Photojournal – Bellevue Downtown Park
So I made my first expedition yesterday explicitly to take photos. It was such a nice day after work I went to the Bellevue Downtown Park. Earlier in the year I’d seen Monsters vs. Aliens there at a summer movie festival and really liked the architecture of the stairs down to the lawn, but hadn’t seen much beyond that since it was nearly dark when we arrived.
It’s a very nice park, I arrived there a little after 5pm, started with my Sigma 24.0-60.0 mm lens with a lot of goals for the day. My primary focus was to practice shooting in Av mode, giving the aperture priority and working on getting the depth of field I want. My second primary goal was to work on shot composition, because all the camera settings in the world don’t matter if you don’t have a good subject. Over the course of shooting I found it necessary to take shots multiple times because with longer exposures I get shaky. I’d like a tripod so I can shoot more in Tv mode (shutter priority). I was cognizant of getting the shot right when it was taken, rather that post-processing them on advice from an enforcer buddy. I’ll go over some of the shots I really like or learned things from below, the whole album is available here on my flickr.
This was my first shot of the day and I really like it. I got the depth of field I wanted (blurry background and focused foreground). I’m gonna touch it up and remove the poo in photoshop, but I like the way it came out.
This shot I was trying to do a wide depth, where everything is in focus. I think this shot captures the landscaping and structure of the park really well.
I like the way the buildings stick out behind the trees, it almost looks like it’s growing out of them.
Another depth of field practice, I was trying to highlight the way the architecture and cityscape balanced with the park instead of being a stark contrast.
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Obligatory Flag shot.
This was me experimenting with shutter speed priority. There’s more falling water later in the park that I try this again on
This cool sculpture was off to the side
These branches look almost like fingers to me.
A wide view of the entrance to the park. I love those lampposts.
The Bellevue skyline to the northeast of the park.
Another try at timing to capture the water falling.
This canal goes around the whole park and ends in a pond. The pond was empty while I was there, I’m not sure why.
I had a lot of fun walking around, most of the time I had headphones in & was listening to Deadmau5, but for a few minutes I turned it off and listened to the people in the park. I already took my second outing today, with another 200 shots. Post should be up this weekend.
