Its been awhile since I've been on a photo stroll. The PhotoGods have tried to get something going, but it seems everyone is ubber busy these days. This stroll was a somewhat unexpected stroll. I had intended on only going to the Smith Tower and instead had some time to kill.
Meg-A-Roonie and BeagleBabe (who's new nickname should probably be the Mad Scientist because she' got this new-ish blog called
The Papercraft Lab and sadly no longer has a beagle.) were joining me to see the Smith Tower. They both are photographers and like the PhotoGods we're all at different levels and all are eager to learn.
So why the Smith Tower? Many reasons the first of which is that it's a historic landmark in Seattle and once loomed over the downtown area. It's long since been dwarfed by other skyscrapers, but at one time it was the tallest building west of Chicago for a long time. It opened July 4, 1014 and is celebrating it's 100 years anniversary. It reaches 522 feet to the sky and is full of beautiful old craftmanship.
On the 36th floor is the observation deck. It gives you a 360 view of Seattle and the surrounding mountain ranges.
But before I get to those photos, let's talk about the photo stroll.
I didn't have anything specific I was aiming to shoot per se, but did want to work on taking decent photos in the middle of the day. I know. I know. ALL photography training says not to, but it's been my experience on most of my trips that I don't have a choice. I have to shoot when I can. And the middle of the day, in bright sun is usually the only time.
I had read some articles after our European trip that said, in bright sunlight to drop your f/stop down (make the number higher) to allow for less light to come in. It does mean that you'll have more in focus - so if you're trying for a blurry background, you won't get it. It's a trade off I suppose.
Anyhow, we had about an hour to kill so we strolled through Pioneer Square.
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| This is Meg-A-Roonie and I. |
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| The Columbia Tower. It's the tallest skyscraper now in Seattle. One day I'll get to it's observation deck. |
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| A practice in using a polarizer lens. Takes out all the glare and reflections when looking into a window. |
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| The "famous" Pioneer Square Pergula. It's been hit by cars and trucks so many times, I'm surprised it's still standing. |
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| Spooky stair case. At least that was my intent. |
As we were walking through the area, we stumbled onto this alley that was filled with interactive art pieces. The entire alley had such unique things in. I'm so glad we found it. This is a good example for me to take in for when a plan has to change, sometimes there's good things that comes out of it. Had we not had to wait for the Smith Tower to open, we never would have found this little gem.
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| Selfies.... |
Once we were done with the area, we got back to Smith Tower. In lobby of this building was just beautiful to me. It immediately threw you back in time.
The 36th floor is also what they call the Chinese Room. It's dec'd out in some beautiful Chinese decorations. The ceiling is all teak and there are 776 semi-precious porcelain discs in the ceiling. I'm not sure what "semi-precious" really means, but they were pretty.
Anyhow, on the observation deck you can see the beautiful city of Seattle.
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| Looking Northwest ish... |
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| Flash came with us to shoot the city. He wasn't very comfortable standing on this little ledge. |
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| Eye spy...if you look closely you can see the Space Needle between all those buildings. |
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| This is the "Sunken Ship" parking structure. Its were I park all the time in this area. Sparky is actually not shown here - boo. That tip top corner though is where we stood to get the full length photo of the Smith Tower that is the first one I posted. |
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| Looking South. Quest Field and Safeco Field are right there. |
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| That's the very tip top of the tower. The triangle top is an apartment that someone rents. That little tip top part is a reading nook for them (I saw it on TV - that's how I know). Could you imagine the view from there? |
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| My other two photographer trouble makers...Meg-A-Roonie and The Mad Scientist. |
So that's another Seattle touristy thing I got off my "bucket" list. There's an Irish pub at the bottom of the Smith Tower and so after that exhausting day of shooting we had to eat and drink.
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