The conditions were such that I simply had to take some photographs. February Seattle was being treated to unseasonably spectacular weather, it was the weekend and I just adopted a new member into the Explosion family… a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. After enjoying a literal boat-load of sushi on Friday night, I got a phone call from UPS around 9:30 PM saying that my new hunk of glass was at their Seattle hub. Sharat and I bombed down to Georgetown in the Explorer and picked it up just before Josh, the UPS customer service rep, called it quits at 10 PM. Since I knew Saturday was going to be as clear as Friday, I made up my mind to be at a particular spot in West Seattle as the sun came up. Sharat quickly translated my proclomation into reality by iPhoning an almanac: surise at about 7 AM. The best light of a sunrise occurs in the hour before the sun becomes visible. This meant getting to my spot around 6 AM, which called for a 5:30 AM wake-up time. On a Saturday. I know.

I noticed a lookout point on Admiral Way when I drove over to West Seattle earlier in the week to meet a couple of friends. The photographer bell went off in my head and I began thinking about how I could shoot it. Immediately I settled on shooting a sunrise because the silhouetted buildings with their lights might look great against the mountains and morning sky. With the convergence of the weather, the weekend and new gear—Saturday was going to be my moment of truth.

When the alarm went off, I rolled out of the rack, loaded the rig and took off down the viaduct. After monkeying around with camera dials and tripods for a good hour, the sun was up and the magenta sky was gone. I jumped back in the truck and cruised over to Ballard. By the time I arrived, the sun was just starting to cast its first rays on the other mountain range that borders Seattle, The Olympics. The shot at the beginning of this post is of a tree at Golden Gardens with Shilshole Bay and the Olympic Range in the background.

My hour in West Seattle was relatively private. A cabbie pulled off to watch the sunrise for a minute, and two older women power walked by; but they were too busy chatting to look over the rail. In contrast, pre 8 AM Golden Gardens buzzed with all breeds of early birds: dog walkers, exercisers and book readers. As I exchanged friendly hellos with these folks, each one of them gave me a kind of nod that said, “isn’t this morning fucking great?” I shared the sentiment, and responded with a corresponding nod that said, “hell yeah it’s fucking wonderful—I love this city.”

Kerry Park features one of the most iconic views of Seattle. Nestled several hundred feet up Queen Anne hill, the tiny plot of land features a sweeping vista of downtown Seattle, Elliot Bay, West Seattle, and Mount Rainier. On any given gorgeous night, photographers, tripods and enough camera gear to make Ken Rockwell blush line the fence at Kerry Park. Although this was my second expedition at this photog hot spot, it was my first foray into creating a commissioned image.

In February 2008 I was shooting a Nikon D40. On a crisp, clear Sunday evening, I loaded up the Explorer and set up camp at the newly discovered (to me anyway) Kerry Park. I found a spot on the fence, setup my cheap Best Buy tripod, and cranked my exposure mode over to Shutter Priority. Through experimentation and sheer luck, I shot a panorama that I was able to assemble in Photoshop CS2.

At the end of the night I had a half dozen sequences, each about 10-12 frames. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the problem with shooting in shutter priority is that as the meter detects different light values across the skyline, it adjusts aperture to compensate. What I wound up with in each sequence was a series of shots with different exposures that were similar, but still a little off from frame to frame. I spent hours in Photoshop manipulating and adjusting to get something that looked cohesive. I eventually achieved a satisfactory pano and sent the file to be printed by my lab.

There are three prints of this image that exist, each with a slightly different crop. My roommate has one and it hangs in a frame in our house. An old friend of mine, Alex Chu, requested a print after visiting Seattle. Unfortunately, the Dell laptop and Western Digital hard drive I used to back up my files from that era both fried. After several months of DIY data retrieval attempts, I gave up. I told Alex the bad news—he suggested I simply re-shoot the panorama.

Now armed with the superior Nikon D300 and a professional Manfrotto tripod and ball head, I accepted the challenge. At the time of the “commission,” I was living in Washington DC. As I was moving back to Seattle in March of 2009, Alex would have to wait until at least then before I could get to work on creating his piece. Clear nights in Seattle are rare during the non-summer months, and it took awhile for favorable conditions to present themselves. On April 4, 2009 Mount Rainier appeared on the horizon and I took off for Kerry Park minutes before sunset.

The ideal time to capture a city is during the “magic hour,” which is the hour immediately following sunset. The sky begins to darken and the city lights gradually start to illuminate the skyline. The trick is to have enough natural light available to expose the non artificially lit elements of the scene—in this case, Mount Rainier. Before skills like composition, exposure and technical knowledge come into play, patience and timing make or break images like this. To fulfill my mission, I shot for nearly two hours and filled up a CF card.

As I learned from my lucky experiment over a year before, I kept exposure consistent among all the frames in a sequence. This meant shooting manual and turning off Nikon’s auto ISO function. The winning sequence came from the following settings: 6 second exposure at f/18, ISO 200. Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm with VR switched off.

In post production I assembled the images into a panorama using Photoshop CS4 on a MacBook Pro. I adjusted color, contrast and exposure. I sized the photograph for the web and ran several different sharpening scenarios until I found one I liked.

For print, I sized the image to 9″ x 30″ at 300 DPI. I ordered several test prints with different kinds of sharpening to see what worked best. Once the prints arrived, I knew I overlooked one fatal detail. Modern computer screens impressively illuminate an image—this clarity does not always transfer to print, especially when dealing with a relatively dark subject. What looked great on my LCD appeared muddled on the print; not to mention that Mount Rainier was barely visible. I experimented with a number of fixes, but eventually found a solution using Curves and Adobe’s Shadow/Highlights tool.

Alex visited Seattle again this July. I delivered to him a 9″ x 30″ image—tweaked and adjusted to near perfection. The last decision was up to him. I ordered two versions: one on regular photo paper, and another printed on metallic paper. The metallic paper requires brighter ambient room light to view properly, but it has a great effect on all the lights and metal of the city. It also gives this cool electric effect to the sky. Alex immediately settled on the metallic version, had a custom frame built in Seattle, and a few days later he carted it home with him back to Los Angeles.

Assignment complete.

I was not sure where I was heading, I just knew I needed to cross the Puget Sound and head west. After catching a boat to Bremerton, I headed north on 3, caught the 104 to the 101 and eventually cruised along the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the 112. Five hours later the Explorer pulled into a campsite in Ozette, WA. For the next few days this secluded plot would serve as our base camp as Caitlin, Sharat, Emily and I explored the very western edge of the United States. Above is Emily jump standing on the coast of the Pacific at the Dungeness Spit.

After a luxurious night sleeping on cushy inflatable mattress in a rented four person REI Hobitat, I woke up before my fellow campers and noticed a spider spinning a web in our camp. I hauled the Manfrotto, set up an external flash and took a few shots of the little guy.

Later in the afternoon a deer wandered near our F-Noc game (AKA Friz Knock AKA Polish). As there are hardly any people in Ozette, this creature didn’t seem too scared of our troupe.

I did a little photo sesh with Sharat and Caitlin on top of a huge rock on the Pacific Coast. Emily kindly volunteered to be my VAL and held a SB-600 flash outfitted with a LumiQuest Softbox II. I triggered the flash remotely using Nikon’s CLS. Sure, I took some pictures of them looking serious (you can see them on Flickr); but I like this one the best.

The rock we climbed dropped off about 160′ into the ocean. A plethora of flora grew along the edge of the cliff. I crawled around on my belly with a wireless SB-600 and took a handful of shots as the sun set. There is no doubt that I looked very bizarre to the hill billy kids fooling around several feet away.

The Pacific Northwest coast is characterized by big sea stack rocks. Explosion 5K readers will remember a similar geologic feature that I encountered in Oregon.

I’m not sure how this whole Zen rock stacking thing got started, but I see it a lot now that I live on the West Coast. I found this particular stack while we wandered up the spit, a long sliver of sand that extends out into the ocean, in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge.

Sharat the flower child on the spit.

On our way back to Seattle, we timed the Edmonds-Kingston ferry so that we caught the sun set over the Olympics. This shot is looking southeast at a passing ferry with Mount Rainier and Seattle catching the last red rays of the day.

Check out these pictures and more on Flickr, or watch the slideshow below (be sure to go full screen).

The Blue Angels made their annual visit to Seattle last weekend as apart of the Seafair festivities. Even though this is my fourth summer in the Emerald City, I’ve never actually made it down to Lake Washington to watch their show. While working at Boeing Field last year, I saw the squad come in and take their customary parking space at the south end of the runway. Blue Angel fans camped out along the airfield waiting for the F/A-18s to land in Seattle. After joining the crowd at the I-90 bridge this year, I understand the buzz that accompanies these daredevils. Watching the Blue Angels dip, dive and scream their Boeing jets along the water was exciting.

One of the most unique aspects of the show was watching the Blue Angels against an urban backdrop. You really get a sense for how devastating the Hornet could be in an actual conflict. Before you ever hear a sound, they come from behind a hill and are right over your head. If they wanted, Bellevue could be decimated within minutes.

The photographic conditions during this demonstration were about as bad as it can get. The Blue Angels air show started around 1 PM, and Seattle was experiencing a blazing hot, clear day. I used my longest lens, the 18-200mm VR, with a polarizing filter. Most of my shots were made with aperture priority dialed to f/8. I was surrounded by a sea of long, gray glass—I should have figured that the low flying jets would bring the Canon shooters out. For next year, I’ll be sure to bring along a 400mm lens, monopod and a backwards baseball hat—or not.

For a few more shots, watch the slideshow below or check out my Flickr set.

“Buddies!” Twenty seconds ago Alex was taking a nap in the rear seat of my Explorer. Now he’s perched between the two front seats with his arms around Josh and my shoulders. He cackles a little, looks around and once again exclaims, “BUDDIES!” The three of us had been driving northbound towards Seattle for several hours. It was the third day of a mini road trip that took us down the Oregon Coast and over to Portland. We dined on yak burgers in “Come as You Are” Aberdeen and ordered breakfast from a cracked-out, coffee spilling waitress at the Pig ‘n Pancake in Astoria. Having last seen each other at the World Series of Beer Pong in Las Vegas, there was plenty to catch up on. More importantly, the six months that had passed gave Alex plenty of time to develop a fresh lexicon of nonsense. The latest burst of comradery repeating from the back seat is as sincere at is sarcastic—in other words, it’s vintage Alex.

The photo above is from the Astoria Column in Astoria, OR. I used a Nikon 18-200mm VR lens with a polarizer and cranked the saturation up in the NIkon D300′s vivid mode. I further adjusted contrast using curves in Photoshop.

The town of Astoria is nestled along the south bank the Columbia River and its neighborhoods wind their way up bluffs along the water. Once we saw this view we pulled over to grab a few photos. Pictured here is the Astoria-Megler Bridge which connects Oregon and Washington.

After bumming around Astoria for a few hours and checking out the Goonies house, we jumped on the 101 and headed south to Cannon Beach. Even though Mouth, Chunk and Data were able to make it to Haystack Rock rather quickly on their bikes, it took us a good 40 minutes in the Explorer.

Since I was fumbling around with camera equipment, I ended up a couple hundred yards behind Josh and Alex. I dialed the 18-200mm VR to 130mm and grabbed this shot of Alex and Josh in front of Haystack Rock.

For this shot of Josh, I used an off camera Nikon SB-600 through a LumiQuest II Softbox for fill light. I used TTL to set the flash power and triggered it wirelessly using Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS).

I can’t believe I actually talked Alex into jumping. We started out by taking a few portrait style shots of Alex in front of the rock, then I half jokingly asked him to jump. Alex started bouncing on command. It was hilarious. He even inspired a few imitators. One older gentleman (in a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt) started mimicking Alex by jumping along the beach. Slightly annoyed with this old guy making fun of him, Alex yelled, “hey, hey! You know that movie the Goonies? I’m Data!”

For fill light, I had Josh stand a few feet to the left of Alex holding a Nikon SB-600 with an attached LumiQuest II Softbox. I triggered the flash using CLS. I used the D300′s pop-up flash as the commander, which was surprisingly reliable, even in the bright midday sun. I dialed in ISO 200 and put the camera in shutter-priority mode at 1/250th of second, which is the D300′s max sync speed. For EXIF data and camera settings on any picture, click through the Flickr page and select “More properties.”

More picture of Astoria and Cannon Beach are in my Flickr set. You can also watch the slideshow below.

After a day of grilling, margarita making and half-drunk musical pursuits; I ended up at a Fourth of July Party in Queen Anne. Despite having had my fair share of Hornitos (via Sharat), I remembered to bring my camera and tripod. Fellow photog Rich Schwandt and I perched ourselves on a second story balcony overlooking Lake Union and opened fire on the Seattle sky.

With the Nikon D300 in manual exposure mode, I selected the “bulb” shutter speed and f/8 to start. I manually timed the exposure using a wired trigger attached to the camera. I love shooting with a tripod and trigger as it frees up one hand to hold a Coors Light. As the night progressed, I experimented with other aperture values between f/8 and f/14. All shots were made with the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 at 16mm using Nikon’s Vivid picture control with plus three saturation.

The fireworks are launched from a barge just off the shore of Gas Works Park. Last year I shot the spectacle from the park. You can view photos here.

See all twenty-five photos from last night’s fireworks display by visiting my Flickr set or checking out the slideshow below.

The George Washington Memorial Bridge is not in this picture. My camera, a Nikon D300, is hanging over the edge of the aforementioned structure, better known as the Aurora Bridge. I bolted the camera to a tripod, tilted it against the rail, and extended the center post so that the camera hovered some 160 feet above the ground. With a remote shutter release clenched tightly in my fist, I fired off frame after frame. The result is the latest addition to my “Scene from 99” series. In this entry, I captured the George Washington Memorial Bridge from the air (above), land and sea (below).

“Scene from 99” is an ongoing series exclusive to the Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 that features images and commentary about Seattle’s iconic Highway 99.

Air.

The view is of Fremont and the Fremont Bridge. Ballard and the Olympic Mountains are in the background near the horizon. I took this picture from the sidewalk on the west side of the George Washington Memorial Bridge. Six lanes of traffic buzzed by behind me while I monkeyed with camera settings and tripod adjustments.

To capture “Fremont Lights,” I rigged up my Nikon D300 with the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. After removing the UV filter, I screwed on the 77mm Cokin P system adapter. I stacked two neutral density gradient filters (the Cokin 120 ND Grad and Lee 0.9 ND Grad) into the holder. With the lens zoomed into 16mm to prevent vignetting, I lined up the transition points of the filters with the horizon. The goal was to capture streaking traffic by using extra long exposures and not blow out the sky. With two ND grad filters darkening the sky, I was able to balance the image so both the city lights and sunset exposed properly in the same frame. We see this kind of dynamic range with our eyes, but cameras are very limited. Once I had the filters setup, I dialed in ISO 200 and chose f/8 in manual mode. I tried a number of different shutter speeds, and the 10 second exposure featured here worked best.

Using the same filter setup, I made this photo of a street sign near me on the bridge. The ND grad filters allowed me to expose for the bright moon and relatively dark sign in the same frame.

Unfortunately, the George Washington Memorial Bridge is often the venue of choice for suicidal Seattleites. Jumpers frequently shutdown traffic and give business owners under the bridge a reason to look up. The Lake Washington Ship Canal is relatively narrow, and most of the area beneath the bridge is land. Sadly, not everyone can judge exactly where the water is. Suicides are frequent enough that Seattle has installed phones and posted help-line phone numbers along the sidewalks. While it is a good faith effort to help those at the brink, some still decide to take the plunge. A multi-million dollar, 8-foot fence is Seattle’s latest proposal for keeping anyone from going over the edge. In 1996, The Seattle PI wrote an interesting article about those who have survived the jump. You can read it here.

Land.

Several nights before I made the “air” images, I walked underneath the massive cantilever and truss bridge. Opened in 1932, the 2,945 foot long structure is an engineering marvel. Looking at it from the ground offers an impressive perspective.

For this shot, I again used the Nikon D300 and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. I dialed in ISO 200 and f/8, and then selected ‘bulb’ for the shutter speed. I manually timed the exposure by pressing and releasing the shutter on a remote trigger. This particular shot uses a shutter opening of 39 seconds. Taken just steps from the Burke-Gillman trail, the shot looks east across Lake Union towards the Eastlake neighborhood. The towering bridge overhead eventually terminates to the south on Queen Anne hill.

Sea.

On Monday I shot the bridge from the land. On Wednesday I shot it from the air (sort of), and on Thursday I shot it from the sea.

I just happened to be enjoying cocktails and conversation on a 130 foot yacht, slowly cruising Lake Union, when Seattle staged a glorious sunset. My D300 and 35mm f/1.8 were around my neck when Lyn, a colleague from my company, suggested I get a few shots of the vista. This image is looking west, with Queen Anne to the south (left) and Fremont to the north (right). Unlike any of the photos from Monday or Tuesday, this shot nearly encompasses the entire span of the bridge.

For more information on the George Washington Memorial Bridge, visit Wikipedia and HistoryLink.org. A complete listing off all the gear I used for these photos can be found on my gear page. Check out my “Scene from 99” tag for other Aurora related photos and commentary, or watch a Flickr slideshow below.

Aurora Avenue bisects the heart of northern Seattle. From They Battery Street Tunnel to 224th Street, Aurora is the designation given to Washington State Route 99. Heading north, Aurora climbs Queen Anne Hill until it reaches The George Washington Memorial Bridge. After crossing Lake Union, Aurora charges through Fremont and slices through Woodland Park Zoo. I took this south facing photograph of Aurora Avenue and the George Washington Memorial Bridge from the 41st Street pedestrian bridge. The Space Needle is partially obscured by Queen Anne, and the Seattle skyline sits to the east (left of the photo). Yachts moored on Lake Union are also visible in the far left of the photo.

I set my Nikon D300 on a tripod and used a remote shutter release to take the shot (more meta data). To frame the picture, I cranked the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens to 62mm. With the camera in full manual, I selected an ISO of 200, shutter speed of 6 seconds and aperture value of f/16. Nikon’s picture control was set to vivid with +3 saturation. The six second exposure captured streaking traffic, yellow headlights from the northbound cars and red taillights from southbound vehicles.

The part of Aurora Avenue that cuts through Fremont presents an interesting juxtaposition. The Fremont and neighboring Wallingford and Ballard neighborhoods are booming centers for the hip, young urban middle class. Construction of luxury townhouses and condo developments are not unfamiliar sights as they replace older properties. The major north-south artery that intersects this area, Aurora Avenue, is still littered with the origins of these burrows. Aurora’s auto repair shops and rent-to-own outfits contrast with the trendy coffee shops and boutique eateries located just off the route. Remnants of roadside motels serve as a poignant reminder that the world’s oldest profession still thrives along this corridor.

Last summer I moved into a house that sits several feet from Aurora. Every morning, I jump into my car and head south on Aurora, through the Battery Street Tunnel, along the Alaska Viaduct and eventually crossing over to I-5. Before the behemoth juggernaut that is I-5 was constructed, Aurora and US-99 were the major north-south routes in Seattle. They were apart of the Pacific Coast Highway that ran from Mexico to Canada. Aside from the rich history associated with these surface streets, they also offer unique views of Seattle, Elliot Bay and the surrounding geography. This post is first in what will become a series about Highway 99. In the future, look for the “Scene from 99” tag on posts for photos and commentary on its motels, vistas and history.

I snapped this photo on an exceptionally warm day for early March. Temperatures in Washington DC climbed into the high 70s and hints of the coming summer humidity permeated the balmy swamp that is our Nation’s capital. Scott Zaleski, who was visiting from Chicago, and I had been wandering around the FDR memorial. I eventually ended up on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The setting sun cast a warm light on the Washington and Jefferson memorials. When I looked west towards the Potomac, I noticed that passersby were pleasantly silhouetted against the golden sky. I creeped out, zoomed my lens to 200mm and grabbed a few shots of people as they walked (or biked) by the sunset.

This is a picture of a statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Scott pointed out how the end of his finger was worn down and shiny from visitors touching it. I screwed on my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 and got about as close as I’ll ever likely get to a “sitting” President.

Being at the FDR memorial seemed rather ominous considering the current economic situation facing our nation. The walls of the memorial are etched with famous quotations and evidence of the institutions he founded. While the argument can be made that World War II was ultimately the stimulus that ended the Great Depression, one wonders how successful our current leadership will ultimately be. Even better though, I was touring a monument to one of our most socialist presidents with a captain of the free market system, Mr. Scott “grain trader” Zaleski. His musings on parallels between FDR and fellow-Chicagoan Barack Obama were certainly thoughtful, if not mildly entertaining.

Scott was also verbally composing a list of “people you can’t trust” based on certain stereotypes. Chief on this list is “guys with two first names, like Adam Charles.” He was also working on a theory about people who wear New Balances and ties. Look for more on this soon.

The moon prominently hung in the sky all afternoon. This picture is a tribute to one of my dad’s best shots in recent years.

Should I just forget historical/nature/landscape/party pix/creeper photography and start a Dog Blog? Do you think a dawg blawg could act as a stimulus plan for The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000? If this website doesn’t make any money, is it contributing to our shitty economy?

Anyway, this little yapper was spazzing out near the canal in Georgetown. He had a little friend with him that was dressed equally as ridiculous.

Check out these photos and a few more in a slideshow. Your boss probably won’t walk by for a few minutes… so why not go fullscreen?