Vacation Photos, Days 1 - 3

This is just the beginning, of course, because it wasn't until day 4 that we hit the coast at all.  So, these are photos up the 5 to Portland and then to Seattle, then inland through Seattle towards the coast.

The overcast sky made things difficult, but there are some good ones here.  These are the five-star images.

You can see the whole gallery here; I linked to all of the pictures from the gallery itself, but it does provide for easier browsing, I think.  If I remember right, Apple requires Firefox or Internet Explorer 7 (if you're on Windows) to view the gallery.

(I linked to the files from the web gallery; Aperture resizes it as it sees fit, so if you want to see the images in a larger version, I recommend the gallery, if it works for you.)

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This one is during a drive to the east of Portland.  Eventually, you wind through the hills to a large waterfall.  I just liked the fence.  :-)

I'm fairly certain this one was at the same "view point" stop along the drive.

Also from the same lookout.  There was horrible haze in the sky...so I made it black and white. ;-)

I'm fairly certain I didn't upload this one before...but if I did, oh well.

(I must point out, however, that Patrick's shirt drives me absolutely insane, because, on the front, it says, "She thinks my tractors sexy."  Given that the intent here is "She thinks my tractor is sexy," there should be an apostrophe, so that it reads, "She thinks my tractor's sexy.")

Another Patrick one.  Yay for zoom lenses.  He had no idea I was taking his picture -- I was a good fifty feet away.  :-)

About this time, he figured out what I was doing.

At which point, he decided to get some revenge.

Now, some flower pictures.  Just 'cause they're pretty.

I really like the yellow flowers in this one, but I think I might fiddle with it in Photoshop -- maybe desaturate everything but the flower that's in focus.

After I caught this shot, I tried to zoom in and get the bug on top of the flower in this one, but I couldn't switch fast enough to macro mode, and couldn't focus on it tight enough (even manually).

This was the best I could do.

The road goes ever on and on, down to the door where it began....  (Actually, I just liked the shadows, but I spent the next fifteen shots or so trying to highlight the path.)

I'm not sure this one will stay 5-star, but for now it is.  I like the way the tree line leads your eye to the waterfall, but...something just doesn't feel right to me.

I realize it's blurred slightly, but I like the bridge and people showing the scale of the massive waterfall.

Darn sky...but I like the way the slight distortion caused by the wide angle lens actually gives it a bit of a surreal feel.

The leaning tower of...nah, never mind.  Actually, I just think it's weird and cool.

This one is kind of experimental...I was experimenting with different effects to mitigate the haze that made everything but the first five or ten feet away from me just...well, hazy.

A cool tree.  AND BLUE SKY!

Clouds on the water.  This was a very, very large lake in inland Washington.

Another angle.  I think I like the first better overall (which is why I say that some images might not stay 5-star as I continue refining them).

I realize geography class was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure the green hill is a volcano.

I deliberately underexposed this one a bit because I wanted the clouds to be just right, since the purpose of the picture is to show them rolling over the hills.

Ooooh, pretty.  :-)

I desaturated this one because there was no way to get the trees right and account for the haze as well...so I tried to make the haze work and create a semi-surreal picture where the haze permeated everything.

I think this is actually my favorite picture of all, so far.

And another pretty flower.

The next set should be the Washington coast.  That's a fairly small one, because it rained more or less non-stop from 11:00ish in the morning that we started from Port Angeles.  I got a few cloudy shots before it started, but after that, just kept driving.