The Gallery

This was taken on 5/11/2002 - the building is one of the Metropolitan Park towers - those ugly high-rises that stand between my apartment window and the Space Needle. This was taken on Olive Way, near the convention Place bus tunnel. Tricky to take - one hand holding the sunglasses, and another holding the camera. I didn't get the angles quite right - you can just see the edge of my right arm in the lower-left edge of the sunglasses reflection.

Further downtown, along Olive Way, is the Bell Plaza (next photo) - this is a reflection of it in a new building that's just been completed opposite it.

And this is the Bell Plaza building itself. Somewhat drab, but at least it has some texture to it - better than those dark glass boxes.

An escalator in the Westlake Metro Station. The intersting thing is how the flash illuminates the steps, and how they reflect off the sides. Even though it's just a regular escalator, perhaps due to the color and angles, there seems to be something very Art Deco about it.

This was taken in the food court of the Westlake Mall - I put the sunglasses on a table, using a cup of Pepsi from SBarro (the Italian stand - their baked ziti was quite good) standing on the ear-part of the glasses to keep them upright while I took the shot. The tall building is Century Square (Borders Books & Records live there), reflecting in the table and in the glasses.

This was taken on Pike St, looking up at the side of the Century Square building. While this building is most notable for its top - which looks something like an electric shaver - its side has a rather large expanse of uniform square windows, which appear almost like a strange landscape if you look at them in a certain way.

The Seattle Tower is my favorite classic (20's Art Deco) Seattle skyscraper - this is a picture of it reflected in a window of the Washington Mutual tower building (see next photo) - one of my favorite modernt Seattle skyscrapers.

The Washington Mutual building - an Art Deco-influenced moern Seattle skyscraper.

I found this sticker on the bottom-right corner of a shoe store window in Pike Place market, just on the Belltown side. It's fun.

This is a parking lot sign up in the U District at Trader Joe's. The text on the sign [unintentionally] sums up the whole consumerist or 'retail therapy' experience - "See your merchant for validation."

The following photos were taken on 5/18/2002 - this is the classic Seattle Postcard shot - taken from Highland Park, on Queen Anne. Unless you're a masochist, don't attempt to walk up the hill to get there - take the #2 bus from Downtown or at the side of Larry's Market, get off at the top of the hill, and walk down to W. Highland and 2nd Ave W.

Even though the mountain wasn't visible, the variety of cloud texture almost makes up for it.

Back at the base of Queen Anne, this is a close-up of a canyon-like part of the EMP, featuring the moon, and the Space Needle as a reflection.

The beloved Elephant Super Car Wash neon sign (with Space Needle) - I had to hunt around to find a suitable puddle to get a reflection in - not easy given the sunny day that this was, but, this being a car-wash, there were still one or two puddles left.

Holding camera at appropriate angle in right hand, place fingers of left hand into puddle, wiggle, and depress shutter lever of camera with right hand index finger. Repeat, and eventually you'get get a nice, trippy, blurry pink neon elephant. With blurry Space Needle.

Not sure where the inspiration for this came from - was walking around Capitol Hill with a friend, and as we passed one of those small parking lots, I realized that I had to buy a toy car and take a photo of it in a 'COMPACT' stall. The following weekend, which was when I took the above few pics, I popped into Bartell's on Queen Anne and bought two toy cars: a small red convertible - which was too small to work in a photo - and a slightly larger toy SUV - seen here. Finally, the following Friday (24/5/2002), on the way home from work, I 'parked' the SUV in one of the 'COMPACT' stalls at the newly opened overlake transit center. Several differently-angled shots and puzzled passers-by later, this pic was done.