Photography – Page 3

Nekid Solstice

Fremont was once a place within Seattle that put the hippie in grunge. Or maybe that was the grunge in hippie. Nowadays it is, like much of Seattle, at a cross-roads between its past written in the PBR-soaked sweat of folks who, in their twenties believed that dirt under nail and in hair was simultaneously both a political and fashion statement, are now in their forties and fifties with an economic clout they once directed their art-vogue-french-laden-Leninist angst against. In a word, they have become The Establishment, even if the PBR has not changed. This is not localized to Fremont or even Seattle, it is just the nature of economic growth. Still, Fremont is a place where its past and present mingle side-by-side with a steady-gazed aplomb, contradictions never colliding on most days of the year. Most days of a year except one day: summer solstice. This is the one day when whatever ironies and juxtapositions might normally cast their shade over Lenin Square is forgotten in the streak of body-paint, glitter and bicycle parts. On June 18, 2011 some 500 persons elected to wake-up, grab their bike and leave the shirt and the pants at home, instead opting for a bit of body paint to cover up their naked truth. More so, this year was a celebration made moist in the irony that is the Pacific Northwest: it rained on the start of summer. Or as a visitor from elsewhere might note it merely misted; just enough to dapple the hand and blush the cheek to what wobbled to and fro and bo-jangled up and down under the cycled beat of individual expression.

View the rest of 2011’s Solstice Celebration. And if you find tits and tats and bobs and babbles a bit too much then you might enjoy this instead.

KenmoreAir

Today was a day of airplanes. Lots and lots of airplanes: that is what KenmoreAir is all about. KenmoreAir is located just a few miles north of my home. They are the vestiges of what I suspect is an Age of the Air that is now mostly regulated to the big guys, at least in the “civilized world.”

I did not expect to feel much taking these photographs other than to revel in the beauty of a well-crafted, well, craft. I spent an hour or so talking to a gentleman who had some 3,000 hours operating his once Cessna 206 alone. Three. Thousand. Hours. That is a lot of hours that he and his wife flew around the Pacific Northwest exploring. Living. And I envy them every one of those seconds.

More so, in getting my nose in those cockpits, as it were, awakened in me memories of a day when I gloried in taking to the sky with my father. It was not till I was 16 and heading down to Florida that I flew for the first time in a commercial jet, even though I had hundreds of hours in small craft. I grew up in the cockpit, first learning IFR (instrument flight rules) long before I learned the traditionally more basic VFR (visual flight rules). I was too young to see out the cockpit, but young enough to not be intimidated by the array of instruments. I recall flights which ended with me elbowing my dad to wake after having lined us up for final approach, never once thinking it odd that a ten-year-old had been operating an aircraft for hours unaided by an adult. My father and I would punch holes in the sky and eve took two weeks to head to Alaska from New York; we ended up stalled at Yellowstone Park after a week into the trip and realizing we were only half way there. So we punched more holes in the skies before returning home.

So there I was this afternoon recalling the feel of controls while mixing fuel till the engine begins to sputter and bringing it back from the edge to ensure optimal performance. I remember; optimal indeed. Thank you, KenmoreAir.

LIGO

I have been wanting to visit LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) for quite some time. It is not merely a physics experiment on the highest magnitude, it is an astro-physics experiment of the highest caliber. LIGO is one of two facilities in the United States funded by NSF to attempt to detect gravity waves by measuring the very distortion of space-time. Yes. It is that fucking awesome.

LIGO is located out in Hanford, Washington which is more remembered for its nuclear waste legacy than it is for pushing the envelope of our very understanding of the universe. But there it is. LIGO. Out in the middle of nearly nowhere (at least relative to Seattle and western Washington) are two lasers both running some 4 kilometers in length, directed orthogonal (90 degrees) to each other. At present LIGO is in the middle of an upgrade in order to increase its sensitivity by two orders of magnitude. It is a ballsy gamble given that LIGO, as of yet, has not yet made any detection of said gravitational waves in the some four years it continuously collected data. But that does not stop them, or us, from hoping that these upgrades will herald in an age when even the tremors of space-time, perturbed by the interaction of large stellar bodies such as two stars orbiting each other, are detected on a regular basis.

While I was out visiting LIGO I dropped down to Fidelitas Winery in Benton City. Some 16 bottles later I drove over to Prosser, Washington where I was hoping to also stop in on Maison Bleue which, unbeknownst me, is by appointment only. Bummer. I instead hung out in Prosser at Wine O’Clock for dinner while listening to the blues band at the nearby winery. Some few hours later I saw the clouds encroaching upon the valley so I decided to head out in hopes of camping in Yakima, WA. But by the time I reached Yakima it was both quite dark and quite obvious that the clouds were there to stay the night, completely negating the desire for me to stay up trying to catch some starry skies; instead, I drove back to Seattle where I got home in the very hours of Sunday; it was one helluva day.

Olympic Peninsula and Ferries

Yesterday was one of those perfect days that it is hard to fully describe either in words or pictures. The weather was so clear and sunny when I woke at half past six that I almost skipped out on my typical Saturday long-distance run. But even that proved to be a particularly excellent run, both for the company thanks to Loka, Danielle, Jeremy and the rest of the crew, but due to the vistas we caught along our thirteen miles. Given the rarity of day like this I had decided to do some ferry riding and tour a bit of the Olympic Peninsula. I had thought I might change my route by starting downtown; however, it was Doug at Cafe Solstice that reminded me of activity downtown prompting me to go up to my established route starting from Edmonds, WA to Kingston, WA. It took the typical hour from the time I arrived at Edmonds to get on the ferry which gave a little bit of time to relax in the and read. Once on the ferry it was reasonably crowded with folks, enough so that I got some great shots of kids and folks enjoying the sun. But I think I burned the most film, as it were, on birds, especially the seagulls who flew along and above us as we made our crossing. Once in Kingston, I drove up to Hansville and Skunk Bay for some more shots of the Cascade mountains. I then headed south to Point Gamble where I caught Seabeck Road down to Seabeck and Holly to catch some glimpses of the Olympic mountains. I tried to time my crossing back to Seattle from Bremerton at sunset which was around 9pm PST. This allowed me to get some twilight shots of downtown Seattle.

Sunset at Discovery Park

This evening, after a day of rain and clouds, found me inside reading a book. It was with some shock, which quickly settled into delight, that I realized the sun, that marvelous wonderful heat of summer glow, was out. While it was nearing 7pm, in one of those “of course it is” moments, I remembered we are approaching the summer solstice and thus the sun sets quite late in these parts. Which is to say, I grabbed my camera, jumped in my car and headed out to see what I might discover. At first I was going to visit Greenlake, but the cumulus candy in the sky told me that I might fair better if I headed even further west. So I found myself at Discovery Park this evening for a few hours.