Flaming Pumpkin Festival – Year Three
Welcome the the Third Annual Flaming Pumpkin Festival! It’s always nice to end Halloween with a nice flaming pumpkin…. or pumpkins.
My favorite shot of the night is the one above. He was a very small pumpkin with a very large mouth. Buy prints of him HERE. Makes a great gift!
I added one element to the photography this year. I had a wireless flash positioned to the right of the camera with an orange gel to keep the color nice and warm. I didn’t use it on every shot – see right. I also had a continuous light behind the jack-o-lanterns gelled blue to illuminate the smoke.
The pumpkins are filled with flammable materials and sprayed with generous portions of lighter fluid. – Don’t try this at home.
Year Two
Here’s last year’s victims! More pictures in this post: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/11/08/flaming-pumpkin-festival
Year One
My first ever flaming pumpkin. I loved this guy, he was HUGE. Here’s a multi-exposure shot from before the burning: prestonpro.com/photoblog/2010/01/09/great-pumpkin
Vashon Early Morning
These shots are from an early morning walk on the shores of the southern tip of Maury Island. I used a small off-camera flash to illuminate the foreground and retain the blue sky.
Leaving only my footprints behind.
Demon Moon
I went to Seattle last night with the hopes of getting a good shot of the “super moon” from Kerry Park. We arrived before sunset and found dozens of other photographers already there with their cameras and tripods out, lining the wall, waiting for the moon to make an appearance. I got some shots of the crowd and took a dinner break at the 5 Spot. When we came back the moon was finally out and the crowd had only gotten bigger. No one was shooting near the sculpture, so I set up there. The shot is a six second exposure with a 24mm. During the exposure, I quickly fired my flash three times by hand pointing it at different areas of the sculpture.
Hellboy and Wink
Wink and Hellboy were both shot with the Pentax 50mm 2.0. They are lit with a 20″ softbox to the right and a gold reflector just off camera on the left. The background is a blue painted poster board from another project. These guys have always been favorites of mine to shoot.
Sleeping
Connor took a nap on the couch today and I couldn’t help getting a shot of him in the sunbeam from the front door. I had my 20″ softbox ready so I added it behind him as a backlight. My favorite shot ended up being this one that I was going to use to document the lighting set-up. I ended up replacing the background with another shot of a blue backdrop. Loving the single sock on the ottoman…
Greenbird!
The Blue Period
Above: Bare strobe on floor pointed up at Connor. Color temperature pushed cool and then slightly desaturated.
Below: Full CTO on strobe at eye level. Shutter speed set at 1/6th second to give me time for a quick pan move while shooting. Flash freezes Connor while the deep blue sky washes over him.
Splash!
Trying my hand at splash photography. Flash is below the set firing straight up. The glass is a tasting glass from last year’s Pumpkin Beer Fest and the green object is a mini tiki pencil top. This turned out to be harder than it looked. Both the aim and timing are tough.
Flaming Pumpkin Festival
Welcome to The Second Annual Flaming Pumpkin Festival! Above are the before shots of “Stinky Pete” and “Scarface”. They both enjoyed long and fruitful lives before being burnt to a slightly charred medium well. They were carved on Halloween Eve and lasted three glorious nights before entertaining us with flames shooting out of their eyes and mouths.
Click on the smaller images to see full size.
Vashon
We finally took Connor to his Nana’s house on Vashon Island recently. It was both his first time on a ferry and an island. I managed to take over three hundred pictures and then deemed over one hundred good enough to be processed. All of the pictures in this post were either taken with my 50mm 2.0 or 24mm 3.5. Click on any of the smaller pictures to see them full size.
Here’s Connor on a Washington State ferry. He has a great time getting help walking up the aisles on the passenger deck by Leah. Below he’s enjoying the benches up front with the great views and hanging out by the emergency life rafts. There was a really good photographer on board that took a great family portrait of us.
Valerie made a great shrimp po’ boy lunch for us. Connor enjoyed the fireplace and crawling on the new floors.
Connor hangs out on the dock and the beach. I really love that wooden sculpture that someone built years ago.
Petting Zoo
We recently took Connor to a petting zoo for the first time. I have a bunch of shots of him looking at/touching the animals, but I thought that these would look more interesting here. That is Leah and Connor in the way out of focus background below.
Valerie’s Garden
I took these shots of Valerie’s garden on our recent trip to her house on Vashon Island. I usually do shots like this with the 50mm, but decided to do the whole shoot with the 24mm for a change of pace and perspective. The few shots here don’t quite do justice to how many cool plants are there, but they’re some of my favorites of the day. Click on the smaller pics for large sizes.
That’s the house up there. The deck and kitchen widows provide great views of Quartermaster Harbor and the other side of the island.
Everett Marina
These shots are from the guest moorage dock at the Everett Marina. Everything here was shot with the 50mm 2.0. I really loved the structure over the dock. It provided some great perception of depth when shooting from end to the other.
Aliens at the Beach
While doing a photo shoot with Connor at the beach in Everett, I took a break to get some landscape shots. That’s when I spotted these three through the grass. I managed to get off a few shots before they were gone.
Magnum
Let’s begin with the shot above. Connor is giving us his best attempt at “Magnum”. I think he’ll have “Blue Steel” down in the next couple of months. These shots are from Howarth Park in Everett. We were shooting with a very bright backlight coming from the high sun. I used my gold reflector to get some of that light onto his face. I’m also a big fan of the Monkey Butt shot down below.
Gas Works
This must be how I see Gas Works Park. (de)Faced fire hydrants and out of focus rusted towers. It’s one of my favorite places to hang out in Seattle. Great views of Lake Union and downtown. Not seen here… I used to come here to read when I lived nearby.
Wilderness
Connor and I made a trip into the deep wilderness for this photo shoot. He really liked trying to eat the grass. It turns out that it’s hard to shoot and keep him from eating things than I thought. Especially when shooting with a 135mm from twenty feet away.
OK, I lied. We’re just in the back yard.
The First Eight Months
Connor was born on September 2nd, 2009. That was a little over eight moths ago. Looking through his pictures I can see him grow and change. Here’s a snapshot of Connor’s life so far in the next ten pictures. It’s so hard to choose just one shot per month to do justice to both his looks and personality.
At just a few minutes old, Connor just took his first breaths.
An outtake from his first photo shoot at eight days old.
Almost one month old.
Almost two months old.
Connor’s three month birthday.
Christmas eve in his Santa suit. Almost four months.
Five month birthday.
February 26, 2010
Seven months old. He can sit by himself now. I haven’t seen that stuffed dog in a while.
Almost eight months.
More Connor posts from my Blog.
Connor posts from my PhotoBlog.
More Connor pictures from Flickr.
Connor @ Eight Months
Connor is now eight months old. He likes baths, mushed bananas and walks in the park. One of his favorite toys is a plastic turtle that squirts water. It’s in the shot above next to his foot. It is very fun to chew on. I have a feeling that he’ll be crawling very soon. Click on the small images to see them full size.
Louvre Part Deux
Here’s the Louvre from my trip to Europe in the fall of ‘08. I used a lot of long exposures here – good thing that I always carry my mini tripod with me. The Louvre looks amazing at night. I love the look that a cloudy night gives the city sky in the shot above. The purple, hazy glow is way cool. We didn’t see the museum this time around, but had a great time just taking pictures of the building and fountains. That’s me in the shot at the end of this post. It’s a fifteen second exposure that I walked into after few seconds and then held still for the rest of the shot.
Long exposure HDR conversion:
Entering the glass pyramid:
Click on the thumbnails to see full size:
Vancouver
Both these shots are from the trip that we took to Vancouver for my birthday a couple of years ago. This was the first vacation with a DSLR, the Pentax K10D. It’s a great camera and I’m still using it today. The shot above is the Vancouver Public Library. The photo below is a sculpture at English Bay. Both shots are five exposure HDR images. I have a few more interesting shots from this trip. Stay tuned and I’ll post them another time.
Connor @ Seven Months
Connor turned Seven months old yesterday. He can now sit up by himself while eating toys. Remember last month when he was still lying around on the floor? He still does that, but sitting is his new favorite thing. It was a great day to shoot. The sun finally came out and gave us a lot of great light. Click on the small images to see them full size.
Rocket at The Center of the Universe
The Fremont Rocket is surely the best rocket ever to be mounted to the side of a building. I took this shot a couple of years ago while practicing this new HDR thing that I had just heard about. It’s always been one of my favorites. I like how the process lets you see all of the detail in the dark beneath the rocket and also the brightness in the clouds.
Wink
Wink, from Hellboy II, was part of my short-lived toy 365 project. The whole series can be seen on Flickr. All of the Wink shots are here. The shot above is my favorite of the series and was even featured on Seattlest.com. [Screengrab] The building in the background is the Westlake Tower and the image is a five exposure HDR.
Tigers
I just realized that I didn’t have any shots of Connor wearing any adult sized hats yet. He looks just a little worried wringing his hands. Probably because the hat kept falling down over his face. Connor has a cousin now. His name is Amedeo and is 10 days old today.
