Category Archives: photo

Early Morning Breeze Departure

I’ve seen a couple of Breeze airliners, but they are not operating in our neck of the woods, so they are still a rarity for me. When one of the A220s came to Boeing Field on a charter for a sports team, I was hoping to catch it. They were due out early one morning, so I was able to go before heading to the office. This did mean that conditions were going to be rather restricted with the sun only just above the horizon (assuming clouds weren’t there as well) but this would actually suit me since I didn’t want the jet to be backlit.

Sports charters have a habit of not going even close to the time that they are scheduled so I wondered whether I would be able to get the takeoff before needing to leave. Imagine my surprise and delight when they called up pretty much on schedule. Soon the jet was crossing the runway for taxiway Bravo and then heading to the departure end. As they rolled and rotated, there was just enough light in the sky to make for some rather pleasant colors, and I was really pleased with how the shots came out. The actual light levels were very low, so I shot at high ISOs. The cameras do a remarkable job of this these days but there was still a bit of noise to deal with and the latest noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom dealt with that very effectively.

Some Unusual Maintenance Vehicles from CPKC

Leave a Reply

While we were staying in Canmore, we got plenty of train traffic passing us by. Most of the time, it was just the regular freight train movements but there was some maintenance work underway in the vicinity and we had a train come by that was not like the others. The locomotive was a different looking beast and it was pulling some flat cars including one with a backhoe loaded on it. I assume that they were heading to or from a work site, but I don’t know where it might have been. They train did look pretty clean so maybe it was not that old?

Lufthansa’s Second Route to Seattle

Leave a Reply

Lufthansa has long served Seattle from their base in Frankfurt. I have taken advantage of this to photograph their various types over the years we were in Seattle. The airline has a second hub in Munich, and they have been running a service from there recently. I think there may have been a route before the pandemic, but it is back now. It seems to run on days when Frankfurt doesn’t so maybe the winter months allow a coordination of services. Summer might have more overlap. They have been using an A350 on the route as opposed to the A340 for Frankfurt. It also comes in later in the day and departs later accordingly. That makes for better lighting at the end of the day when it heads out like I had on this day.

A Bald Eagle Isn’t Scared of an Owl

Leave a Reply

If there is one consistent thing with birds it is that, if they have caught something to eat, another bird will do its best to try and pinch it. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they second bird is bigger or smaller. They will try their luck. I have definitely seen the big birds taking on the smaller ones but more often it seems to be the smaller ones trying to annoy the big ones. It is a strange choice because I’ve never seen it be effective. An immature bald eagle had caught something up in Skagit and it was standing contemplating its meal. A short-eared owl decided it wanted the food instead so swooped repeatedly at the eagle. To be fair, the eagle couldn’t have looked less concerned if it tried. It watched the owls come in many times but never flinched. Eventually it took off and carried its snack somewhere else to eat in peace.

Sun Greets the Talon’s Return from California

Leave a Reply

For a while, I saw a lot of the Boeing T-38 chase jets but, it had been quite a while since I last saw one. Then I saw one had been in use for a couple of flights. I wondered what had been the cause of this but didn’t follow up on it. Then I saw that one was coming back to Boeing Field from California. I don’t know what the test activities were down there but, with it heading back and the weather being pretty decent, I figured I would try and catch its return. Since it was coming up late in the day, I was going to be able to be there.

I wondered whether the good weather would give up before the jet made it back but things held together nicely and the sun was out when it touched down. Since the T-33s went into retirement, the Talons have been the only chase jets to see and they have, as I mentioned, been a bit rare. I don’t know how long they will have. Maybe Boeing will ultimately replace them with T-7s – perhaps the early jets that will not be to a production standard and can take over chase duties. Since I am now gone, I won’t get to see either one so this was a nice catch before I departed.

Frost at the Office One Morning

Leave a Reply

Writing a post about the office when it isn’t an office I work at anymore seems a little odd. Back to Kirkland for a day, I guess. I was driving to work on a chilly morning and, as I came off the freeway towards the office, it suddenly got misty and there was lots of frost on the surface of all of the trees along the road. When I got to the parking lot, the plants all had a layer of frost that had formed on them from the cold mist. It looked really pretty but trying to capture it with my phone proved a little trickier. It was still dark at that point of course. I figured I would try and a little processing at home helped bring the shots to something more like what I saw at the time.

Metrea Defeats Me Again – Sort Of

Leave a Reply

I was heading to a meeting south of Seattle when I got a message from the person I was joining that they were running late. I stopped off at Boeing Field to wait for their call and to see if anything cool was around. One of the Metrea KC-135Rs was on the Modern ramp. It was the nicest of their paint schemes and the winter light was lovely. Naturally I grabbed a shot as I waited. They were looking ready to go and I hoped that they would take off before the call came through. I was to be disappointed. I heard from my contact that he was en route, so I left. About ten minutes after I did so, the jet took off. I can only imagine how good it looked in that light.

A few days later, I was back in Georgetown to meet some friends, and I saw that the jet was out again on a mission. It was due back shortly before sunset so I hoped I might get lucky with the light clearing up. It certainly wasn’t as nice as it had been previously, but you never know. As it turned on to the approach, conditions were getting better but not what I was hoping for. Despite that, the jet still looked okay as it came into land. It could definitely have been better but not a total bust.

This Color in the Trees Will Always Make Me Think of Washington

Leave a Reply

No lengthy travels for this photo. This was taken at the end of our driveway in Woodinville. The vibrant colors that the local trees have in the fall are really lovely. While our time in Washington is coming to an end, I will have great memories of the rich red foliage to take with me on our next journey.

I Wish This Praetor Had the Thrive Livery

Leave a Reply

I have seen a couple of jets in the Thrive fleet and they have a really cool livery that they use for some of the planes. When most jets are rather blandly painted, a cool paint job is a great change. Thrive was bringing one of their Praetor 600s to Seattle and I was hoping that it might be in the company colors, despite previous pictures of it online being in something a little less cool. Sadly, they have not spent the funds on updating the look of the jet. The livery is not a bad looking one anyway but it would have looked better in the full paint job. Oh well…

Cormorant Fishing Gets a Big Result

Leave a Reply

While mum was visiting, we took a stroll down to Log Boom Park in Kenmore. You never know what wildlife might turn up and we did get one bald eagle directly overhead. What pleased me more (as will come as no surprise to regular readers) was the large gathering of cormorants. They were on the posts, in the water and flying overhead. Plenty of them to see in lovely light (although a bunch were backlit.

The high point was one cormorant that was fishing alongside the jetty and came up with a sizable fish in its mouth. It was going to have to work hard to maneuver this fish into position to swallow it. I figured that video might be a better way of recording the efforts the bird had to make. It did take quite some time to get it in the right place but finally the fish went down in one piece. I am amazed at the things that birds can swallow when they catch them.