Tag: red

A Dream About Water

I’ve wrote about light painting before and I’ll likely write more again as this really fascinates me in photography. For me it is a lot of fun playing with lights, a lot of creativity as I create something that was not there in the first place, and a lot of surprise as most of the time what I get is unexpected.

Here is an image that got me very excited about light painting again. I spent a day photographing fall foliage in Kubota Gardens in Seattle (I’m still working on post-processing those photos). At dusk as it got dark enough for exposures to go up to 30 seconds I started playing with light painting with two waterfalls I found in the gardens.

I found the upper waterfall to be more interesting of the two because it had red leaves caught in the stream and I could get a more dynamic image with foreground and background.

There were two new things I played with this time. First, I brought two different flashlights: one had cool light and the other one had warm light. So, I could do not only light painting but also color painting. The other thing that I played with was focus, shifting focus in the middle of light painting. This created dreamy effect.

For those interested in more technical details here is how I took this image. The camera was on a tripod, aperture wide open (f/4 for the lens that I used), shutter was 30 seconds. It was pretty dark already, my camera was not able to focus just using ambient light. First I would use very powerful warm flashlight. I would point to a rock in the middle of the frame and focused the camera using auto focus. I would turn off auto focus then. Turn off the flashlight, so it does not light up something accidentally, and release shutter. Then quickly with the same powerful warm light I would trace the waterfall and the creek back and forth a few times to ensure that individual spots or streaks of light a now visible. That was taking me about 5 seconds. Then I would turn off flashlight and defocus the lens. The rest of 25 seconds I was using weak cool flashlight to light up sides of the frame while the camera was out of focus. I did this ten times or more, every time getting a different image – I love the element of surprise. This I think is the best out of the series.

A Dream About Water
A Dream About Water

Pastel Colors of Fall

Finally, the colors of fall foliage is behind us. It is my favorite time of year. For photographers October is like August for farmers – time to collect the harvest. The reason I’m saying “finally” is because I felt burnt out pushing myself too much trying to capture it a s much as possible. For some time I tried to keep up with post-processing but then gave up – I was not getting enough sleep that way. And that was combined with two more art shows that I needed to get ready for.

Now, when fall foliage is almost gone in Pacific Northwest and my last art show of this year is behind me, I can catch up on post-processing, blogging, planning.

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For a few months I’ve been fascinated with pastel colors. I like their subdued soft feel. So, this fall I’ve done several images with intent of having pastel colors.

An important thing about photographing color is to be clear that the subject of a photo is color, not individual branches, leaves or trees. To me it means getting rid of all those details in an image.

One technique to do that is to take photos with long exposure handheld and intentionally move camera in some direction. It seems to work the best when moving camera along visually strong lines such as tree trunks or branches.

On Fire
On Fire

Fall Butterflies
Fall Butterflies

Fall Forest
Fall Forest

Spring is Here

Finally, I’m done with processing my photos from my winter trip to Canadian Rockies. And all of a sudden spring arrived to Seattle. This means it is time for photographing cherry blossom. One of the most popular places for cherry blossom in Seattle is UW Quad. During weekend of nice weather the place is packed.

I typically go there early in the morning, somewhere around 6am. It is more deserted and with street lights it looks more interesting.

I noticed though that with each year more and more photographers come early too. On Saturday there were 20 photographers, on Sunday – 30. With tripods standing, bags lying on the ground and photographers walking around it becomes quite a challenge to have a clean photo. Well, it seems coming even earlier and on workday, I still can have the place to myself.

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Tough Climate

I think these two quite different photos capture the same feeling of the tough climate of Canadian Rockies in winter. Deep freeze ice with temperatures well below zero kept clean by sweeping winds so strong at times that it is hard to stay in one place on the ice.

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Red Morning

Photographing sunrises and sunset is hard on Hawaii. Being close to equator the Sun pops up and quickly rises in the morning and it quickly drops down in the evening. There literally second to photograph sunrise or sunset.

Additional challenge for me was that at the place where we stayed the sunrise was blocked off by a mountain and clouds that the mountain attracted. I would have a peak of great clouds and light over the mountain thru trees, wires and buildings, wishing I’d be there every morning. Unfortunately, the was no road there.

Then one morning the clouds over the mountain cleared out and the light of sunrise spilled over the whole sky. The sky turned red and cast red light on the ocean and the land. And the ocean and the land turned red. Good thing I was persistent in going out every morning, hoping for a great light show. Persistence pays off.

Red Morning

Lahaina Sunset

As I mentioned in my first post about my family’s recent trip to Hawaii I bring my photographic gear with me in case opportunity of a lifetime presents to me. I would not want to miss that. And there was such opportunity on this trip.

Most of the time I have my camera with me. Of cause I take memorable family photos with it. One afternoon we went to Lahaina for some late lunch and walk around the town. Lahaina is one of old towns on the west side of Maui with its heritage and famous Banyan tree that makes up the whole park that has become the center of the town.

We were strolling in the Banyan tree park in the warm Hawaiian evening. It was an overcast day. Our son was enjoying his Maui Rainbow shaved ice. Nothing promised a sunset. Then all of the sudden the whole sky lit up with bright red colors. It was amazing.

We rushed to the the boat harbor from the cover of trees and building to get a better look. I started taking photos along the way at least to be able to remember this sunset. Our son got onto excitement and was running ahead of us.

I did not have tripod and other stuff with me but that just made me to push myself and camera to get the best with what I had. I was using whatever I could find to steady the camera for longer exposure. I was taking panoramas handheld rotating it with my body. I was pushing ISO to get sharper images.

I’m proud of what I got. That’s one gift the Nature gave me that I did not miss.

Kubota Garden

Isn’t it amazing how sometimes we have something interesting close by and yet cannot seem to find time to visit the place?

I’ve heard of Kubota Garden in Seattle long time ago. I’ve meant to visit it many times. And yet I have not visited it once. That was until this this year. A few fellow photographers went there to photograph fall colors. While I could not go with them I made a promise to myself to go there next week. I kept the promise and I’m glad I did.

Turned out the Kubota Garden is a very picturesque place with large variety of trees, human made waterfalls, intricate network of trails. The bright hues of fall were mixed with evergreens.

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The weather was not great the sky was grey and featureless but promise is a promise I had to keep it. In the end it turned out well. The sun broke thru the clouds and I was treated to a nice rainbow. I found this nice composition with a bridge and rainbow repeating each others arc. It was raining and you can see water drops on the water.

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Enchantment Lakes [18]

Day 5. Wake up!

Josh woke me up way before sunrise as I asked him last night. He was the only one with an alarm watch. I was hard to wake up. Morning sleep is the sweetest sleep of all! Especially after night with wind gusts waking me up every now and then.

Over night clouds moved in. This was great for photography. It was our last sunrise at Enchantments.

I tried to wake up John but he refused. He was tired and sick. It was still dark but I saw some color in the sky and took a few long exposures. I saw on the back of my camera that the sky was already red. I showed it to John and that woke him up. He went on with his plan to climb back up to Core Enchantments. And on the way there he made one of the best photos of the trip.

I went to the spot which I found the night before. The sunrise was blocked off by a small ridge on the right but I did not count on it. I was counting on Prusik Peak lighting up and photographing its reflection in Lake Viviane. Unfortunately the wind was still strong and the lake was unrestful. There was no reflection and the sky remained dark.

I lost hope to get good photo. Suddenly a cloud above the Prusik Peak lighted up with bright red. I started taking one panorama after another not sure if I got it. Only when I assembled panoramas back at home I found out that I got it in one of them! (click on the image to see it larger)


Morning at Lake Viviane

Enchantment Lakes [14]

Day 4. Catch the light

The day before when Josh and I went to photograph sunrise to Leprechaun Lake, John stayed by the camp and photographed by Perfection Lake. At night we shared what we got and I liked what I saw in the back of John’s camera (here is the image that John posted on his blog). So the next morning I stayed by Perfection Lake for sunrise.

The night was cold, bitterly cold. There was frost on the ground. The first light that hit the granite wall was deep red:

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In just less than a minute it turned yellow. In fact the panorama above is the only image I’ve captured with that light. After that it looked like this:

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I’ll Take It!

Couple weeks ago I went to Rainier again. You know I’m falling in love with it. (See my post New Eyes.) While there I met a couple of photographers. We got talking a little bit, all three excited about nice sunset.

On the way back we were passing a view of Paradise Lodge with a nice backdrop of after sunset sky with nice hues of orange, red and blue. Their reaction was “It is not worth taking.” Mine was “I’ll take anything that excites me.” I think it turned out pretty nice.

Paradise Lodge
Paradise Lodge