Storm Over Seattle from Kerry Park
Posted January 20th, 2008 in [hide]Fog hangs in pockets of the Seattle, particularly near the water, while clouds blow overhead, reflecting the colors of the city behind them. This isn’t unusual for mid January in the Rainy City … most days, the sky scrapers are hidden behind the fog.
The “tilted” feeling comes mostly from the lens in use, a Sigma 15-30 EX, prone to geo-spacial distortions. Shooting at night in the dark doesn’t help, either: horizons can be mine enemy at times. This can, however, be put to creative use, disorienting the viewer. With the strange juxtaposition of old and new - cobblestone streets and the distant skyline of a world class city.
Below is another, more “natural” capture; the picture above is a combination of three exposures, a la Max Lyons. Extreme range between the brightest highlights and darkest shadow is often too much to capture in a single exposure. In cases like this, one shot captures detail in the house itself, another the foreground, and a third the buildings and sky. These are brought together as layers in Photoshop, and carefully masked to put together as rich a photo as possible.
Queen Anne sits further north from downtown than the Space Needle; there’s about two miles between each from Kerry Park, where the photo above was shot. The park, like the neighborhood, sits on the side of a hill, with an unobstructed view of Seattle and Puget Sound. Most images from this place look far better, often with Mount Ranier showing in the background, but this one shows thick fog in the midst of a rain storm, blurring even the industrial area by West Seattle.
That first one is tight, yo! Looking at it makes me feel like I’m on drugs!
Is that the Northern Lights above that one house on the edge? I knew Seattle was up there but wow.
Yeah, first one’s better.
Those look nice Forrest :).
What time of day were the photos taken?
Embarrassingly early. It wasn’t later than five in the afternoon; the sun was setting, and this is a pretty steep hill to climb, so I set out early. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard, so I didn’t want to hang out waiting for the twilight or a break in the weather.
The first image was shot about 20 minutes after the second. It looks brighter because of all the lights in the foreground - compared to a giant expanse to look at the city across - and because the light is more yellow … closer to natural sunlight.
On a clear day, you’d see the last embers of sunset in the background for both. But with the storm, these might have looked the same at 3 am.
I like the images, keep it up!
Lucas