down the trail so were not likely to get in the squirrel’s way but we figured our very arrival would spook it.  We were wrong.  While it was clearly aware we were there, it did not seem to see any need to interrupt lunch just because of us.

Gweduck

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When I photographed this amphibian, I thought it was a Goose or a Widgeon.  It made a pass over Paine Field while I was waiting for the return of the Bf-109 so I grabbed some shots of it.  It was only as I looked at the shots afterwards – particularly the engine installations – that I realized I didn’t know what it was.  I looked up the registration as saw it was a Gweduck.  This is the only example so far and it is based at Renton.  I would love to see more of it – particularly if that can include some time on the water!

Senna!

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Exotics@RTC brings plenty of jazzy cars including lots of McLarens as I posted here.  The one car I was hoping to see at some point was a Senna.  I figured with all of the IT cash floating around the area, one was bound to appear at some point.  I rode my bike down to Redmond to have a look one Saturday.  My jersey only had small pockets so I left all cameras behind except my phone.  Guess what car showed up as soon as I had no proper camera? 

I didn’t see it initially.  All I saw was a large crowd of people around one car.  This is always a sign of something special and there, within the crowds, was a black car with a huge rear wing.  The Senna had arrived.  Getting clean shots of it was almost impossible given the number of people milling around but the wide angle lens on the phone was a benefit for once as it meant you could get closer and grab some shots.  Quite a mean looking machine and one I might have to save up a bit in order to buy.

Collings Foundation at BFI

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The Collings Foundation made its annual visit to the Seattle area recently including flights from Boeing Field.  The weather had been rather uninspiring but I figured I would head along and hope for some gaps in the clouds.  The Mustang and the P-40 didn’t fly while I was there.  The B-24 and the B-17 did though.  Sadly, the B-24 only flew once.  The discussion was whether Seattle being a Boeing town meant that everyone wanted to fly on the B-17, despite the rarity of the B-24.  The clouds had a habit of parting at just the wrong time and place with good light up the approach and down the runway but not where I wanted it to be.  Even so, it was still nice to see these vintage planes again.