More still life

Photographica III--Still Life with Camera

Photographica II--Still Life with Camera

Still Life with Blowtorch

Here's my most recent still life image. These kinds of still life images can make for some unusual and attractive wall decor. I like to print them as gallery-wrapped canvases about 24 inches wide x 32 inches long. For a brief tutorial on how I go about making these images, click here.

Still Life with Blowtorch
Panasonic G6 w/Lumix 45-150mm lens @45mm
Click on the image for a larger view.

Puget Sound, the Kitsap peninsula, and the Olympic Mountains

Here's a shot taken from Marina Beach Park in Edmonds, just north of Seattle.

Puget Sound , the Kitsap Peninsula, and the Olympic Mountains as seen from Edmonds, Washington
Panasonic G6 w/Lumix 45-150mm lens @143mm

Another view of Seattle from Alki

Seattle, perhaps more than many other cities, has many wonderful viewpoints from which to photograph. Still, the number of compelling vantage points is finite, and yet, the view from any one of these is never the same, and one can return to them time and again, and with a little luck, come home with a view that is far different than the last shot one took there. This is of course true of any city, so don't think that just because you got a great shot from some particular location, that all the possibilities have been exhausted. This twilight shot of downtown Seattle, as seen from the Alki neighborhood of West Seattle, is quite different from other shots I've obtained there, but has it's own unique charm.

If you'd like to shoot with me at Alki, or any other of Seattle's myriad viewpoints, come to my workshop, and you'll see firsthand how I capture and process images like this. It's fun and you'll learn a lot in a short time. More info here.

Seattle as Seen from Alki
Panasonic G6, w/Lumix 45-150mm lens @ 69mm

Eagle sculpture by Alexander Calder

This painted steel sculpture is located in the Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle. Seen in the distance are the Olympic
Mountains and Puget Sound.

Eagle sculpture by Alexander Calder, Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, with Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains in the background

Mountain peaks float above Seattle neighborhood

As the sun sets, turning the sky orange and yellow, the Olympic Mountains appear to float as islands in a sea of clouds, behind the Seattle neighborhood of Magnolia.

Whether you're a visitor or a resident, I invite you to come shoot with me in Seattle. We'll spend three fun hours scouting the location, discuss composition and exposure while setting up the shot(s), make the image captures, and process one of your images immediately afterwards. Click here for more information.

Seattle series: West Point Lighthouse

This modest lighthouse in Seattle's Discovery Park may be photographed from a number of different angles. See my website for more views.

West Point Lighthouse, Seattle

Whether you're a visitor or a resident, I invite you to come shoot with me in Seattle. We'll spend three fun hours scouting the location, discuss composition and exposure while setting up the shot(s), make the image captures, and process one of your images immediately afterwards. Click here for more information.

Seattle series: Seattle as seen from Alki

In this shot of Seattle as seen from Alki, the long exposure has smoothed out the water and blurred the clouds. There isn't much foreground to work with in this location, but the rocks do add some interest to the photo. Notice how the sky is also more interesting with some cloud detail instead of a dark, blank background.

Downtown Seattle as seen from Alki Beach (West Seattle)

Want to spend a few hours in Seattle shooting with me? Click here for info on my workshops.

photo21 Seattle Photography Workshop

After a number of inquiries from visitors and residents alike, I have developed a 3-hour, one-on-one Seattle photo workshop, a sort of shot-in-the-arm for honing your imaging skills and shooting some of Seattle's best scenes at the same time, and since you will be the only attendee, we can tailor the workshop to your specific needs.

If you would like to improve your photography skills and learn how to capture and process compelling images, allow me, Michael Brent Levy, to personally guide you through a 3-hour, on-location photo shoot and post-processing workshop. You and I will choose a location in the greater Seattle area, and spend our time together roughly as follows:

1st hour: Scouting the location, we will look for the best vantage points from which to photograph the scene, pre-visualize possible compositions, and choose the most suitable lens, focal length, aperture, and exposure pararmeters for the job, given the intended result and existing lighting conditions.

2nd hour: Before shooting, you will frame the scene through your camera’s viewfinder or monitor, and I may suggest possible adjusments to your composition. We will then proceed to photograph the scene, trying to catch the optimum light (this is most important near sunset), do a quick check of the images on the camera’s monitor screen, and make adjustments to composition/exposure if necessary. If appropriate, we will move to another promising vantage point and shoot the scene again,

3rd hour: We will process one of your images in Lightroom and/or Photoshop on my high-resolution laptop, and you will learn how appropriate adjustments to the tonality, color balance, and saturation can maximize the impact of the image. We may clone out distracting image elements, and may make adjustments localized to specific parts of the photograph. Lastly, we will see if judicious cropping improves the overall composition, and why. If time allows, I will demonstrate some simple but powerful capture and processing techniques that may surprise you.

Cost is $149 for this three-hour Seattle photography workshop. To schedule a workshop for a time convenient for you, e-mail me at mikelevyonline@gmail.com, or call or text me at 206/489-8414.

Some possible shooting locations may be seen in the Seattle section of my website at www.photo21.org.

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For those rainy days in Seattle when shooting is made more difficult, I am offering a two-hour, one-on-one post-processing workshop, using Lightroom and/or Photoshop, suitable for beginning or mid-level users. Using my high-resolution, calibrated and profiled laptop, we will cover the tools and techniques specific to your editing needs, process one or more of your own photos, and demonstrate some interesting and very useful techniques on some of my sample images.

Cost is $98 for the two-hour session. We will meet at the Seattle Public Library, the Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington (in itself an interesting place to photograph), or at another agreed-upon meeting place. Contact me for more information or to set up a workshop session.

Still Life

Please click on the images for a larger view.

Still Life with Oil Cans

Still life--When Kodak was King

Still Life with Mandolin

Still Life with Mango

Still Life with Junk no.2

Still Life with Junk no.3

Still Life with Pipe Wrench

Still Life with Junk

My jack plane

Still life--Autumn Harvest

Same place, different time

If you've followed this blog, you've seen this lighthouse before. I keep going back, and although the subject matter is the same, a fresh scene always presents itself, and is usually one worth photographing. Now, it's not entirely good luck, as I only head out to the lighthouse when the possibility of an interesting sunset presents itself. But to quote a line (with a bit of artistic license) from the movie Forest Gump, "Sunsets are like a box of chocolates--you never know what you're gonna get."  Click on the image for a larger view.

West Point Lighthouse, Discovery Park, Seattle
Canon 450D w/Tamron 11-16mm lens @11mm