Based on my ongoing Barcelona “Structures” project, here is a brief photo essay I put together during a recent trip to Seattle, in the USA’s Pacific Northwest. Is this a story of great achievement… of hubris… or both?
Identifiable Boeing Flying Objects, clouds, the sky, and the American flag figure in many of these pictures, as well as myriad patterns, shapes, and forms.
What you don’t see in these photos? The 12,000+ homeless people who live in Seattle, many in tent camps–a few pitched quite literally and squalidly in the median between the interstate highway multi-lanes.
So, enjoy all the modern glass, aluminum, and steel in these images… but also give some thought to what these photographs don’t show. Or, would show if I were to point my camera into the alleys, heating grates, recesses and crannies at the base of these buildings rather than up at the distant, shiny, summit altars.
Who said that?
I heard this somewhere long ago in a galaxy far, far away and it’s a powerful point to ponder: “A society ought to be judged by how it treats its less fortunate.”
[Just checked with the all-knowing Sra. Google. It was Mahatma Ghandi–of course–who came up with the original: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”]
With that, on to the images. These are all sized to 30″x20″ (or 20″x30″ in vertical orientation) at 300ppi. That’s 9000 pixels by 6000 pixels, so they can be printed quite large–going to 60″x40″ easily. I would even consider a wall mural, depending on the viewing distance.
An alien shadow, perhaps?
Structures, #47, Seattle, USA, 2019
High key treatment of lines, shapes, and forms:
Structures, #46, Seattle, USA, 2019
Is that a monster, quietly observing our strange human activities from the sky?
Structures, #45, Seattle, USA, 2019
Millions of years before Boeing, there were…
Structures, #44, Seattle, USA, 2019
Reflecting on dual and opposing flags:
Structures, #43, Seattle, USA, 2019
Boeing, or Airbus? Test your aircraft identification skills:
Structures, #42, Seattle, USA, 2019
Three flying objects and three rising structures:
Structures, #41, Seattle, USA, 2019
A LGBQT celebration of a flyover:
Structures, #40, Seattle, USA, 2019
Boeing, an all-American company:
Structures, #36, Seattle, USA, 2019
Just half of a flag, lost in lines:
Structures, #34, Seattle, USA, 2019
Patterns:
Structures, #31, Seattle, USA, 2019
Urban climbers…well, descenders, actually…cleaning as they go:
Structures, #25, Seattle, USA, 2019
More patterns for Kafka:
Structures, #22, Seattle, USA, 2019
A close-up of our three descenders:
Structures, #21, Seattle, USA, 2019
Still more patterns–and a stray trapped plastic bag, and a weird ring of some kind:
Structures, #16, Seattle, USA, 2019
“An Orca’s Nightmare”, or “Industrial Orca”, perhaps?
Structures, #9, Seattle, USA, 2019
The pensive princess of Seattle:
Structures, #4, Seattle, USA, 2019
The Wheel and some big tubes:
The Wheel, #3, Seattle, USA, 2019
Folks at work–on the rooftop, in the plane, and in those offices, surely:
Structures, #42, Seattle, USA, 2019
Hello World, Seattle branch:
Structures, #43, Seattle, USA, 2019
Hotel from times past, now hidden deep in the urban canyons of downtown:
Structures, #46, Seattle, USA, 2019
Patterns, lines, shapes, forms:
Structures, #44, Seattle, USA, 2019
Our modern idol, urban obelisk:
Structures, #45, Seattle, USA, 2019
Older and newer, with rhyming flag and streetlight:
Structures, #47, Seattle, USA, 2019
A selection of four images from the Pop Museum, near the Space Needle:
Structures, #49, Seattle, USA, 2019
Structures, #51, Seattle, USA, 2019
Structures, #52, Seattle, USA, 2019
Structures, #56, Seattle, USA, 2019
On final approach to SEA:
Structures, #59, Seattle, USA, 2019
Finally, two wider cityscapes, taken from the top of the Space Needle (hint: shoot through the open space between the plexiglass panels). Lots of lines here, as well as a full tonal range when rendered in monochrome:
Structures, #54, Seattle, USA, 2019
Structures, #55, Seattle, USA, 2019
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