Monday, May 25, 2009

Beautiful Seattle Day (and night!)


Wow! What a beautiful weekend it has been! Sunny skies, warm temperatures, it seems like summer is right around the corner. It's Memorial Day Weekend, so that means I've been having to pick up some extra shifts at works since everybody is trying to get out of town. Wish I was one of them, but I guess I have three days off every week. I usually have the beaches and campgrounds to myself being that those days are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Despite the fact that I spend over half my weekend serving people mojitos, margaritas, and summer ales, I did find some time to get out and about. I got off work around three yesterday, and my boyfriend and I drove over to Kirkland (he grew up there). We grabbed a small pizza and took it to the park. Being the fact that he has a big cast on his foot for another three weeks, he's been trying to find ways to stay active. That's why he wants to play catch. Not only does he get out of the house during these so-called "catch sessions", it really forces me to work on my accuracy. Now, I haven't spent much time dabbling in the world of sports. I spend my childhood and many of my teenage and college years throwing batons through the air and doing leaps and gymnastics across a gym floor or a football field. Let's just say I definitely throw like a girl. But I'm learning :) Regardless of the fact that I'm not that great at it, I still had a good time playing catch and we were at a beautiful park right on Lake Washington.

After that, we headed back to Seattle and stopped by Ivar's. Our good friend Ross was working there, and Ivar's on the water is the perfect place to stop on a summer day. They have seating on a floating barge, and their happy hour is among the best in the city. When we had finished up at Ivar's, it was just past sundown. I decided I would go try out my new tripod and take some pictures up at Kerry Park. While the photos I took are pretty common among Seattle photographers, I have to say it's a great place to practice long exposures and figuring out ways to get the city lights to look just right.



It was a zoo up at Kerry Park, with at least three other photographers with tripods and about a dozen high school kids who were probably out because it's Memorial Day weekend. Luckily, I found a little spot to shoot from and the end result was great. I know there are ways I can improve, but for my first night shoot, I'm pretty satisfied with the way these photographs turned out.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Roller Coaster Ride

It's been quite a while since I last updated you all on my latest adventures. I've spent the last few weeks studying hard about flash photography and I finally picked up my own flash! I figure that it will be one of my most useful tools. The past month has been quite interesting, as my boyfriend broke both his collar bone and ankle, both requiring surgery. It's been a struggle figuring out transportation and just finding easier ways for him to get around other than the useless and bulky crutches. With just a few more weeks in a cast, I think he will heal up just in time for the Seattle summer, and we can start camping!

Also in the past few weeks, both David and I had birthdays! I took him to a motocross show for his birthday down and Qwest Field and we went to Bainbridge Island for my birthday. Took some great photos that day too!


On the ferry.

I had never been to Bainbridge before, and I really enjoyed the little beaches that we explored while driving around the Island. It was just really nice to get away from the city for the day. This next photo is special to me because I can see where we live! We are in between the second and third towers on top of the hill on the left side of the photograph. It's a great location, and it's really nice being so close to downtown as well.



There are a lot more picture on Flickr if you want to check them out.

On another note, I've become really interested in the new Discovery Channel show, Out of the Wild. It's a show about nine ordinary people who were selected from all over the United States to go live out in the wilderness of Alaska. They were given a couple of days of basic survival skill training, and then a helicopter dropped them off in the middle of