photography – Page 5

Seattle Sightseeing Photos

August 8, 2008August 13, 2008 Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ve been in Seattle on a project for a client here in the area and my dad came to visit over the weekend. We went on many of the classic sightseeing spots and I thought I’d give a couple thoughts in case you might ever find yourself in the Seattle area:

Museum of Flight — If you like planes and flight, I can recommend this — they have a Concorde and it’s probably worth going for their SR-71 alone.
Seattle Aquarium — One of my coworkers who visited the aquarium didn’t like it very much, but I thought it was a hoot. Their exhibit on tropical fish (the coral reef kind) was particularly good. (And, I gotta give props to the staff — they were very knowledgeable and were happy to answer all of our questions.)
Seattle Underground Tour — As you may be aware, much of Seattle was decimated by a fire in 1889. In the aftermath, the city planners decided to regrade the streets one or two stories higher than they were originally; this tour visits some of those formerly-first-floor areas of town. When my dad and went, our tour guide was very lively, but still informative at the same time.
Space Needle — In many ways, the Space Needle is Seattle’s icon. The architecture is novel, of course, and the view really is fantastic; it probably helps, also, that even though the Space Needle is no longer Seattle’s tallest structure, most of the buildings anywhere close to the Space Needle aren’t exactly of the skyscraper variety.

Photos from the Seattle Mariners Game

August 5, 2008August 5, 2008 Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I’ve been working on a project for a client in Seattle since early June and a bunch of us recently headed out to Safeco Field to catch a Seattle Mariners game. It was good fun — and any ballpark that has Pyramid Hefeweizen on top is a-ok with me.

I had also been pining to purchase Canon's 10-22mm lens and this outing provided just the excuse I had needed. (Besides, it had been months since my last lens purchase, I tells ya.) After getting the lens, I didn’t actually have many opportunities to play around with it; if you look over the photo set, though, you’ll see a few Seattle cityscape-type shots, but even those were taken with my 50mm lens (before the 10-22mm had arrived).

In all though, I’ve had great deal of fun with the lens. In months prior, I can’t even count how many times I had said to myself, “Hey this viewpoint would be great for a wide-angle shot… now if only I had a wide-angle lens :(.” (And, yes the unhappy face was included in my mental notes at the time.) And, since getting ahold of the lens, I’ve been nothing but pleased when those scenarios have come along.

Photos from Seattle

July 29, 2008August 5, 2008 Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I’ve been working on a project for a client based out of Seattle since early June. Each week, I’ve been flying out on Sunday to Seattle, and then flying back to Dallas on Friday. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I’ve been working on the project with two other guys from my company and they’ve put us up at the Washington Athletic Club. And, yeah, even though that probably sounds like a Gym Extravaganza or the like, it is actually a regular hotel (though it does include a couple floors of exercise equipment, natch). The hotel has been generally pleasant and that staff has been very nice. (I think I’ve learned most of their names by now.)

What’s interesting or peculiar — depending on your point of view — is the decor. It kinda looks like the hotel was built several decades ago. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean, everything is clean and well maintained. It’s just that the fixtures, the lighting, and even the carpet makes me feel like I’m stepping into another era. I mean, their uneven hallway lighting kinda makes their interiors a little gloomier than they really need to be. Well, no matter — wonky lighting aside, the hotel is generally fine.

Other than some shots of the hotel, I also included some pics from a recent photowalk around the area after dinner one evening. If you happen to be the type that peers into Exif data, you might notice that all my exterior shots were taken in shutter priority at 1/100 sec. “So”, you might be thinking, “why take exterior landscape-type shots in shutter priority rather than aperture priority?”

Well, as is turned out, I didn’t have my tripod with me at the time, and especially with the setting sun, I knew that I didn’t have that might light to spare. I also only had my 50mm f/1.4 lens with me at the time and I knew that I could safely hand-hold shots at that focal length down to maybe 1/80 sec. So that’s why I chose to force my camera to take shots at 1/100 sec. Pleasantly enough, that strategy seemed to have worked — though not every single one of my shots was a keeper, none of the shots that I tossed aside were due to camera shake.

Last but not least, I’d also like to give a shout-out to a little gizmo from Manfrotto, their Hot Shoe Bubble Level. Yeah, just like the name implies, it’s a tiny level that fits in the hot shoe mount of your camera. It’s not exactly cheap — it’s about $30 — but the thing works marvelously. When it comes to hand-held landscape-type photos, a level shot can sometimes make all the difference.

For instance, this hand-held sunset shot may look perfectly level, but that?’s because it is. I measured the waterline in Photoshop (so that I could minutely rotate shot, if needed), but the shot was dead-level right out of the camera. For anyone that takes hand-held landscape-type shots (or other shots that need to be level), I can heartily recommend Manfrotto’s Hot Shoe Bubble Level.

Photos from Erica and Chris’ Wedding Reception

July 2, 2008July 2, 2008 Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

My friends Erica and Chris got married near the end of May and I brought my camera along for their reception and took a few shots. I wasn’t the official photographer or anything — just some guy that brought his camera along to try his hand at a few shots.

Still, even though I’m pleased with how things turned out overall, I do regret that I wasn’t able to salvage any shots of Erica or Chris :(. As luck would have it, either the lighting was working against me during those shots, or other guests unknowingly ended up stepping into the frame at the time. D'oh!

As I did with my trip down to SXSW, I once again rented Canon’s 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens. That lens hasn’t let me down yet and I probably ought to buy it outright rather than simply stuffing the pockets of the lens-rental companies ;). (All kidding aside, lensrentals.com came through for me yet again and their service has been great.)

Donovan Family Portraits

April 28, 2008April 28, 2008 Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

My friend (and coworker) Matt recently adopted a baby daughter, Gracie, and asked Michelle and I if we would take a few family portraits at the Dallas Arboretum. This was right about the time of the yearly “Dallas Blooms” festival (where the Arboretum plants shedloads of flowers) and we just couldn’t pass that up. So, we headed down to the Arboretum one Saturday morning earlier this month and took a handful of posed and candid shots of Matt and his family.

As it turns out, I had just recently bought my Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens and this presented a great opportunity to put it to use. I stuck with the lens throughout the morning and I was really pleased with how things turned out. Admittedly, the focal length took a little getting used to — I had to remain about 20 ft away from the subjects even for sitting-in-the-grass types of shots. It wasn’t long, though, before it all became second nature.

Oh, one last thing — in the photo set on Flickr, you’ll see some shots from Michelle and some from me; as you might guess, the ones labeled “Photo by Alex” are the ones that I took.