Sunset at Lime Kiln Point
Today I share some sunset pics from a trip to Friday Harbor, Washington that we took last summer. It ended up being a pretty nice sunset, and the dramatic setting of a lighthouse on the shore just made it that much more special!
Sometimes a sunset just turns out awesome!
Last summer we spent nearly a week on San Juan Island, off the coast of Seattle in Washington State. It's a gorgeous island, and the little town of Friday Harbor is quaint and beautiful. We love it there.
We were up there as part of our crazy big traveling summer, and thus had our own car with us. (Yes, that's a long drive from Texas.) So we did what we weren't able to do on our last visit to Friday Harbor (when we did NOT have a car) - that is, we drove all over the island and explored it in much more depth than ever before. It was awesome!
It's interesting how many places you can find to explore when you are on an island. You would think it's not much, but it really is - at least here it is, I should say.
One place we enjoyed quite a bit is Lime Kiln Point State Park. It's on the west side of the island, which is great for sunset, and with the dramatic setting on the water and that lighthouse too, you could say I was enjoying it quite a bit.
We spent two sunsets here, but this one was by far superior to the other one. As you can see, the sky put on quite a show for us, and I was snapping away happily with a huge grin on my face. It's not often you get light like this, is it?
All three of these images are 3 exposure HDRs processed in Aurora HDR Pro from Macphun. It's a lovely product that gives me fabulous results, and frankly I have a lot of fun processing my images in it. That last photo I really pushed quite a bit. It was a nice sunset, but it wasn't quite that colorful. But I was having fun, and experimenting with a lot of layers and effects in Aurora, and just decided to go for it. Call it an artistic interpretation, if you will. I do like my colors. :-)
The thing is that when you shoot RAW, the before photos always look a bit flatter and less saturated than they really were. The same is true of this one. The left version below isn't really a good representation of the colors at the moment. So as I was bringing them back, I added some artistic flair, just for the sake of the art. It was fun.
Here's a screenshot showing the photo before and after:
As you can see, I added 4 layers on top of the original image. In the first one, I added a Dreamy preset, then I did a little split toning, then ran some denoise across the sky, and finally had to reduce the reddish/orange saturation a bit. Altogether this was just a few minutes of work, and I wouldn't even call it work since it's so much fun!
If you would like to learn more about Aurora HDR, just click on the banner below and you will be directed to their site. Or, feel free to leave a comment with any questions - thanks!
Sunset at the lighthouse
I lucked into an amazing sunset at Lime Kiln Point State Park on San Juan Island, Washington - amazing clouds and superb color. It was a real stunner. Click on in and see all 4 pics!
I caught an amazing sunset at Lime Kiln Point State Park in Washington!
Considering how much I wrote for that last post, I think I will keep this one pretty short. On that summer trip, we spent about a week on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington State. One evening we made our way over to Lime Kiln Point State Park. Obviously there is a lighthouse there, but the main attraction is that it's a fabulous place to watch for passing whales.
Sadly, we never saw any whales that day, but I couldn't really complain considering the awesome sunset that arrived! I stood on a rock outcropping and fired away for quite a while as the light changed and got more intense. It was beautiful, and I was surprised that there were only a few people around. I was the only photographer standing there and firing brackets into the sunset.
All 4 of these photos are 3 exposure HDR's which were combined in Photomatix with filters applied in Color Efex Pro and final touch-up in Lightroom.
Do you ever get a place all to yourself like that? Isn't it awesome?
Catching a ferry to the islands
I got pretty lucky one evening. We took a ferry from the mainland in Washington State over to the San Juan Islands, and happened to catch the last ferry of the day. And then, sunset happened, and it happened big. Luckily, I was hanging off the end of the boat with my camera in hand!
Have you been to the San Juan Islands yet? You should go!
As part of our super summer road trip, we took off up north of Seattle and caught the car ferry from Anacortes over to Friday Harbor (on San Juan Island, Washington State), where we stayed for about a week. It's a great place. Very quaint and quiet and very beautiful. I have plenty of shots still to process from my time on the island...but today I am sharing shots I took on the ferry ride. It was quite the ride my friends!
Because we were driving up from our stay in Oregon, we happened to schedule our ferry ride for the evening and as such were on the ferry during sunset - oh darn! Sometimes you get lucky, and this was one of those times. Every now and then it happens.
We departed Anacortes for the ~1 hour ferry ride and immediately I knew that sunset was going to be pretty kickass. You know, sometimes you can just tell, right?
So as soon as we were on board, I left the car with the camera in hand (no need for a tripod when your method of transportation is moving, right?) and headed up stairs to get on the back deck. I wanted some shots of the ferry terminal and then I planned to walk around and shoot for the hour.
It turns out most of the sunset action was behind us, so I was in a great spot already. I did some meandering just to make sure (I can't stand to miss something) but always ended up back on the back deck of the ferry, firing madly into the sunset. It was pretty awesome and only got better and better.
If you ever find yourself in Seattle and want a little break from the city, I highly recommend hopping over to the San Juan Islands - well worth a visit!
Snug Harbor
For starters, I just want to thank everyone that commented on my photo yesterday here on the blog, or on Google+ and for all the shares, etc on Google+ as well. I really appreciate that so much!
This has been a crazy week, and it included a quick trip out to San Francisco but sadly no time for shooting while out West. Luckily though, I did get the opportunity to meet with Thomas Hawk and had a great time chatting with him. He is an insightful and interesting guy, not to mention a great photographer. More on that later, but I wanted to share the below shot which I posted on Google+ yesterday...taken with my iPhone. This is Thomas, hanging out with the Bay Bridge in the background.
Ok, on to the photo post for today...
I shot this one while up in Seattle earlier in the year. We took a weekend and ferried up to the San Juan Islands, which are fabulous by the way. We spent the weekend in Friday Harbor and at some point that weekend decided we wanted to go on a kayak tour around the coastline. The tour took us up to Snug Harbor, which is where we launched from, and the beauty of the area is just incredible. I took so many photos - many from the kayak itself - and have a lot more to share. So, you will see more of this place! It's beautiful all the way around!
Spray
I shot this one off the back of our ferry boat, heading north from Seattle up to the San Juan Islands. I just liked the water spraying out from the engines. The scenery is so gorgeous, and I just could not stay inside with everyone else! Great scenery + great weather + Nikon= pure bliss.
Cruising the strait
I took this shot from the rooftop deck of the ferry we were on, heading from Seattle, WA up to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. The cruise is a beautiful one, as you are surrounded by incredible scenery such as this the whole way. It's very inspiring. It's jaw-dropping. It makes you (or at least, me) want to sell everything and move there! I spent a good part of the cruise up here on top of the ferry, snapping away and having a great time. I was also enjoying the weather quite a bit, as it was nice and cool, unlike Austin where we are still hitting highs north of 100 degrees! That's a great thing about photographs - they capture a moment and let you relive it any time you want. I freakin' love that!
Clouds over Snug Harbor
While we were in the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington State, we took one morning to go explore the coastline via sea kayak. We kayak semi-frequently in Austin, and enjoy it quite a bit, though it is obviously a bit different on the ocean. For starters, we saw a pod of orcas as well as a harbor seal, and I can't say I have ever done that in Austin. hehe Plus, the weather was cool and I had these fabulous clouds to look at, so all in all it was about the best morning I can imagine! This was one of many shots I took from the kayak that day. It's pretty hard to take pictures, keep your camera dry, paddle and steer a kayak, and enjoy the scenery all at the same time - but hey it sure is fun trying!
Chasing orcas and eagles
Well, I just returned from a combo business/personal trip to the Seattle area. We spent last weekend in Friday Harbor, which is on San Juan Island. It’s an incredibly beautiful area full of wildlife and lots of photographic treats! We went whale-watching last Saturday and saw what seemed like a million orca whales, and many times they were breaching! It was incredible. The whole area is just fabulous - honestly, I can’t think of enough superlatives to begin to describe it. So, a picture is worth a thousand words, yes?
I caught this image while heading back on the boat from whale-watching. This was some mostly-uninhabited island, but what caught my eye was the bald eagle sitting at the top of the tree. See him? I saw 5 bald eagles last weekend. Incredible. Amazing. Fabulous. Got any more great words for me??
Oh yeah, and I have 800+ photos to add to the backlog. I love doing this stuff!!