Tales of a Travel Photographer

Rattlesnake Ledge: The best eastside hike

An afternoon well spent. A 20 mile drive on I90, a 0.1 mile walk to the trailhead. A 2 mile gentle climb for the most satisfying view of the turquoise lake.

Seattle Super Moon

I reached a full hour before the alleged moonrise time. The car park was already packed, I had to park semi-legally. A dozen cameras stood on tripod with foot long lenses pointing ominously at downtown Seattle. The appointed hour came and went. A theory quickly circulated that the hill behind the space needle was the culprit.

Then at 8:51pm, tersely, an orange scar was carved in the dark sky. Conversations stopped midsentence. Half eaten tacos were abandoned. Photographers melded into their cameras. The curve turned into an orange globe. It ruled over the downtown sky for what seemed like a few seconds and quickly darted behind a conveniently waiting cloud.

It happened so quickly that I had time to grab three meager frames with the moon full. A few minutes later when it emerged from the cloud, it had changed out of the orange cocktail dress into satin white pajamas.  

The biggest and brightest moon of the year rose over Seattle today and I was at the Ursula Judkins viewpoint with the l’il girl in tow.

Wild!

I had not shot a photo for 131 days.

This was after I shattered the LCD accidently backing into my Nikon 300S mounted on a tripod the night I was shooting at Rainier.  The camera sat on the shelf for a month since I refused to get it fixed – a self inflicted punishment for my callousness. When I finally did send it to the good guys at Camera Tech, it sat there for another couple of months because the parts were back ordered. Once I got it back, to my utter surprise, I actually fumbled to perform some basic operations. Just four months away from it and I had forgotten what I thought was committed to muscle memory.