A few promotional stills from the Arouet production of The House of Bernarda Alba now showing at The Ballard Underground in Seattle, WA. The show runs until May 19, 2012. The final masterpiece by noted playwright Federico Garcia Lorca before his death in 1936.

May 5, 2012 – “Super Moon” rising behind the Seattle skyline as viewed from Ursula Judkins Viewpoint near Magnolia. As we setup well before sunset, we weren’t sure we were going to get a shot of the moon low behind the city. Clouds on the horizon threatened to block our view. Fortunately a nice gap opened up and made for a suitably dramatic scene!

I had the opportunity this past weekend to cover a rally in support of Sea-Tac Airport and Port of Seattle workers. You can view the story and photo gallery that was ultimately published at The SeaTac Blog.

As is often the case, I shot far more photos that I needed or could use. This isn’t difficult at an event like this, where you’re frequently using two cameras — one with a wide angle lens and one with a telephoto. In most cases any photos that aren’t published get archived and never see the light of day.

I thought it would be interesting to start using my personal site to publish some of the photos that would otherwise languish in the dim recesses of my hard drive. With that in mind, here are a few outtakes from last weekend’s rally and march and didn’t make the cut for publication.

Production stills from Lauren Gunderson’s “Exit, Pursued By A Bear” now showing at ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery in West Seattle. Show runs through May 13, 2012. Wednesday – Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 3:00 pm. Read the Seattle Times review.

Stills from the April 5, 2012 CD release show for Highlight Bomb’s “Finals” album at the 2 Bit Saloon in Ballard, WA. Featuring the bands Encourager, Dies Drear, The Whywolves and of course, Highlight Bomb! Fantastic sets by all four bands. I’ve seen (and photographed) all by Encourager before and I never get tired of their music. The new album by Highlight Bomb is worth tracking down. See them live at The Funhouse on April 15, 2012 and pick up a copy there!

My daughter had a party to celebrate her 16th birthday today. She’s not actually sixteen yet, that doesn’t happen until next week but this was the “public” party for her and her friends. Being who she is, it was a Doctor Who themed birthday cake at a billiards hall. That’s just how this family works. We’re quirky that way!

Being the daughter of a photographer, she has come to expect that the party is going to be thoroughly documented. It just comes with the territory. That’s why I was glad she picked Java Billiards for the venue. Lots of opportunities for interesting photos!

We’re off on a four day father-daughter photo safari to the Washington coast next, so she’ll have a chance to shoot a few photos of her own. More on that when we return.

I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer judge for the Seattle FIRST Robotics Regional Competition this past weekend. This was my second year doing so.

It’s an amazing experience seeing how enthusiastic and creative the students are when it comes to designing, building and then operating robots to competitively solve each year’s game challenge.

As a judge, a lot of my time during the weekend is spoken for with team interviews and deliberations among the judges to select teams for awards. I still carry my camera and manage to watch a handful of matches.

Because of the number of teams that participate in our regional, FIRST actually conducts two complete regional competitions simultaneously… the Seattle Cascade Regional and the Seattle Olympic Regional.

I judge for the Cascade Regional and most of these photos are from there, but there is a sprinkling of photos from the Olympic Regional shot during the limited time I had to observe their matches.

The photo above is FIRST Founder Dean Kamen — inventor of the Segway among other things — speaking at the competition on Friday evening.

A few promotional stills for the ArtsWest production of “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” now showing through March 31, 2012.

To celebrate the last weekend of Winter and the official start of Spring, I headed out to find cherry trees. I found a great spot in Des Moines, WA at the Landmark Event Center. They have a beautiful row of cherry trees in full bloom along the public sidewalk across the front of the property. Despite a few sprinkles of rain, I had a great time looking forward to Spring and putting the cold, gray Winter behind me!

Who doesn’t love a cheap rock show? Certainly not me. That’s why my son and I wandered into Seattle to check out The Funhouse this past week. He was off the next day and I was willing to live with just a few hours of sleep. That was a good enough setup to justify a late night of punk rock and a visit to a venue new to us.

We knew one of the bands playing — Dies Drear — so we knew the night wouldn’t be a total loss. Turns out that was never going to be an issue!

The opening act was a band we hadn’t heard before, The Whywolves. Great punk trio, lots of energy on stage. They blasted through a Journey cover song that was one of my favorite tunes of the night.

Next up was a band called Sok and the Faggots. Gotta admit I had a visceral reaction just to the name of the band and I suspect that’s intentional on their part. Wasn’t sure what to expect but what I got was fast-paced, aggressive punk rock with tongue firmly in cheek. Hard to be offended by a band that clearly doesn’t take themselves all that seriously and don’t expect you to either. Definitely on the “see them again” list.

Next the evening took a left turn with a twist as the bands went on break and were replaced by a short burlesque show. Now mind you, I like attractive, scantily clad females as much as the next guy, but I was there to listen to punk rock and the diversion messed with the flow of things.

By the time Dies Drear set up and were ready to close out the evening, a lot of the audience had drifted off and The Funhouse was emptier. Still, the guys didn’t let that stop them from turning in another great performance. Both Matt and I have seen Dies Drear previously and they are firm favorites in our book. They’ll be taking a little break from performing but we’ll be waiting to hear word of their next concert later this year.

All-in-all the evening was a blast and The Funhouse turned out to be a fantastic place to see live music. We’ll be back as often as we can. Although next time, I’ll try to avoid scheduling a 6 a.m. meeting the morning after a show!

Here are a few photos I shot that night. You can click the image above or the thumbnails below to view larger photos.