I like to make my own wallpapers. Digital ones, that is, for digital devices. I use my phone a lot for this. Since it doesn't take high quality images to begin with, it's fun to play with its weaknesses to try and turn a lame picture into something interesting to look at by taking creative license in an editing program. It's a fun challenge that gives you meaningful backgrounds. Give it a shot!

This image here is a shot I took of a large, laminated world map hanging on an office kitchen wall. I love maps, and I liked the pastel color scheme and contrasting elements in this one. The ugly fluorescent office lighting was reflecting off all the folds though and with my cheap little phone camera I definitely wasn't going to get a good raw picture. But maybe there would be an old-fashioned angle I could take with it? I used the Adobe Photoshop Express app initially to convert the image to black-and-white and add a vignette. Then I uploaded it to my computer where I upped the saturation and contrast and gave it a sepia-ish hue using Adobe Photoshop Elements. That was it. Pretty simple stuff. And now I have a new wallpaper.

It's fun dusting off the old albums, albeit digital ones, and uncovering long forgotten photos. In this scene some buddies of mine had rented mopeds in Seaside, OR and were causing a bit of a ruckus about the town. I heard them coming as I was strolling around so I got my little Canon point-and-shoot ready and when they stopped at the intersection I snapped a quick shot. The sun's rays were shining down on them as if they were in the spotlight when they stopped - which they, of course, thought they were in - and that with the black-and-white adds a nice touch to this street scene snapshot.  To add some additional vibrance and character, I post-processed to enhance the contrast, tones, and added a lomo effect with a vignette.

Going a ways back for this one. This shot was taken on a Saturday morning way back in 2007 when I was just starting to take photography seriously and was shooting with my first SLR, a Canon Rebel XTi. It's proof positive that sometimes all you need to do to get a nice shot is get out. I knew even less than the little I know now about taking pictures, but I did know that it was a beautiful morning and I certainly wouldn't capture it by sitting at home. I hadn't gone far when I come across this scene of the sunrise over the mountains in the background of this horse pasture. I'd already burnt up a good chunk of my memory card just capturing the sunrise when this curious horse came strolling across to see what the fuss was about and stopped in perfect position. It was quite a lucky opportunity and I couldn't have dialed it up any better.

So why is it titled The Pretty Way? Because this view is off an alternate route of oft-driven Highway 9 and on pretty days my wife asks me if we should take "the pretty way." Although the picture was taken before we were married, I think it sums up my thoughts about the picture quite well.

I took my daughter Juliet out for a stroll around Snohomish last October while I was shooting some pictures for National Geographic's Photo Contest 2011 (there are some amazing pics in their gallery, by the way) in hopes to find an interesting shot. I was shooting some standard pictures of the Snohomish River from the Ave D bridge as dusk settled when a little spider in the railing caught my eye. I happened to be studying it at just such an angle that the setting sun was floating in my view right behind and I got to wondering what would happen if I got in real close on the spider and silhouetted it in the setting sun. I didn't have a tripod so shooting this picture with my zoom fully engaged, a baby wrapped up on my belly, and cars whizzing by on a bouncing bridge was a bit of a challenge and didn't leave me with real high expectations of a clear shot. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome when I got back to my studio and saw that I had captured the silhouetted scene you see here. The other one is a shot where the spider isn't highlighted by the sun.

I've been doing a little back-end site swapping so you'll have to append "gallery" in place of "www" for any gallery links that use "www." The gallery was originally hosted at "www.huotariimages.com" and I've switched it to "gallery.huotariimages.com." I've also swapped out the "Favorites" gallery in favor of the "Top Shots" one since the former was my test run of sorts and didn't have the original images. Sorry for the confusion!

My wife, daughter, and I went on a day trip to Edmonds, WA to celebrate the Presidents Day holiday. I was able to capture a few neat pictures of a seagull, the beach, and street views of the architecture while we enjoyed the waterfront and strolled around downtown.