A Day and Evening In The City (Seattle, WA)

December 28, 2013

The Classic Martini and my sweet Lisa Mae at Olivers in
the Mayflower Park Hotel

A sort of birthday, Christmas, anniversary celebration. Lisa and I went to the city for wine, food and song to celebrate another fabulous year together. We shopped, had lunch at a Japanese place, drinks at Oliver's, appetizers at The Palace Kitchen and saw Pancho Sanchez at Jazz Alley. Fun night!

I wanted to take advantage of the day out in the city and do some street photography and brought my OMD and my new iPhone 5s.

Who could refuse?  
Plus have you ever had the 
Mac n Cheese at the Icon Grill in Seattle?

But I was just too distracted.  Caught up in the moments that we were sharing as a couple, as friends and not seeing the photographic opportunities as they're unfolding around me.

The discovery I made is that seeing and making photographs while shopping and being attentive to others doesn't really work well for me getting the images I might otherwise want to make.  So I went back to the car, put my OMD and the extra lens I had away and decided to shoot using only my new iPhone 5s.

And, while not as good as my Olympus, it didn't really disappoint either.  Dark streets, dark clubs, bright neon and no real way to make adjustments (using the built in camera) it still managed to deliver some web capable images that will keep a moment in time and leave a trail of memories of the night.

So story telling versus high quality image making is the point and I really like telling little stories.

A (not so) new Japanese restaurant in the
Pike Place Market area.  Pretty good food, really slow service and really busy.

Pancho Sanchez, live at Jazz Alley in downtown Seattle.  Great show.

Waiting

Waiting:

Seems like the old saying "no matter where you go, there you are" is especially useful when we find ourselves having to wait.  It can be a stressful time or a time of complete relaxation since much of the time we spend waiting, there really isn't another choice.  So we make the best use of our time that we can.  Friends to chat with, books to read, smart phones and pads to surf the web and check our email and FB status, catch a little shut eye or just stop the presses and do a little day-dreaming.

I want to build this project album of photos of people in everyday life, doing what most of us have to do at some point or another and Wait.  I'm looking forward to watching how this grows which of course means I will likely have to do a little waiting myself.


I'll post the beginning of this project here and link it to my website here http://www.tomcollinsphotography.com/Projects/Waiting/28580397_TWgfvk

where the album of photos can be viewed as it's being built.

It's funny coming up with projects like this or any other kind for that matter because once you get the idea for a direction and you spend some time thinking about it, the idea itself begins to make itself present in your daily life.  As long as you are one of those devotees who carry a camera, of any kind, with you everywhere you go, you will be ready to start to capture your project in photos.  If you're very thoughtful you'll even be able to "make" your photos rather than just "taking" your photos by being prepared and being in places where the theme for you project is most likely to be present.  And, with that thought in mind, anywhere you go, there you are.

I hadn't realized that this idea of making photos of people 'waiting' was something that I've actually been up to for some time.  The idea to do this I thought just came to me the other day while I was waiting in the hospital for my wife to have a day surgery.

I was sitting and waiting for hours and as usual had a camera with me and as I looked around the waiting room I saw my idea come together.  Seeing the other folks sitting, sleeping, reading, surfing the web on tablets and smart phones, chatting with friends and all waiting.  All doing the exact same thing in different ways.

That's when it occurred to me that this could be a fun photo project.  After all most of the time, most of us are waiting for something.  In line at a check out, for a movie, for a light to change, in a traffic jam and on and on.  We spend lots of time waiting and what we do with that time is interesting to see also.  So, with this in mind I began to look around the waiting room I was in and look for ways to make the pictures I wanted to tell my story of waiting through photographs.

When I returned home and had a little extra time to play with my pictures, I started to look back in my archives and realized that this theme is something I've been shooting for some time but never really thought of as a 'project' or theme.  I've been taking photos of people sitting and waiting for years.

But I like to be current and I like to be out making photos at every opportunity I have so I've decided to not add many of my old photos to this collection and instead try to build it with new ones particularly because now I'm aware of the project and I believe I'll make my shots differently.

The photo on the right of pedestrians waiting for a light to change while standing in front of the Today Show building at 30 Rockefeller Center was made in December 2011.

The photo on the left was made in March of 2011 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.





















Thanks for looking. To see the entire collection as it's being built, check out the gallery at:  http://www.tomcollinsphotography.com/Projects/Waiting/28580397_TWgfvk
All photographs in this post were made with either an Olympus OMD E-M5 or an Olympus E-P3.  Lenses included the Olympus 12mm/f20; Olympus 17mm/f1.8; Olympus 45mm/f1.8 or the Panasonic/Leica DG Summilux 25mm/f1.4.

My Dog, Eli, Ate My Lens!

It's not like I'm not used to it, my dog likes to eat my stuff.  My earbuds, my remote controls, my money clip and any of the money that's in it, almost anything that's laying on my nightstand or within reach on my desk.  So I'm normally pretty good about keeping things out of his reach.

Without thinking last week I left one of my prized Olympus lenses lying on the corner of my desk inside a small pouch (to protect it from the elements or from taking it in and out of my bag or pocket, not from a large canine putting his strong jaws to work on it).  Later the next day when I was packing up my photo gear to go out and shoot I realized that I didn't see my 12mm lens.  I looked in the bag I had out yesterday and not there.  Looked on the table where I keep all my lenses and gear neatly organized and not there either.  I start to panic wondering what I had done with it and began frantically going through my coat pockets and tearing around the house.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small black something tucked in-between the cushions of the green living-room sofa.  Oh no.  This is where I found my Klipsh earbuds a few weeks ago.  No, it can't be.  As I got closer I knew that Eli had found my lens and took it to his favorite place to chill and chew on stuff.  I pulled the black bag out of the sofa, unzipped it, (thankfully it was still in one piece, and pulled out the beautiful silver Olympus 12mm/f2.0 lens.  Well, not so beautiful anymore.  Now marred with teeth marks and scratches.  I almost threw up on the spot.  That lens is expensive and I can't afford to replace it.  Of course Eli is laying on the floor in front of the fireplace just chill-axing and taking a little snooze.  Oblivious of the pain he has caused.

I removed the chewed up lens cap and the rear cap and luckily didn't see any teeth marks in these two critical spots.  I ran upstairs to get my camera and mount the lens on to see if it would still function.  Much to my elation it did.  Focus, manual focus rings, locking mechanisms  everything still functioned perfectly.  I took a few quick snaps to be sure and yes, it still works perfectly.  It's just ugly now.

A few minutes later Eli wakes up from his blissful slumber and comes upstairs to my photo-room to say hi.  Walks up to me as he usually does, dropped his head in my lap and looked up at me with the same usual demanding I rub his head and say hello look.  What could I do.  The damage was done.  And he's so sweet.  I rubbed his head, told him hi and promised I would go to the grocery store and get him some bones.  Maybe that will help.

And I promised myself to be sure and keep my things out of reach of Eli since he can't seem to resist a good chew on my stuff.  And even though my lens is ugly now it at least has it's own story.