Twenty!

My wife and I celebrated 20 years of marraige today. We've known each other half our lives now and are looking forward to more years together.

As a reader of MAKE I was excited by a particular project dreamed up by Mikal Hart called the "Reverse Geocache".

The idea is this: build a box with a latch that is only opened when the box is in a special location as determined by the on-board GPS.

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I made mine with multiple drawers - the first drawer opens easily, but the remaining drawers only open in order at different places around our home town and elsewhere.

The first contained a map and drawing compass, along with a small gift. She's managed to open the next two drawers, but we're nowhere near the final location.

To be continued...

Ollie

Kate and her new horse, Ollie. If there's one thing that makes her happy, it's a big warm animal.

Shot with a 7D & 70-200 @ 135mm, f2.8, 1/80th, iso 400 in the filtered light of the barn.

More Eats!

After lunch we wandered through Pike Place Market - coulda spent all day there just watching the people come and go.

LOVE them public markets. Can you tell that tomatoes are my favorite?

Eats!

We spent part of the day wandering downtown Seattle today. First, a stop for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. What? HARD ROCK CAFE. What? HARD ROCK CAFE!

Sorry. It's loud in there and I'm still hollering when I talk.

They make a mean dessert though - and I almost licked the bowl afterwards.

Crisp

I dragged the family out tonight for a paddling. We expected one more this trip, but car troubles kept him at the other end of the county.

It was a little bit cool out, which isn't easy for me to admit 'cause it was just so nice to be on the water. Ok, maybe low 40s, upper 30s does not provide the conditions necessary for warm blooded creatures to enjoy the great outdoors.

Maybe I should let them load and unload the boats, working up a sweat while they're at it. Hey, I did.

Shot with a 7D & 24-105 at 24mm, f5.6, 1/1000th, iso 100

Timeslice

I spent another weekend in Ewing Cove in the Sucia Islands with my good buddy David. That place is a little slice of heaven for me.

I've been wanting to tell the story of our trips out there in video for a while now, but haven't been able to nail down the story. What's the story on that? Anyway, I don't just want a bunch of random scenes, I want there to be a thread that holds it all together.

David, the emerging writer (and a fine one too) talked through my difficulty with me and helped me think about it in terms of time. From that we came up with the idea of a time lapse of the tide rising, interrupted by real time video.

Here's the result of that experiment.

Shot with a 7D & 25mm Contax. 296 photos over 2 hours and 10 minutes of minimal tidal action (it only rose 2 feet during the day - the extreme tides were at night).

Next Big Thing

Now that the little one worked (and served it's purpose) it's onto building a bigger one...

Shot with a 7D & 85mm with a little fill off the ceiling from an on camera 580 flash.

Rare Air

Yesterday was one of those rare days in the winter where the weather aligns with 7 different calendars. While my daughter spent a little time in her favorite bookstore, her parents, grandparents, and aunt & uncle got an afternoon out walking at American Camp.

What a gift a day can be...

Top photo shot with 7D & 12-24 @ 17mm, f8, 1/125th, iso 200.

Lower photo shot with 7D & 70-200 @ 170mm, f6.3, 1/500, iso 400.

They Live!

Ok. The paperwhites bloomed.

Creeps me out. I won't be putting plants near the head of my bed anytime soon.

This is three days, 270 photos, reduced to 9 seconds.

30D, 30mm Sigma at f11, iso 400, 125th, lit with a single AB800.

Watch this Space

This Paperwhite flower, in the window, is being watched right now. I set up my 30D on a tripod with an interval timer snapping a picture every 15 minutes.

We'll see if it moves.

I'm hoping this project won't keep us awake. And hey, is there such a thing as a 'Paperblack'?

Each frame is 1/125th, f8, iso 400, lit by an AB800 with 20 degree grid.