Westlake Christmas Tree Lighting

On Black Friday I opted out of shopping (I've served my time in retail). In years past I've gone to the Holiday parade, but this time, the idea of sleeping late was just too appealing.  Besides, I've taken lots of pictures of the parade over the years:

• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005

Normally it's rainy and on TV anyway.

This year, that turned out not to be the best solution.  It was oddly bright and sunny, and for some reason, no one saw fit to broadcast it on TV this year.

Despite the rough start, the day got better and the GF and I went to the tree lighting in Westlake Plaza. We were just two people among the 15,000 who turned out for the event.

The tree and the Macy's star were all set up and ready for the evening to start.






After and hour of sun setting, crowd plowing, musical renditions, a mayoral greeting (of course people boo'ed the Mayor), the finally lit the tree, carousel, and Macy's star. Then the fireworks started:




And then the cell phones came out. It's amusing how any major event these days is surrounded and captured by dozens or hundreds of cell phones, many of which are likely to do a poor job preserving the event. But they still come out.










The other iconic element of any major Seattle event remain the infamous pile of Starbucks cups. They tower on top of trash cans for miles around as a beacon for the Ghosts of Coffee Consumed.




But don't worry. It's okay. We recycle, tool.




Cell phones and Starbucks are not the only Holiday traditions we have in Seattle.  The season would be nothing without annual protesters.  Elements of our city were objecting to consumers and corporate dominance long before Occupy Wall Street made is cool.




Overall it was a fun evening and a swell day. It was a great way to green-light the rest of the Christmas season.




You can see a few more pictures of the event here.

A contained Tulip Festival

The weather was not kind to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival this year.  The chilly spring and non-stop drizzle delayed the tulip blooms quite a bit. Whereas during many years you could drive up there in the mid-April and see acres and acres of brilliant color that looked like you could set sail on and float across a sea of red, this year, it wasn’t quite to be.

When my Mother and I took the drive up there one afternoon, there was plenty of green, and the occasional spot of yellow as the Daffodils made their last stand, the tulip blooms remained scarce.

Fortunately, we still got to experience the reds and purples of the Roozengaarde display gardens. The contained and disciplined gardens showcase a variety of blooms and it was a enough of a tulip fix for the year.
 
I shot these images using the same macro lens I brought to the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.
This is just a sampling of the pictures from that day.  You can find more of my pictures from that day here, on my Flickr page.

Of course it was drizzling that day, which made walking in the nature more complicated, but it did do some interesting things to the flowers. The water droplets clung to the tulips as though they feared being soaked up by the ground.

They also did something that’s I’d only every seen on CSI. They captured the reflection of neighboring plants, the sky, and me. Granted, it was more of a silhouette and a bit distorted. It would never result in my conviction for anything, but it was still quite cool. 

I’m not sure how well that translates to the small image posted in Blogger; you may need to open the images to their full size on Flickr to check it out (Image 1, Image 2, Image 3).

In this shot, I used the flash.  It made the water droplets on the ruffled petal edges sparkle like an artificial, fiber optic Christmas tree. It’s a little challenging to see it in this post, but you can see a larger version here.

I was able to get very tight on this one.

They did some creative stuff with the flowers, creating a blue river of Irises through the beds.

It wasn’t the wide swaths of color I’d seen in previous years, but it was still worth the visit.
You can find posts from previous visits to the Tulip Festival here:

Tulips and Hail

Tulip Festival -- 2006

And you can find more pictures from various years here.

Life in the Garden Part 46: Northwest Flower and Garden Show 2011

Somehow it survived and once February rolled around it was again time for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. The last serveral Christmases my mother gave me a new lens for my camera, and I've always used that new lens as the sole one I bring to the garden show,  This year, that lens is a Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Medium Telephoto Macro Lens.

The lens gave me some nice reach and was fast enough for most shots I wanted to take (especially when I used a monopod).  The great thing about it, especially for this event, was the macro capability.  I got some really detailed shots.  The disadvantage for many of the shots, though, was that same long reach I mentiond a moment ago.  There were shots I couldn't take because I couldn't stand back far enough without other people getting in the shot, or me knocking over everything that was behind me.

I find this to be a good exercise from time-to-time.  It forces me to think more about the pictures I want to take, and I have to make decisions that I don't have to make when I carry my full kit.

This was a neat idea for a fake Koi pond -- fish figurines in black grass.

This was from the section on Ikebana.

The show gardens had a fictional character theme.

The small gardens section in the atrium over Pike St. always has asome great views and creative designs.

The doll diorama was also interesting.  They were all having a BBQ in the back yard. And the whole display was in a converted day bed.

The tradeshow has lots of neat stuff for an actual dirt-based garden for people who have "land" or "space." Neither of which really applies to me, but there was still stuff worth seeing.

I managed to spend very little money at the show, except, of course, for the two container sized apple trees I bought for my deck. I may now be just a year away from growing my own apples.

If you're into gardening, plants, flowers, vegetables and related stuff, and are in the Seattle area, check out the show next year.  And good luck on not spending so much on stuff you can't afford seeds.

More pictures from this year's show are available here.

Other posts I've written about the Garden show:

2011-03-01: Problem with a QR Code
2010-06-04: Life in the Garden Part 40: Northwest Flower and Garden Show – 2010
2009-02-22: The strengths and limitations of my new lens
2009-09-21: Life in the Garden Part 09: Photography and the Garden Show

Fun with shadows and a monopod

Old images revisited

I was going through my old photos and I stumbled across this one.  I like it quite a bit.

It's a picture on a 10/100 Linksys ISA card that I installed in my desktop computer.  I tool the picture with a Toshiba PDRM70 3MP digital camera, back on 2000-07-29.  As I recall, I took the picture because I needed some numbers from the chips for some sort of tech support type of reason.

I hesitate to call it a Macro image because I don't think I was using those settings.  And I didn't put in the kind of effort that would be expected for "Macro Photography."

I think it does demonstrate the importance of going back and looking at old images from time-to-time.  What seemed dull then, may have become fascinating or beautiful over the ears, or with new eyes.

Do you have favorite image from the past that you only recently rediscovered?

Woodland Park Zoo Wins Award for Penguin Exhibit

Apparently, Seattle is a good home for Humboldt penguins.  According to the Seattle Times:

The penguin exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo has won one of the most prestigious awards in the zoo and aquarium industry.

The Association of Zoos & Aquariums honored the zoo with the Exhibit Achievement Award, according to a news release from the zoo.

"We are honored that our peers at AZA have recognized our goal of encouraging our zoo guests to explore and discover more about the Humboldt penguins' natural history and their plight in the wild, the birds' connection to people and the collaborative work underway to help this endangered species," Woodland Park Zoo President and CEO Dr. Deborah Jensen said in the release.
...More

I'm not surprised.  It's a nice exhibit.  The GF and I visited it last August.  It's outdoors, but it let's you see the penguins both on dry land and swimming under water.  Unlike the more traditional and mechanized displays at Seaworld, this one is filled with twists and turns. It has round windows and Plexiglas barriers. The top is open, so while the penguins can't fly or jump out, other birds can visit.  The penguins don't seem to mind.  I guess they're friendly hosts.

Here are some pictures I took during that visit in August, 2009.

There aren't an penguins in this picture, but it is from the penguin habitat.  The sun shined through the windows to cast this refraction.

It's easy to pass an hour or more at the penguin exhibit, watching those critters go about their business.

You can see more penguin pictures from this exhibit here.