To Honor the Memory of Christina Taylor Green

My Twitter friends may recognize this photo which I posted last May.  It's one of my favorites.  One beautiful flower for another.  May God be with Christina's family and all the victims of last Saturday's tragic shooting.

Read about Christina

Late Afternoon on a Winter's Day

The sun is low, the days are short, the light is soft on a late afternoon in early January.  Please click here to see a larger view.

It's All About the Light

A while back I was down at Pike Place Market, aka Public Market or Farmer's Market, in downtown.  It was mid-morning and the sun was up high enough to be flooding some parts of the market with brilliant sunshine.  Although we see produce in the grocery market all the time, and it looks good, the sun on this little vegetable stand really made it stand out.

The Pike Market has been a fixture in Seattle since 1907.  Per Wikipedia , it is the longest continually run farmer's market in the United States.

Missing the Bougainvillea

Looking back to January, 2008, and my visit to Mazatlan, Mexico.  A couple of unforgettable things:  the flowers and the Immaculate Conception Church.

Seattle's Kerry Park View

In my last post I mentioned taking a bunch of pics of the view from this little park overlooking the city. I've stitched those into a panorama for today's post. These panoramas become huge files, so the pic below is very reduced.

The view here looks to the south and, if you look carefully, you'll see Mt. Rainier in the distance. The pros like to wait for a sunset to get the light just right on the mountain along with reflections from the buildings for a really spectacular photo.

The pictures were taken on Sunday, January 2, which was one of several beautiful, but cold, sunny days in a row. The body of water on the right side is Elliott Bay, a part of Puget Sound.  The Sound connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  Seattle is not actually on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

If you would like to see a slightly larger view, I posted one here.

Thanks for visiting the Island.

Emerald City

Sunny weather encouraged me to get out and take some photos the last few days. One place I stopped was Kerry Park, possibly the best-known Seattle overlook. Almost any time you stop by here there will be a few people enjoying the view. When the TV networks do their evening news from Seattle they like to use this park for the backdrop. I took several pics to stitch together for a panorama and, if it turns out OK, will post it. Until then, here's the view.

This scene is often used as a sort of "The City of Seattle" view but what most folks don't get to see is the rest of Kerry Park. It's a nice little park, but not very large. Here's a shot showing some of the "backstage" view.

Spent quite a bit of time this morning looking at other blogs to get some ideas. Have lots of work to do -- there are so many great blogs out there. Thanks for visiting!

January 1, 2011

January 1, 2011

Seattle starts the new year with a cold, clear day.  I don't recall too many New Year's Days with such a gorgeous beginning.  Hopefully this bodes well for the rest of the year.  We've been under a high pressure system bringing in cold, clear air, and sunny skies for several days now. Yesterday afternoon a fire broke out on the 24th floor of the Crown Plaza Hotel.  The fire blew out the windows in the room and due to the very cold air outside, the room never got hot enough to set off the automatic fire sprinklers.  It caused quite a lot of excitement, but the fire department had the fire out in short order.  The damage was mostly limited to one room and no one was injured. Since I live in a high rise building the lesson was not lost on me:  Although the building may be fire resistant, what's inside most likely is not.