Tag Archives: washington

Bridge of Glass

After our lunch in Tacoma, we took a quick stroll around the area before heading home. There is a glass museum which looks like something that will be a source for another day trip. To get to the museum, we walked across a bridge of glass. There were glass sculptures at one end of the bridge and, on the bridge itself, there was a roof structure that incorporated multiple glass pieces.

Mounting the glass in the roof meant that light could be let in from above and the glass was illuminated from behind. As the daylight was drawing to a close, this meant that some nice soft light was filtering through the colors giving a great effect. We were spot on with our timing. When we walked back, the light was gone.

Inquisitive Sealion at the Beach

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The shores of Puget Sound provide plenty of places to explore. One of these was a beach in Shoreline, a town that is quite appropriately named. I was actually about to head back to the car when this event occurred. As I walked up the path I saw people coming in the opposite direction. I thought they had a dog with them and that it was swimming in the water alongside them. Then I realized that the head in the water was not a dog but instead was a sealion.

The sealion was very close in to the shore and seemed to be quite interested in what was going on. I turned back around and headed to the water as it came closer. There were some old wood pilings in the water and the sealion came in to those, almost as if they provided a measure of protection. Then it paused before turning around and swimming back in the other direction. Shortly thereafter, it dipped under the surface and swam away. By this point, a few people had stopped to watch its progress. A sealion is hardly a rarity but it is interesting just how much attention it garners all the same.

Sounder Takes the Fans to the Seahawks

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The Sounder commuter rail service takes passengers from both north and south of Seattle in to the city. The service from the south end is a very popular one and is expanding. The northern service from Everett has not been as popular and is not growing in the same way. However, on both routes, special trains are run on days with big sporting events such as the Seahawks playing at home. There is normally no service on the weekends so this is an unusual sight.

I was after some Sounder shots for possible use in a future project so headed down to Shoreline where the trains run alongside the beach. The beach is accessed by a footbridge over the tracks. It has some good sightlines for shots but also fencing that is not so helpful. I tried out a location further down and close to the tracks and it was not a bad spot. Since two trains were heading to the game about 15 minutes apart, I did go back to the bridge to see how that looked too.

As the train was past me, I could continue to watch it as it ran along the shore a good portion of the way to the city. It did go around a headland but again popped into view as it got closer to the downtown area.

Delta Bids Farewell to the QOTS

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The disappearance of the 747 from the world’s airline fleets continues apace. The most recent company to bid the Queen of the Skies farewell is Delta. Delta did operate 747s in the early days but its current fleet was acquired as a result of the takeover of Northwest. Northwest has operated plenty of 747s over the years and was the launch operator of the 747-400. They continued to operate older generation freighters for a number of years too.

Delta carried out a farewell tour for the type and it included a visit to Seattle. Prior to going to SeaTac, the plane stopped off at Everett, the place where it, and every 747 before or since, was built. It was a dismal day with low cloud and rain. The plane emerged from the clag on final approach and zipped low over the threshold to touch down before reversing thrust in a cloud of spray. It parked up at the Boeing facility next to the Future of Flight Museum where it stayed for a few hours before heading to SeaTac.

Here are a few shots of the Northwest/Delta aircraft I have photographed along with the farewell tour jet as it landed at Everett.

The Sun is Setting! Too Late…

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The Thai delivery flight I wrote about in this post went out in lovely light. It was due to be followed by a Dreamlifter flight to Nagoya. That is a long leg so means a heavy jet which should use a good amount of the runway. The scheduled departure time meant it should be just before sundown. They didn’t start on time, though, and the light was beginning to fade. A bit of cloud on the horizon meant that sunset was going to be okay but the light was going to go before that. Meanwhile, once the jet called up, they advised the tower that they needed to burn down a bit of fuel to get to the required takeoff weight. Great, not what was needed!

By the time they were ready to go, the light was gone. However, I had waited long enough so I figured I wasn’t giving up now (although I was now getting pretty cold!). The ISO was being ramped up rapidly as I had to keep assessing the conditions while I waited and it got steadily darker. Finally, they called for departure and lined up. Looking up the runway over the ridge, I could see the jet approaching. Something interesting was making the plane look very squashed! Once it got over the ridge, they rotated and got airborne very close to me. Everything was very flat but at least it was something different to shoot.

Some Seasonal Snow

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Christmas morning in Kirkland had us waking up to some snow. It had started to snow a little on Christmas Eve but plenty more had dropped overnight. This was not snow that was going to last long. It was rather heavy and damp and, having built up on the branches of the trees, it was pretty precarious. When some of it slipped off, it would take whatever was below it too resulting in some significant dumps on the ground below or you if you were unlucky. Paying attention to what was above you was a good idea.

I went out first thing. Since it was Christmas morning, not much traffic had been out so the roads were reasonably untouched. The light from the street lamps was still a factor in some places. I wandered around the neighborhood checking out the view before it all went away. The temperatures were not too low so I didn’t have to wrap up much and I knew things would soon melt. However, it was a scenic place to be for a while and added a certain atmosphere to Christmas Day.

EP-3 Aries

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P-3 hunting was part of the plan when Paul and I headed to NAS Whidbey Island. We had some success. There was a nice bit of icing on the cake for us. An EP-3E showed up too. The EP-3 has a nice selection of large radomes added to the airframe to cover the wide variety of sensors that this type has to fulfill its role of listening to transmissions around the world. I don’t know how long the EP-3 has once the P-3s are gone from fleet service so getting one was a definite plus.

It’s a Cluster of Cormorants!

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This was an evening that I was out hunting planes. I did have some success, but I got a lot more shots of birds than planes. The cormorants were out in numbers and they obviously know I like them. Log Boom Park in Kenmore has a concrete pier that goes well out into the lake. At the end of the pier are pilings from a previous version of the pier. They provide a nice spot for birds to rest and the cormorants had taken over the place.

The light was not in a good place for getting a photo but it was still worthy of a shot or two. Some of the cormorants were stretching their wings to dry out. They have a prehistoric look about them at the best of times but when they stretch the wings out, they really do look like a pterodactyl. The concentrated group of cormorants were in a bad spot for the light but, fortunately, one of them was feeling antisocial and was on a different post. The light was a lot better for this guy!

Qantas Dreamliner Delivery

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Delivery flights from Paine Field are good news because the jets are going to be a bit heavier and will use more of the runway. This brings them closer to where you can be to photograph them. Qantas were taking their second Dreamliner and it was delivering early in the afternoon of a winter Saturday. The winter light is just so good when the clouds have parted. No harsh shadows and a low sun angle are great conditions to be shooting in. I hope the crew had a good flight. It was long enough!

US Courthouse in Tacoma

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The US Courthouse building is an impressive structure that started out its life as Union Station. It still carries the name on the side of the structure which is dominated by a large dome. However, the station was moved to a nearby location in the 80s and the building abandoned. It was eventually restored and converted for use as the Courthouse and that is what it continues as today. We had lunch across the street from the building and, while I didn’t have my main camera to hand at the time, I grabbed a few shots with my phone which I could stitch together. I did take some other shots later from the other side. A cool looking building.