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Troglodyte House, Poce-sur-Cisse, France

Hello again!

We’ve been away on a 3-week long trip to France and now that we are back it’s time to go through the photos. I always liked the idea of traveling with children, but it turns out that I find organizing for that many people stressful, so we kept putting it off.  Finally, I noticed that my oldest was 18 and if we wanted to do a major, whole-family trip, I had better act now.

For our first three days we stayed in a ‘troglodyte house’, a home partially built into the limestone hillside behind it.  I really love the idea that if you ever thought your house was too small you could just continue to dig into it and make it bigger.

 

This one has some remnants of an old wine press in it.  The back rooms were wonderfully cool, which we enjoyed because temperatures in France were very hot for our entire stay. A house two down from this one was for sale, and while we loved staying there, the rooms are also perpetually damp and that might get old after a while.

Church and canal in Poce-sur-Cisse
Outside the troglodyte house at night.

This little canal and bridge was in town, near the patisserie. It did not take much time at all for us to get used to the ubiquitous presence of fresh daily baguettes and pastries within walking distance.  The baguettes were inexpensive, generally .8 euros or less, which is FAR less than I would expect to pay for them in the US.

At night it was very quiet and dark, all the street lamp went out at midnight giving a good view of the sky.   In the early morning we saw hot-air balloons in the distance.  When we had free time at home, we listened to “Coffee Break French” podcast to try to prepare ourselves for actual conversations.

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Winthrop and the Methow Valley

We went on a rafting trip on the Methow River this weekend.  The river was a bit too rough for me to drag the camera out regularly, but I was playing around with night scenes and exposure length.

Trying to catch the “blue hour” in Winthrop, WA
This mountain looks like the Black Gate of Mordor. I have concerns.
Playing around some more with a darker sky and the light in the clouds.
Pretty cloud
Diablo Lake
4 second exposure of the lake at night. I really like how the sky turned out but I was having trouble with focus.
These ducks had no fear. I do not have a telephoto lens.
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Seattle

It feels like I only go into the city when we have visitors, but we did, and I did.  Of course we had to go to Pike Market and Seattle Center (on the monorail! – it’s the best way!)

Obligatory shot of Pike Market sign

Seattle Center
Pacific Science Center

From the monorail

Final shot.  I have a thing for amusing signs and this guy looks like there’s just been some sort of Urgent Diaper Emergency.

Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb
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Whidbey Island

Whenever we have guests from out of town and I’m looking for a day trip, this is one of my favorites.  We start by driving up to Deception Pass and walk out over the bridge to Pass Island.

View from about mid-span.

The current through the narrow channel can reach 8 knots at peak flow. I’ve been kayaking near there before but never through the pass itself.  This time there was a series of standing waves west of the bridge and high winds, which made crossing a white-knuckle experience.  I was afraid to look through the viewfinder, so this picture was taking by just pointing the camera in a direction and hoping it caught something good.

From the bridge we headed downhill into the park for a walk along the beach and a look at the ancient (800+ year old) douglas fir.  We’ve heard this called the “Monkey Tree” but I have no idea where that name comes from (we did fill it with our own little monkeys).

Then it was on to the hike itself.

A different wind-contorted tree with ukulele player
Ebey’s Landing
Looking up the bluff

Then our final stop was Fort Casey where we flew kites and let the kids run around in the tunnels. For some reason I always forget to take photos at Fort Casey, but here’s my dog looking alert in front of the old battery.

From there we headed south to the ferry for a short hop back to the mainland.

The only thing that would make this trip better is if it could be done in reverse so you wound up by Snow Goose Produce for gigantic ice cream cones on the way home.

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Arboretum

I managed to come down with the 3-week crud that has been plaguing everyone, but late last week I finally felt up to moving around and we went down to Seattle to catch the cherry trees before the blooms faded.  I didn’t wind up with too many great photos of cherry blossoms, but there was quite a bit to impress.

What I learned:  I need to think about the composition of my shots more and I find that difficult when I’m still tired.  It’s hard to nail the focus on macro shots, especially when I don’t have a tripod. I’m still learning how to take photos in aperture priority mode and it’s not always a success.

ferns and moss on a tree
tiny orange bells
mysterious fairy glen
fiddlehead
hellebore
katsura

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More snow photos

These are the rest of the images from our hike that I think are not-bad.  They at least capture the setting well.

Frost

Looking across the Pond

I had high hopes for this one but the depth is just not there.

If the light isn’t good, the photo isn’t going to be that great.

#28-31/365

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Gold Creek Trail

We hiked almost 4 miles today on Gold Creek Trail in Snoqualmie Pass.

My photos today were near misses.  I really need to pay more attention to my settings and actually look at the photos in the camera before I just presume that it’s OK.  And I need to zoom in to look at more details.  This one is my favorite and it’s because I love the color and swirls that came out in the sky.

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Photography 2018

Last summer I upgraded from a point and shoot camera to my first DSLR. The camera made its maiden voyage overseas on our trip to Scotland and to justify the expense (and the fancy extra lens I bought myself for Christmas)  I’ve been reading up on how to take better photos.

Anything I like from 2017 will go up in the Photography portfolio, but pictures I take this year get to count towards my 365 challenge.

picnic point root

This is an overturned tree stump on the shore.  I thought it looked better in black and white.

And for something completely different, this is one of my kids falling off a sled

Sledding 360

I’m a newbie at photography so I’ve been relying a lot on preset functions and full auto mode, but for this one I had to take more control.  I knew that the camera sensors would try to make the snow gray, so I bumped up the exposure and after a few tries at panning with the motion of the kids and not liking the result, I also set the shutter speed to 1/1000.

This brings my creative collection up to 6!