Ive got the blues

Ok....now dont go falling out of your chairs...you arent imagining things...I am actually posting something besides rusty broken chains and abandoned houses!! Every once in a while I like to get out and enjoy fresh air instead broken down sheds with moldy old couches in them!

I recently purchased a lovely little filter that - as you can see - makes the sky a more vivid blue than most normal camera lenses achieve. I cant believe I waited so long to get one of these...its going to save me HOURS of editing this summer by giving me bright blue skies instead of washed out ones - that always lead to color adjusting and manipulating each photo by hand! I think this is going to turn out to be one of my best investments so far!

Anyway - the first set of photos I took on Saturday morning out at Larabee Park off of Chuckanut Drive in Bellingham and was just amazed at how blue the sky turned out in the photos - usually its a white washed out mess...and now its almost TOO blue!

I wandered around the various places that can be found down there at the park and ended my explore here - where these two were sitting and sharing probably the best spot in town for sipping morning tea! What a beautiful view.

Then Sunday evening, I wanted to see how it would do with a sunset situation and I wasnt disappointed there either. This is by far my favorite shot:

These next few I did actually use a second filter in Adobe Lightroom to pull out only the blues in the shot and they turned out looking like something out of a sci-fi movie or perhaps just a really bright moonlit night -

I was so focused on the seagulls in this shot - that I didnt notice the "Horizon Line" in the background until I got home to play around with the pictures. :)

And so there we have some nature shots for a change....dont worry - I found another house I want to sneak into soon...rust will be back to my blog in no time ;) But until then, I hope you enjoyed these. :)

Thanks for visiting!

Essence of Bellingham - Photo contest

Its that time of year again - where I sift through all of my "for fun" shots and try to find a few to enter into the city's Essence of Bellingham Contest - which is always an adventure and even more fun now that both of my son's are starting to get into photography!

Last year, my younger son Eli, took a ton of photos and entered just about every one of them, earning himself a "Best of Class" for the K-4th grade award, and a trip to the awards ceremony where he got to shake hands with the Mayor and pick up his certificate. He also managed to wrangle in 9 - "Best of Subject" awards and one honorable mention!

My eldest son, Christian won a "Best of Subject" award for his one and only entry as well and I was really excited this year when he asked to go take pictures with me and churned out a handful of great shots to enter for this year. Its such a wonderful experience - watching your children find a passion for the same activities that you enjoy and then getting to do that activity with them on occasion. Thats the best award in all of this - getting to do what I love doing, with the people I love the most!

I managed to get a few "best of subjects" and "Honorable mentions" of my own last year and this year I entered a few but am more excited for my children's entries than my own. You can view our winning photos from last years competition here.

This year, they put a limit of 10 per artist - so we really had to sift through and pick our very favorite shots from our stock piles this time around. It was pretty hard to decide - but I think we did a pretty good job of narrowing them all down.

These are my entries for the 2008 Competition:

"Red Go Line" (South State Street)

"Fiddling French Hen" (Fairhaven)

"Rusted History" (Fairhaven Water Front)

"Clapping Rainbows" (Cornwall Park)

"Window Shopping" (Old Town)

"Little Piece of Heaven" (Whatcom Creek)

"Cemetary Tree" (Bayview Cemetary)

"Frosted Wonders" (Lake Whatcom)

"Lunch Meeting" (Lake Whatcom)

"Bike.Walk.Boat" (Taylor Dock)

These are Eli's entries into the K-4th grade Competion:

"Old Town Cafe"

"Twins"

"Lonely Leaf"

"TV Head"

"Piercing"


"Old and New" (Self Portrait)

"Little Shop Of Horrors"

"Horse Fly"

"Best Place in Town"

"Alley Oop"

These are Christian's entries into the 5th-8th grade Competition:

"Paper City"

"Skater Shadow"

"Gummy Wall"

"Saber Neighbor"

"Music Man"

"Fruity Fun"

"Textures of Time"

"Eat Local"

"Webby Window"

"Spring Fling"

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And so there they are - our 2008 Entries.

We will know how we did sometime around the first of June.

It doesnt matter though - if any of our photos win this year (Though it would be exciting...I wont lie!) - because we found something that we can all do together from time to time and I already "won" when I got to spend a couple of hours with each of my sons, out on photo adventures this spring - no certificate from the Mayor can match that kind of prize. :)

We are already taking pictures for next years competition and I cant wait for those sunny afternoons when my boys put down the video game controllers and ask to go take some pictures with me for a while. :)

To see last years gallery of winners and photo entries - please visit this page.