As I was hiking through the Olympic National Park this past Sunday, the trail rounded a corner at a point where just enough light from the overhead sun peeked through and illuminated the leaves of the tree you see here.

Well, there are actually two trees, one far more alive than the other. From this perspective though, they appear to be one. I couldn’t quite believe how beautiful this was. One tree very much dead, merely what remained of a tree trunk… the other thriving and growing in the Spring weather right next to it.

People were rushing by me to make it to the waterfall at the end of the trail, as though they were in a massive hurry. I was perfectly content to meander along the trail and witness the circle of life literally all around me.

Life has been pretty full on lately. A whirlwind of separate independent events has swept me up and each and every one of those events is awesome in their own right. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful roller-coaster to be riding. Sometimes though, a little disconnect to fly solo for a day or so is just what’s needed. The weather was cooperating and you could really feel that Summer is right around the corner here in the North West.

I headed for the Pacific. The Olympic National Park and the shores of the WA coastline was going to be home but for the weekend.

As I walked along the beach as the sun set, the tide began to drift out to sea, revealing two rather giant rocks that were previously covered by the ocean. I stood and watched the waves coming in and going out, lapping against the sides of the rocks and swirling all around chaotically under the peaceful, cloud-free sky. It was the perfect metaphor for exactly what was going on in my life right now… this wonderful peaceful moment surrounded by this concert of craziness… it took my breath away.

I framed the rocks in my tripod front and center, anticipating the waves to come in and circle them in a gentle fury. It took a couple of iterations waiting for the right strength behind the waves and a little patience while the light faded on me, but I finally had the right combination of elements to make the shot that I saw in my mind.

In the centre of Reykjavik is a small lake named Tjörnin. It’s quite a beautiful lake, with many small houses, museums, and downtown Reykjavik adorning the shores. On my first day in town, jet-lagged as anything, I took a walk around with my X100 and took in the town. The cool air coming off the Arctic was enough to snap me awake when my eyes felt heavy.

When I reached this lake, I wandered around about half of it before I just needed to sleep. During the walk though, I found a brief moment where about a dozen water birds – geese, seagulls, and ducks – flocked over to me. I didn’t have any breadcrumbs or food for them (they looked like they got enough from all the tourists as it was) but they did make for the perfect complimentary subject to the lake and the waterside in my frame.

Next time I’m back in Iceland, I definitely want to spend more time wandering the streets of Reykjavik – there a hidden gems around every corner.

I photographed this image of Seattle a while back when James Brandon was in town visiting and hanging out with myself, Nicole S. Young, and Brian Matiash. Getting access to the vantage point from which I took this shot was a combination of luck, asking nicely, and paying it forward.

Luck: We found the right guy at the right time. I’ll say no more about this so I don’t get anyone in trouble

Asking Nicely: We could have snuck around looking for a vantage point that was almost as good. Instead, I asked for 2 minutes of someone’s time and said my friend was in town and I wanted to show him a nice view of Seattle that no one gets to see.

Paying It Forward: I got the email address of the person who led us to the vantage point, and sent him a high-res version of one of the images I got from this shoot to say thank you. A couple of days later, I got this response:

Awesome photo Jacob, thank you for sticking to your word. I’m happy to have been a part of your friends Seattle experience, you made my day with this picture. Thank you again.

I sent him the image without expecting anything in return. As it turns out, his note made my day.

Fortunately, I have shot at this location a couple of times before. I’ve got panoramic, and landscape versions of this scene and this time, I wanted to make something vertical work.  I think Nicole, Brian, James and I all walked away with images we were happy with here… I was lucky enough to have this added extra fond memory from the shoot. There just isn’t a better feeling than the fact that I could use my photography to help make someone’s day that much better.

I edited this image with Perfect Photo Suite from onOne Software. It’s a great set of plugins combined neatly into one package that’s become an integral part of my image workflow. In fact, starting right now, onOne Software currently has a sale available on Perfect Photo Suite 6.1. You will be able to purchase the software during this limited time offer for $199.95 (normally $299.95) – that’s a saving of $100 off the regular price! To take advantage of this offer, click on the banner below:

The Cat Empire are one of my favourite bands from my home country of Australia. It’s been quite some time since they’d travelled through Seattle and I made sure (thanks to my friend Aleta) that I got tickets to their show as soon as I found out. In terms of a live show, I consider their show to be up there with one of the best I’ve ever seen.

I was thrilled to have the chance to not only see them live but also photograph their show. It was personally a thrilling, fun experience and I can’t wait to see them again next time they pass through a town near me. Here are a few of my favourite photographs from the shoot.

It was a pretty epic way to cap off the Google+ photowalk here in Seattle last night. I’ve finally gotten around to importing and editing a couple of the photos. I haven’t edited them all but I definitely wanted to share one of them now, given it’s the weekend of the supermoon and the photowalk itself.

As the moon was rising, a crowd of photographers gathered on top of the hill at Gasworks to catch the moon rising over Seattle. I grabbed a few frames up there, but quickly relocated to another area of the park to catch some different shots.

The park, aptly named for the old Gasworks plant that still stands there, provided a great silhouette for the rising moon, alongside cloud cover and a treeline from the hill in the distance. This is a blended exposure of two separate images exposing for the moon and the structure. It was a bit of a thrill to shoot this kind of image, the moon moves really quickly near the horizon… it’s actually very difficult (which kinda makes it fun! ).

It’s shaping up to be a wonderful day outside today in Seattle for the Google+ photo walk today, let’s hope this sunshine and warm(ish) weather holds up and we get some great light this afternoon / this evening! I hope to see everyone out there!

In anticipation of the walk, I wanted to share an image of Seattle I’ve been holding on to for a couple of weeks. On a whim, Michael Riffle and I got together one night after work and headed to Kerry Park to catch what would hopefully be a nice sunset. It was pretty windy, so I got there a little earlier to shoot some long exposure photos with my ND filter to catch some of the movement in the clouds.

Here’s the problem with Kerry Park… it’s that view of Seattle. It’s near impossible to get a new and unique image from there. There’s one slice of the park that’s optimal for the skyline with the perspective of the buildings. From some vantage points, the tall black building overlaps with the Space Needle and you don’t get a clear skyline. You’ve got an optimal space of around a metre where you can see all of the Space Needle without it “colliding” with other buildings. Oh, and that’s assuming it’s Autumn-Spring when that tree (Seattle photographers know exactly what I’m talking about!) is free of its leaves and you can actually see through it.

Sufficed to say, getting a unique image is tough. You’re almost always tempted to set up shop right against the railing and try to make something happen with the sky as your best variable. On this shoot though, there was something there I’d never seen before. Sidewalk chalk art! Right up against the railing! The artist was long gone so I couldn’t thank them for affording me this unique image which enabled me to include their art, the sidewalk, the railing, the skyline, and the fast-moving clouds. All wonderfully complimentary subjects for the eye to wander between! Usually including this railing would be boring and distracting to the image. To me the chalk art, which I included in the bottom left of the frame, makes the shot and sums up exactly how I feel on every wonderfully sunny day here in Seattle.

Seattle
The rainy city
but today is
Beautiful

I photographed this image a couple of weeks ago while staying in Vancouver BC. It was off a small trail between the western shore of Stanley Park and of the main roads that cut north to south, and I’ve no idea exactly where, but in the midst of this urban, concrete jungle, it felt so far detached from the world that it felt like a million miles from anywhere.

On this trail, I was completely alone. There was no traffic, no sound of anyone. I walked from the beach into the forest contained within the park, and at this collapsed tree, I stopped. It drew me in. The labyrinth of roots and forest drew me in. It was… perfect. Here I was in the heart of the city of Vancouver, all alone with this giant, hollowed-out, ancient tree… just it and me.

I call this image The Hundred Acre Wood because that’s what it felt like. Amidst the city and urban-craziness, it really felt like I was a hundred miles from nowhere stuck in the middle of collapsed forest… and I thought that was awesome.

One of the places I visited in Iceland outside of Reykjavik that will have a long-lasting memory in my mind is Þingvellir (pronounced thingvellir – the Þ is a ‘th’ sounding character). Þingvellir is a national park, and the site of the oldest parliamentary institution in the world that still exists today. Along with this, the national park is home to a section of one of the world’s continental divides – the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet against one another at this park. It’s a wondrous location to visit and made for some pretty great photography.

We drove down to the bottom of one of the small cliffs where a small river ran through the park. As is common in Iceland, there is a church in every town and in this case, the church sat right on the river bed. Bridges and paths led you all around the river which at this time of year was mostly iced-over. I think I remember my guide telling me that you get a lot of fish coming through the park in the Spring/Summer seasons.

I was standing on a bridge spanning the river taking this photo. I put my 70-200mm lens on to compress the scene, bringing the church, the river, and the park closer together in the frame to help convey the strongly-apparent bond all three subjects have. Post-processing was applied in onOne Software, using my custom-built Icelandia preset in Perfect Effects (also used in the image I posted about a month ago, here). It was a simultaneously calm and spectacular scene and I really wanted to push that in the processing. The warm/cool tones present in the image, accentuated by the preset, and the curvy leading line from the river I think really help to bring the scene to life.

Holy cow, it’s May already. 2012 is almost half gone, and that means I’ve already shared a third of the year’s desktop wallpapers for 2012 on my blog!

I’ve spoken a little this past month about the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle, and it feels only right that this should be the first wallpaper for 2012 to include this iconic structure, captured in gorgeous Galaxy Gold.

I applied some selective contrast, colour, and texture to the Space Needle to overlay the smooth, windy, blue sky behind it. I really enjoy the colour palette in the image ranging from deep blue to bright orange to white and back again. The subtle vignette on the outer edge helps to keep the viewer’s eye inside the frame and moving from one element to another.

This image is available for download as a desktop wallpaper is available for download at 1280 X 800 or 2560 X 1600. Enjoy!

It’s kind of been one of my lifelong dreams to witness an Aurora Borealis twist and turn its way across the night sky. I’ve made no secret of that in previous posts about the reason(s) for my visit to Iceland back in March, or about actually witnessing it appear.

When I was taking this shot, I was literally jumping around my camera while it was exposing for the wonderfully green night sky. Not only was there a glimpse of the Northern Lights, but they were actually quite active in the sky. Before going to Iceland, I had no idea they actually moved throughout the sky. Discovering this while I was seeing the lights for the first time was probably the greatest surprise ever. Looking back, it was probably obvious that they’d move, but hey… ignorance is bliss and all that good stuff, right?

After I got the landscape shot I was looking for, I decided to push for something a little more abstract. I pointed my camera straight up into the sky and began to watch something pretty awesome unfold. The aurora began to form around the big dipper (visible in the top left of the frame) and flicker and turn. I found the perfect abstract background with a slight hint of the real world to throw into the mix. I knew this was the shot I was looking for.

I feel truly privileged to have witnessed this natural phenomenon occur before my eyes. I hope that I’m afforded another chance at some later point in my life… it’s truly unbelievable.

It’s a funny thing… you head to a location to shoot with a few friends… you get there and are all presented with a beautiful and majestic scene. The immediate tendency is to set up front & center and you immediately all set out to shoot the exact same scene. Of course, perspective, lenses, cameras, and post-processing all provide different looks and feels that ultimately yield different, unique images. This is one huge reason I love photography, but for me… on this shoot all I could think about was following my own course and to let the shoot happen organically. To let the world speak back to me and to let my photographs feed off of it.

I spent most of the weekend in Vancouver with friends, but for the most part, the photography was all me, flying solo, shooting away from the group. It wasn’t as though I set out to shoot this way on purpose. I actually kinda regret not hanging out with my friends more than what I did, photographing or otherwise. That said, I wouldn’t have had this particular shoot any other way. My mind was free. My eyes were open… it was just me, the lake, and the tall trees in the forest reaching towards the sky. I was… for want of a better word, home.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to all the Australians and New Zealanders who on this day ninety-seven years ago, fought and died for our countries in the Gallipoli campaign in The Great War. You, along with countless other diggers who have fought in the battles since, are instrumental to the freedoms we enjoy to this day as Australians throughout our beautiful world.

They shall not grow old,
As we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Back to Iceland on the blog today.

This waterfall is somewhere on The Golden Circle in Iceland…. and I have no idea where specifically or even what the waterfall is named. It seems the country has sights like this one around every corner. The fact is… I wanted to stop at them all and shoot. Each was different and unique… but time (and available light) forced me to pick and choose.

When my driver took me past this waterfall and said to me, “do you want to stop here?”, I didn’t hesitate. It was much smaller than some of Iceland’s other falls, but I thought just as beautiful and mesmerising.

The only downside? I don’t know the name of this waterfall. There are probably so many that not all of them actually have names but figured someone out there might be able to help me figure out its name? Let me know! Thank you!

I want to bring out the cool tones in this image when I processed it. After applying one of my presets in Perfect Effects, I scaled back, tuned some components, and finally added a touch of Focal Point to help draw the eye across the crest of the waterfalls.

I can’t get over how beautiful this past weekend was. Of all the places I’ve travelled to in the world, a sunny day in Seattle is sitting at the top of my “most awesome things in the world” list. It was the first weekend where you could actually feel a little taste of summer sneaking in, and I loved it!

It was a perfect coincidence that this weather came out to play to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Space Needle. As a wonderful retro throwback to the first days of the Space Needle, they painted the roof the original colour of Galaxy Gold. I wanted to do my part to join in by trying to create an image of the iconic structure by shooting it from a new vantage point… from the east, looking west.

I tried to plan it out in my head… sunset was the time for the shoot, as the sky turned a wonderful shade of yellow to play off the orange roof. The Olympic Mountain range in the background would be the perfect backdrop, with Seattle Center and the neighbourhoods around the base of the Needle. All that needed to happen to make the shot was being there at the right time, and the weather to be just right.

I went for a vintage feel in the post-processing of this image, warming up the overall scene, washing out the colour slightly, and apply some slight texture to give the image a film look. Some selective dodging on the Space Needle was also applied to pull it out of the background enough to make it pop.