I was over in Seattle Center for work on what proved to be a lovely sunny day. I was walking past the Climate Pledge Arena. I have posted shots of it before but they were on overcast days. With the sun out, I figured a few shots to show that the sun shines in Seattle were worth it.
I got a couple of Alaska Max jets on test on the same day recently. One was still unpainted but the colors were on the rudder and winglets so it was easy to see where it was going. The other jet was already fully painted and probably close to delivery. With me now traveling a little bit more and that travel being with Alaska, maybe I shall get to travel on one before too long. We shall see…
Herons are not known for being too happy about people nearby but the ones in Juanita Bay are very used to the people on the boardwalks and they don’t seem to be bothered about how close they are. I had spent a fair bit of time on one boardwalk chatting to some photographers and we had discussed the heron that was over by the next boardwalk. As we headed our separate ways, I figured I would go across to see if I could get any shots of the bird.
The light was fading fast so I was shooting at higher ISOs than I would have liked but I was pleasantly surprised that the R3 seemed to have a cleaner result than I would have expected with the 1DXII. Technology does move on of course, but I think thinks have plateaued a bit in that area so this was a nice result. The heron was quite close in and, since I only had the 500 with me, I had to chose my location carefully. The eye tracking did a pretty impressive job with the bird as long as it was not looking directly at me (or away of course).
I did got with high frame rates to try and catch strikes with the food. Unfortunately, the bird was not having a great time. I got one strike but it was not a fish but a piece of bark. Another “catch” provided to be a stick. Maybe this heron is the sharpest bird in the bay. Overall, I was pleased with the results and I was more happy about the ability to let the autofocus work across the image so I could compose how I wanted rather than based on the location of autofocus points.
I posted about some night photography I tried on jets approaching SeaTac. After finishing that up I was heading to the terminal to pick up my colleague and I decided to go for a shot of touchdown in the dark. This was not going to be an easy one to get since it is really pretty dark at the north end of the airport so little ambient light. I was relying on the lights of the jet and pushing the ISO to a really high level. It is true that the noise gets really tough in those conditions but when looking at the image at a normal size, it really is not a big deal. Besides, it is a shot we would never have done in pre-digital days.
Some of the best shots are taken when you have access to the airfield. Sadly, that is not a simple thing to arrange. However, if the flight you arrive on has to hold prior to crossing the runway, you have a better chance of getting some shots of aircraft departing off the runway you are waiting to cross. This does involve shooting through the windows of the aircraft which are not great at the best of times and on the recent Alaska flights I have taken, have been pretty crappy. Still, it was fun to try and get some shots, even with the limitations of my older M6.
I visited the Sound Transit operations and maintenance facility in the south part of Seattle for meeting recently. This is the original facility but they have added one in Bellevue and another will be built in Federal Way in the coming years. Plenty of the trains were parked in the storage tracks including the original cars and the new ones getting delivered by Siemens for the extensions due to open soon. Too good to pass up the chance to grab some shots with my phone.
I went to Juanita Bay in Kirkland on a sunny Saturday afternoon to have an experiment with the R3. I wanted to try shooting something different and the bay is always a good spot for some wildlife activity. I was standing on one of the boardwalks, chatting to a couple of photographers that had a similar idea. We had just been discussing a bobcat one of them had seen in the area near us when I looked across and saw some movement in exactly that area.
It wasn’t a bobcat which was a shame. However, it was a coyote. It walked over in our direction, heading for a carcass of a fish that had apparently been there for a few days. It stopped briefly and then turned around and headed back into the bushes. I managed to get a few shots of it before it was out of a clear line of sight.
The Cascade Bicycle Club organizes a few large rides throughout the year and March is the time for the Chilly Hilly. This is a ride around Bainbridge Island which means taking the ferry from Seattle across to the island. I was going to do the ride with a friend of mine but he got injured prior to the ride so I ended up doing it alone. Not many photos from the ride but I did record some video on a GoPro and that result of that is below. It wasn’t too chilly but it was definitely hilly! No video from the big climbs. Too much effort went in to not grinding to a halt!
It might be an old design but the MD-500 still holds some fascination for me. It is an agile machine and has a five bladed rotor which gives it a distinctive sound. Paint it in a sinister paint scheme and I am sold. This one was flying around at Boeing Field when I was down there recently and I got to shoot it a lot as it was flying a lot of pattern work. (I missed a cracking shot of it as well but that is a different story.)
The first time I was shooting it, I could see some flashing light coming from inside the cockpit. Looking at the shots afterwards, the guy in the right seat was using some device which would flash periodically. I am not a specialist on helicopters but I do know the rotor tracking is a thing that has to be done so I wondered if this device was a strobe to freeze the blades to allow them to be tracked. Anyone know whether it is.
The second time I was shooting it, the pattern was reversed so I got to see the other side of the airframe. Some cabling was clearly taped to the outside of the fuselage and then going in through one of the doors. No idea whether this was for the same purpose or something else. All good suggestions (and maybe some silly ones) are welcome.
I have already shared quite a few shots from the Lego Awesome exhibit in Seattle. One of the creations they had on display was an icebreaker. This was a big beast and, in keeping with a lot of the pieces, it was cut in half to show the interior. The boat itself would have been an amazing build but the interior elements were fantastic.
To show all of the elements would result in loads of images and that isn’t going to be so good to work your way through so I have cut it down to a few shots to give you an idea of what they had done. The internal parts of the ship were reproduced and there were all sorts of Easter eggs scattered throughout like aliens that had been recovered from the ice. The ship was even pitching up at an impressive angle on a sea of blocks that was a great piece of work on its own. I think icebreakers are neat looking ships so to have one made on this scale, in Lego, and with so much little detail was a lot of fun for me.
