This photo was taken at Alki Beach last weekend during my 2-day photography class. By some miracle, we convince this woman to ride back and forth a few times so I could get the sun positioning just right.

Last week, I had the pleasure of taking the 2 day Bryan Peterson workshop here in Seattle. Bryan is one of my favorite authors of Photography books and he has taken some amazing photos over the course of his 30 year career. The best part about this guy is that he’s so down to earth and tells the most hilarious stories, which made the 2 days we spent together an absolute blast.

The class was sold as a macro photography course, which is focused on taking close-up photography of subjects. Traditional this is with flowers and insects — 2 subjects I’ve never been wildly fond of. However, after taking the course, I have developed a keen interest in taking more macro shots, and even found a love for flowers. It’s technically and creatively challenging to setup and take a good macro shot, and I had my fair share of frustration, especially since I don’t own a macro lens. I was stuck borrowing a classmate’s lens and trying to setup my own shots with my lenses.

The rest of the course was spent driving all around Seattle and basically absorbing everything in Bryan’s head, whether it be lens choice, camera setup or even creative style questions. The $595 price tag on the course was a steal as far as I’m concerned given how much I learned over the 2 day period. Here are some of the shots I took, which are also available on my portfolio.

Let me know what you think!

Finding happy hour locations in Seattle has always been a nightmare. I would have expected sites like City Search and Yelp to have done something to make this easier for me, but alas, they haven’t.

Fortunately for all of us happy hour fans, UrbanDrinks.com was created which attempts to solve my happy hour dilemna — what are my choices for happy hour? What time is happy hour at a particular place?  They just launched their support for Seattle a few weeks ago so their user reviews on happy hour joints is pretty limited. I like what I see so far!

(Thanks to Fil for the tip)

Just want to shout out a quick thanks to everyone that supported me on the National Multiple Sclerosis walk, either by showing up bright and early on Sunday or through donations/pledges.  I managed to raise $350 which was $100 past my goal which is amazing since I only had 5 days to raise enough pledges. My friends and family rock

Thanks in particular go out to Sarah and Janete for joining me on the walk itself despite having to wake up so freakin’ early.  Janete, next time I’ll make sure they have a glazed donut for you instead of powerbars

Thanks to the following people for their pledges. I really, really appreciate it.

• Colene (the sis)
• Mommy and Daddy
• Mike Torres
• Nicole and Jeff Steinbok
• Didi (aka kleepy)
• Greg Hughes
• Ryan Christensen

PS — For those that work at Microsoft, don’t forget to claim your matches through the giving campaign! For everyone else, check with your employers to see if they match donations.

I’m participating in the National Mutiple-Sclerosis (MS) Walk next sunday here in Seattle to help fundraise and increase awareness. My

girlfriend’s sister has MS so it’s a great way to not only support her, but also the countless other afflicted individuals.  I was shocked to find out that the Pacific Northwest has the highest incidences of MS in the world.  To top it off, there is no known cure.

If you want to help support this worthy cause, get some exercise and maybe share a coffee with me bright and early sunday morning, I would love for you to sign-up. 

If you’re not able to participiate, I’d appreciate any pledge you can provide. Don’t forget to claim any donation matching that your employer might provide (e.g. Microsoft will match 1:1 on any donation above $25).

My personal goal is to raise $250 this year and I’ve already seeded the pot with $50. You can view my progress, sign-up for the walk or make a pledge at my National MS Walk page.