Sun-Starved

Pike Place Market Photo Stroll with the Foodies Night In Seattle gals #FNI

Hello again, my darling Sun-starved! Ryan and I have been very busy with work and soaking up every ray of the sun that took a bit longer to bring Summer along to Seattle. I'm back this time to report a lovely photo stroll that I took with some lovely ladies yesterday. We picked Pike Place Market to wander around with our cameras before heading down to SAM Taste at the Seattle Art Museum for Happy Hour (@tastesam). Want to try a fabulous cocktail? Order their FBR Manhattan, featuring their fig-infused Maker's Mark blend! 

Nostalgia and San Francisco

Nostalgia: a yearning for the past. In the present? I believe most photographs are made of nostalgia.

In San Francisco, you stroll and walk over, underneath or besides magic on a regular basis. I have never lived there but I miss it. I long for it. It's a city that mesmerized me by its delicate sense of distinctiveness in individual details, like no other place in the United States has. 

I found that magic lingering in a language I heard a passerby speaking, but I didn't recognize. I found it in a palace in the middle of the city, very close to the red bridge. It might slip into your bag of Mexican groceries or come in the form of blood orange sorbet. It might be in the menu at the Nicaraguan restaurant or left abandoned on a corner of your seat at the streetcar. It might taste like apricot preserve or smell like sand and water or a cala lily. It can come to you in many different costumes. 

I know it sounds like the fog sirens that whisper to the city all day.

In San Francisco, you want to outline the houses you walk by using just your fingers. You want to climb the palm trees in Dolores Park. Every inch of the city is alive in its asphalt, people and forms. After all, it's a place where its voices, tragedy, hope, and pride are weaved together into a beautiful, intricate map.

I wanted the glass in my lens to spill ink and produce words as fine as the imagery around me. But I ended up with images I later tinted with a dollop of golden hour.

Flowers burst, people in love and happy visitors: Spring is here!

Spring holds hands with a gentler sun. The length of daylight jumps on the clock hands, pushing them further. There is a burst of curvy colors and lush, sinewy leaves. I feel I want to touch every velvet-like texture nature gifts us with during this Season. I'm not a flower or a landscape photographer; what I am, is a fervent enthusiast of Spring and birth, of green, pinks and maroons. As a perennial sun-starved, I feel I bloom during this time of the year. Yes, I feel like a plant. Or a flower. Or both.

The sun played coy and winds marched around town yesterday in Seattle. Still, there's nothing that can be done to prevent the new season to be welcomed into our town. I'm celebrating it by making images
and gathering music. 

This music selection ranges from an "opening dream" to a "happy dance".  All the musicians featured are dear to my heart. Please, enjoy this tunes while the photos tell you about my day yesterday.

¡Feliz Primavera!

[Insert a big smile]

One of my favorite guys in Pike Place Market. Caught him on his day off. He works for Choice and Produce Pepper, one of the produce vendors at Pike Place Market. He confessed me this was his first time at The Gum Wall!

...and that he cares for this pretty gal!

Parts of Post Alley are my favorite "Industrial Sublime" corners of Seattle

Welcome, tulips!

My student Meghan, visiting from San Antonio, TX, and loving Seattle

Primrose. Victorian Lace. Stunning. 

Ah, green!

English Daisy

Hearts made of flowers

All the photos were taken at Pike Place Market, Seattle.

Get to know the musicians featured on the playlist:

I Monster

New Buffalo

Hot Chip

Goldfrapp

Kings of Convenience

Seattle, the photogenic one

I believe my most photographed subject is Seattle.  I have visited many cities as a photographer, but it's my current hometown, this lush Emerald City, the one I find the most photogenic.  Accesorized with quirkiness, breathtaking landscape and colorful people, Seattle is easy on the eyes and to walk around. I wanted to share a few photographs I made these past two days on a several special Shutter Tours we are giving to the attendants of the National Arts Education Association Convention. We have been enjoying a generous, golden sun and crisp days. This is a small sample of what it has been like. 

One of the tour attendants, an art teacher working in Beijing

Benaroya Hall's 2nd Ave facade. Beautiful during the Winter

Pike Place Market sells Harina P.A.N. That means we can make and eat arepas at home

Pansies at Pike Place Market

One of the main attractions at the Market are the stunning flowers

One of the characters that makes Pike Place Market a magical place

Seattle's famous bipolar weather: after the rain comes the sun

Just wanted to share a few images of this golden, post-downpour afternoon in Seattle.

Last assignment for #UnaFotoXdíaX28días: "A message for Venezuela."

Today is the last day of #UnaFotoXdíaX28días. The last assignment is "A message for Venezuela."  My photo is simple. On a background that offers nothing but emptiness, I chose to place children holding hands and flowers. My message is a request: it's my way to ask for peace and understanding in my country. I won't delve deeper into this, as lately, my feelings about what is going on in Venezuela are too stirred up to talk about it. 

Instead, I prefer to talk about photography. A few posts ago, I talked about participating in the photo challenge #UnaFotoXdíaX28días with my school in Venezuela, Roberto Mata Taller de Fotografía. For a photographer, this is a perfect challenge as it keeps participants making images everyday (one of my most important pieces of advice for those going into photography). Also, it spurs creativity and awakens the sense of urgency that spices up a photographer's life. For me, it fueled my need to pursue a story.

It was twenty eight photos for twenty eight days of February. I made photos for the challenge in four different American cities. Some days I hated the fact that I had to poke my brain, grab my camera and figure something out. But most of the time, I was elated; I fulfilled a daily deadline with something of my own creation.

I am pleased with most of the photos and moved to tears by a couple. Also, a very interesting "indoor" series unfolded in my imagination due to the lack of time to go out and shoot. I'm blaming the quality and lack of brightness of the outdoor light that happens on Winter gray days.

This series was done with the help of my wired gadgets (laptop, desktop and smartphone). Some of the images were arrangements of my own photos or those found on the Internet. Some I collaged on the "virtual desktop" of my computers. This last option allowed me to work around "Appropriation", a style that has produced some million-dollar images like the re-photographed Malboro Man by photographer Richard Prince. 

Not that I had those million dollar signs in my head. I utterly enjoyed developing a new body of work that I plan to keep exploring from now on. 

This is the original photo I shot for the last assignment, with my own photo taken in Trujillo State, back in 2005.

These are some of the photos I made by using imagery found in Internet: 

Arrabiata Chicken Sandwich by Ryan, aka Mr. @bellrm00

He never used it other than on pasta until I suggested, two years ago, to try it on bread as the base for bruschetta. It is perfect that way: great texture to hold the cheese, not too runny but liquid enough for the bread to absorb it and soften just the right amount. It's also an excellent complement when combined with sauteed mushrooms. We have tried it with rissotto, too. It goes well with any Italian classic dish.

Today, Ryan had a brilliant idea: to pair up the Arrabiata with lightly breaded chicken breasts and fresh parsley inside Grand Central Bakery's soft and fabulous hoagie rolls (try them, try them and try them!). Believe it or not, it was a light combination, perfect for a quick bite. We enjoyed them very much!

When I posted this photo on Facebook, I immediately got a few compliments. In one of them, I was suggested to "be good to my man." 

Yes, I will be good to my man...and he'll keep the best homemade grub coming!

Seattle is sunny today!

What Ryan (@bellrm00) does for love ♡

Ryan is my favorite subject. Ever since we started dating, I've been after him, torturing his patient self with my camera.  

I think he is handsome. Very handsome. He's not an easy subject to photograph because he is usually running away from me. Only after I gave him my old DSLR, he understood how much of an addiction photographing your significant other can be (now I'm the one running away from his camera all the time).

One of the assignments I had for the #UnaFotoXdíaX28días challenge I talked about here, had to do with hair (or lack of it). Ryan has hair, I know. I always tease him about it. Long story short, I had to beg him to show me his charming self with...you know, a little less hair in some parts of his head. Spanglish in hand, I made him "water" his hair for the photo and forbade him to come close to a comb. 

I think the final image came out wonderful and way more intense and powerful that I ever anticipated.

I love photographing my husband!

About T-Rex dinosaurs and sharing mixtapes with friends

I have been in San Francisco for the past week, exploring the city and falling in love with it.  And while in here, I embarked in a 28 photos x 28 days project with my photography school from Caracas, Roberto Mata Taller de Fotografia, where I started my photography studies back in 2004.   This entry is to show one of the photos I made for Day Uno. The assignment was to find a "T-Rex" (yes, the dinosaur!) and photograph it. Fortunately, my very talented and good friend, artist Ytaelena Lopez, has a piece with a cigar-loving, black and white and kick-ass T-Rex I couldn't pass or resist. Here's the photo of said gentleman.

Also, and thanks to Ryan, I was introduced to Mixtape.me.  Here, people can create playlists and share them with the world.  Because Ryan and I are married thanks to music (we met back in 2007 on Last.fm), I now have a stronger love for it. Sharing music gives me a pleasure I can barely describe. Let's leave that to a small, 6-track mix tape I created to share with people.

Enjoy!

Ryan @ Last.fm (he listens to really great music, no wonder I ended marrying him, right?)

Valentina @ Last.fm