Sunday Stills :: Metal

At first, this challenge was causing me a bit of stress.

Then i had a revelation.

There is a piece of metal which is the most important piece of metal in my life: my wedding band.

Moose and i looked at a few stores for wedding bands when we were in the market for them almost 10 years ago. I wanted matching bands, and we settled on some that was "alright" from a mall jeweler.

While i was at our jeweler picking out gifts for my bridesmaids, i saw a couple of rings that had been special ordered for another couple with Celtic designs in them, and fell in love! That evening i talked to Moose about what i saw, and we both decided we needed to order new bands. We like these eternity knots and had the backs inscribed with special messages to each other.

Poor Moose had the daunting task of returning the bands we had previously picked out at the mall jeweler. He said he still feels bad because he went in when a couple of older women were working and just told them "these didn't work out" and he thinks the women thought that i left him at the alter. }:o)

It was just meant to be: the rings to us and Moose and me! :o)

Sunday Stills :: Where's There's Smoke, There's Fire

This week's challenge required smoke or fire. Many different interpretations have been submitted and are very interesting. You can check them out here.


In Western WA, there's only one safe place i know of for this to photograph this subject: Flaming Geyser State Park.


Granted, the name stirs all kinds of imagery in one's noggin, and seriously make's it sound grander than it is. But really, it is kind of a cool phenomenon.


Out in the Green River gorge between Auburn and Black Diamond, there are huge pockets of coal seams, that were mined about 100 years ago here in Seattle area. From the pockets that still exist, methane emits from cracks the ground.

When they first found this geyser the flame was a foot and a half high, it's flame fading little by little until it was snuffed out a decade or so ago. Then we had an earthquake Ash Wednesday of 2001 and it was revived again.

I'm uncertain why they decided to make the "improvements" to the geyser. Forced through a pipe encased in cement, it doesn't really look like a natural anomily, however i've read that at one point early in it's history, this property was privately owned and slated to be marketed as an "amusement park". Up at the top of the ridge from the flame is the "bubbling geyser", where the gas escapes from under the creek that runs up there. Thankfully, when the property went up for sale and was destined to become developed into housing sites, the state was able to acquire it.

Sadly, a lot of the trails are unusable, as the bridges have fallen into disrepair and aren't safe. We trekked out to the river and found lots of kids enjoying rafting down the Green River on a sea of camping mattresses and innertubes. :o) And in the Fall, it's a playground from all kinds of spawning salmon. If you're quiet as you approach the shores of the river, you can see the salmon swimming everywhere!

Never the less, it does make a wonderful respite from the scorching heat in an 85 degree house on a Friday evening, especially when paired with family and good takeout bbq!

Sunday Stills :: Clouds

The probability of you believing this next statement is quite slim, however, we just haven't had many clouds in the Seattle skies here for the past week. This week's challenge was saved by the fact that weather has been so warm in Central WA, that their thunderclouds are visible to us over the Cascade Range.



Unfortunately, the skies haven't been all that blue, as the smoke from the wildfires up in B.C., Canada have been tainting our skies. Last weekend, it blocked part of the sun and we had an orange bowling ball in the sky from 1 in the afternoon till sunset.

Wednesday night, the thunder clouds were really thick and billowy.

Made a pretty scene for the air travellers coming in.

Then Thursday morning, we awoke to this gorgeous sunrise, looking like it

was nestled in a pillow of rainclouds.

I love it when it looks like the sun has set the clouds ablaze!

Care to see clouds from all over the world? Head to Sunday Stills for challenge of the week of Aug 1st.

Sunday Stills :: Graffiti

In the city in which I live, graffiti is hard to come by. We have an anti-graffiti task force employed by the city that keeps our town pretty free and clear of mostly the offending gang tags around the area.

I refuse to photograph anything that is a gang tag that I can't read. Who knows what indecencies you could be spreading photographing certain tags.

So here is some rookie tagger art I found down by the railroad tracks.

We also have a few Flickr groups set up commemorating old school tagging and graffiti murals from Seattle. We have a few free walls that are left for taggers to decorate around the industrial areas of Seattle. Sadly, though, most of the graffiti in Seattle is of the gang banger variety.

Would you like to see some other street art and graffiti across the country and the world? Visit Sunday Stills.

Sunday Stills :: The Rule of Thirds

Sorry it's a little late. When you see the subject of the photo, you'll understand why. :o)

Hoping you all are having a great summer!

Sunday Stills :: Summertime

Summertime means trips with family, hanging out and having fun!

Sunday Stills :: Frame It

Sunday Stills challenge this week is to frame your subject.

Here's my attempts.

One of the local marinas.

Inside a barn.

Below is my little one on our vacation to the cabin.



View from our living room


This is a picture of a picture...one of the coolest i've ever taken. It's from our trip to St. Louis. Moose and i were freshly married and visiting family back there. I was using my old film camera that had a double exposure programmed into it. I was hoping to get Moose framed by the Arch, and luckily i did. I think this is the perfect picture to capture a civil engineer.


Another sunrise from our living room



If you'd like to see more talent from the Sunday Stiller's or to join the group yourself, come visit here.

Sunday Stills :: History: pre-1950

This week's Sunday Still's Challenge is to photograph something at least 60 years old. In a perfect world, i would have had time to photograph some older homes south of here, however last week was the week for playdates and ....

So you will see parts of my pharmacy bottle collection instead. :o)

Below is the bottle that started it all--freshly admitted to the local pharmacy tech program in Northern ID in the late 90's, my mom and i cruised through some antique stores and i found this gem. It's from Osseward's Pharmacy in Seattle. Handwritten label with no date. The only info on the pharmacy Google turns up is a listing in the ERA pharmacy's in 1911.

I believe this to be the oldest bottle i have in my collection of pharmacy paraphernalia.

.

Next is this great bottle of Dr. Schenck's Syrup.

Once i found an archive of a NYTimes article stating that this gent's business dated back to 1895. I doubt this bottle is from way back then.

Here are some more bottles of "medicines" from pharmacy's early history.

And another prescription bottle from a Portland pharmacy called, "The Owl Drug Co."
The Portland Owl Drug is not listed in the 1911 ERA.
Neither is Clinton Drug Co.

Sunday Stills: Got to Get Low to Get High

Currently in Seattle this week, we are experencing the little known month of June-uary. That is to say that it is sorta warm ... ish, like an educated person would reason June to be. However, Mother Nature has been conducting a week long flushing of her sprinkler system and the sky actually seems to get darker rather than lighter upon the sun's rise just as it does here in January. Drat! Tough luck for the photographers in the area, eh?

So as not to bore you with horrid exposure of pictures of seemingly black trees against the grey skies or to save myself from wallowing in mud puddles and slug slime to capture this week's shots, i will have to bust one of my rules i set for myself upon joining the Stillers :: this week i am going to have to dig in my archives to find some worthy pictures to submit to you all. They still adhere to my second rule i set for myself as they are SOOC.

Hoping you aren't experiencing June-uary wherever you may be!

Fondly,

Whit

Sunday Stills :: Eyes

This week's challenge was tough for me, because everything around here with eyes to photograph moves way too quickly.

Souffle, our chicken

Sandwich, our cat

My lil Cookie Monster

self portrait

Sunday Stills :: Black & White

...and no archives!

This week was a hard week to capture pictures. Not just because it was torrentially rainy most of the week, but also because we were so busy.

We started the week with a busy Tuesday. We were readying for a lunch party with my in-laws at our house, for my parent's arrival in the evening, and the day happened to be my 35th birthday too.

The next day, my mom and i spent touring a few local nurseries in the area (her birthday present from us.) We had a wonderful lunch at one of the places. I had my camera, so when my iced tea came, i thought, "hey, why not?"

I just love the colour accent feature on my camera!!

Dogwood trees are in full bloom here.

Since it's been so rainy, there has been plenty of opportunity to snuggle with our cat.
She makes such pretty pictures!

Then again, so does my lil' Cookie Monster.

Who was in 4 of the numbers at this year's recital at the local P&R dept.

She's somewhere among the tutus and top hats here.

Ah, there she is...my lil' Irish dancin' fool.

Then the week was done and it was time for church.

All during Mass, i was having a hard time concentrating for want of a more interesting B&W photo for this weekend. Sorry, God. I tried looking around the church for something more than just the shrine to Mary. I feel a little uncomfortable taking pictures in church anyway...

Then on our way home, i was surprised by the gorgeousness of Mt. Rainier as the clouds parted for just a second and the sunset set the slopes ablaze.

Just the photo i was hoping for this week!

Sunday Stills

An acquaintance of mine recently pointed me in the direction of an internet project called "Sunday Stills", where a gathering of photographers take a weekly challenge delivered by the writer.

People say i am a good photographer, but i say i am only as good as the automatic programming on my camera. :o) It is certainly something i enjoy...it fascinates me. I have been playing with aperture and macro settings though i still haven't a clue as to how they work. ;o)

After pouring through the website however, i was hooked. So this is my inaugural submission to the group. This Sunday's mission: Signage

These signs can be found within in neighbourhood. As you can see, our neighbourhood could be one of the coolest around if we could just embrace our vintage-y goodness!

The local burger-teriyaki joint

Our neighbourhood happens to have an amoury in it, so this sign is

rather fitting of this weekend.

However, maybe a sign that is more telling of the times, are these types of signs littered up and down the streets of Anyhood, USA.