Posts Tagged ‘snow’

This Is How It Starts

It isn’t usually that cold here.  Seattle isn’t known for snow, or freezing, or any real extremes.  This week, however, is not effing around.  My computer is telling me it’s 25 degrees out right now, on its way down to 16 overnight.  This is not normal or ok.  So far, it’s been freezing but dry.  At this temperature, however, just a little moisture and you get what we had last year, almost to the day:

Nighttime Snow in Seattle

Camera & Lens   Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (Canon) & 50.0 mm     Shutter:   1/13 s
Creation Date:   2008:12:13 23:08:31     Aperture:   f/1.8
Artist:   Ari Brown     ISO:   400
Exposure Mode:   Normal program     Focal Length:   50 mm

Right now it’s all happy and bare out there, but never forget people – this is how it started.  You remember what happened after that, right?

Snow on the Way

HDR of Gasworks Park covered in snow

Camera & Lens   Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (N/A) & no lens info     Shutter:   1/100 s
Creation Date:   2009:02:26 07:32:18     Aperture:   f/8.0
Artist:   N/A     ISO:   200
Exposure Mode:   N/A     Focal Length:   28 mm

I don’t look at the weather report anymore.  It’s consistently wrong, which is sort of amazing if you assume they’re trying to be right.  As I type this it’s brilliantly sunny and beautiful, but when this hits the site, if the weather folks are somehow right, it will be snowing.  Again.  The only upside is that if my wonderful Subaru-driving friend sorts out his caliper issue, I should be in the mountains where snow is a good thing, not a horrible curse.  In any case, I leave you with another HDR from our last brush with snow a couple weeks ago.   I like how the paths up the hill in Gasworks Park are still visible and the Aurora Bridge peeks out in the background.

Tanks In The Snow

Coal Gassification Tank at Gasworks Park in the snow

Camera & Lens   Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (Canon) & 24.0-105.0 mm     Shutter:   1/125 s
Creation Date:   2009:02:26 07:34:17     Aperture:   f/4.0
Artist:   Ari Brown     ISO:   200
Exposure Mode:   Manual     Focal Length:   24 mm

Another Gasworks Park shot from the snowstorm we had this morning.  It’s probably all melted by now, so I’m glad I got there quick.  Every time I come to this park, and really even before I moved to Seattle, I think about how to take pictures of these tanks.  Industrial equipment is just so fun to look at, but the big fence around the base sure is a photographic bummer.  This is one of the larger coal gassification tanks which happens to sit closer to the fence, which allows for a much nicer shot looking up at it.  Some day I’m gonna get inside that fence…

Winter Never Stops Around Here

Gasworks Park Snow HDR

Camera & Lens   Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT (N/A) & no lens info     Shutter:   1/100 s
Creation Date:   2009:02:26 07:32:18     Aperture:   f/8.0
Artist:   N/A     ISO:   200
Exposure Mode:   N/A     Focal Length:   28 mm

Just because the weather said it might snow overnight (again) doesn’t mean I believed it.  They *always* say that.  Today they were actually right.  After discovering the buses weren’t running, we got in the car – it really wasn’t that bad.  The upside of dropping my wife at work is that I was already halfway to Gasworks Park.  I always wondered what it looked like under the snow, and now I know.  The lighting was low and soft, so I thought it might be more interesting as an HDR.  I love the old towers and pipes – if they would just take down the fence, this place would be a photographic dream.  Just don’t break through the topsoil to the superfund site below unless toxins really do it for you.

The Last Reminder Of Seattle Snow

The Last Reminder Of Seattle Snow

The aftermath of the snow here in seattle is dirty streets, massive potholes, and broken tire chains everywhere. I don’t think it’s that so many people were driving with them – more like a good number of people driving with them for the first time. Lots of tire chains coming off, lots of tire chains to swerve around on the freeway. Here is the one occupying the corner of our driveway. I love the grain on this Neopan film for the Rollei – it’s almost circular or bubbly instead of being really… well… grainy, I guess. I’ve got a roll of color that I’m going to try shooting now that I know the camera works. We’ll see how that turns out.
  • DateTimeOriginal:
  • Model: QSS-32_33

Night Snow and Photoshop

Night Snow and Photoshop

All the photos I post here take a very quick trip through Photoshop, usually just long enough to set some levels and resize. This is the first one I actually chose to edit for real. Everything I know about photoshop I picked up from a couple sources and I usually have to refer back to them each time. I find the best candidates for improvement in this way are pictures that have a cool subject but just look flat to start with. I loved the night look that this started with, but I like the final product more.

Updated 2008.12.26 – Since my reader has been kind enough to remind me that it might be more interesting to see what the finished product looks like when you can tell where it started, here is the original photo:

snowy-night-original

  • ApertureValue: f/4
  • DateTimeOriginal: 2008:12:22 21:09:21
  • ExposureTime: 20 sec
  • Flash: No Flash
  • FocalLength: 24 mm
  • ISOSpeedRatings: 100
  • Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Snowy Seattle Night

Snowy Seattle Night

I’ve been taking pictures lately, but all of them are within a few blocks of my house. Snow in Seattle is usually a once or twice a season treat. It’s funny how with another dozen inches and a few days later, it really feels like a whole different kind of hell. For a different take, I thought I’d do some long exposure shots. Very low light photography isn’t that hard, especially with digital since you can see what you’re going to get. You definitely need a tripod and you may or may not need a cable or remote shutter release to ensure you don’t shake things taking the picture. I was looking for the light trails and motion against the stillness on the street, so I closed down the aperture as far as it would go and dropped the ISO speed to my camera’s slowest to get this exposure at 20 seconds. The nice thing is you don’t have to be too careful staying out of the frame – unless you’re wearing a flashlight, you won’t even show up. There is a lot more that can be done with this technique – I’ll post more when the snow melts.
  • ApertureValue: f/22
  • DateTimeOriginal: 2008:12:22 21:15:07
  • ExposureTime: 20 sec
  • Flash: No Flash
  • FocalLength: 24 mm
  • ISOSpeedRatings: 100
  • Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT

Snow Fountain

Snow Fountain

Here’s another one from a snowy night at Volunteer Park. Generally I’m a fan of regular objects – one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken is of a fire hydrant. For some reason the city saw fit to endow this particular part with extra nice fittings and fixtures, perhaps to match the great Deco look of the Seattle Asian Art Museum. I love the octagonal rim, standing silently at attention, waiting at the ready. I love the glow of the ambient yellow street light (way better than what happens if you use a flash), and I love the bokeh from the f/1.8 lens.
  • ApertureValue: f/1.8
  • DateTimeOriginal: 2008:12:13 22:03:31
  • ExposureTime: 1/4 sec
  • Flash: No Flash
  • FocalLength: 50 mm
  • ISOSpeedRatings: 800
  • Model: Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT