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

Los Angeles: too much to see, too little time

I am going to start saying I could live here.  I definitely could.  This city has a lot of things that I love (starting with the weather and the diversity), and, from time to time, it reminds me of home.  My big complaint, though, is the absolute need for a car.  But other than that, I am loving every single inch of it.  

So is Ryan (even though he is reluctant to the possibility of moving here).  We have covered so much in two-and-a-half days that I am only going to post a few photos today.  I believe I will need several posts to talk about Los Angeles!

Please enjoy a little random collection of food and Malibu photos. 

(download)

Click here to download:

los-angeles-too-much-to-see-too-little-time-JgqyeupHChtuxaxFzvhx.zip (1.61 MB)

Who wins the "handsome competition"?

Him?

(download)

Click here to download:

los-angeles-too-much-to-see-too-little-time-GuqyzjhizArzfucoJlmt.zip (1.41 MB)

Hibiscus or Cayenas always make me remember home. There a plenty around Los Angeles. 

30 Reasons why I love doing photo tours in Seattle

Many know that besides my Studio and many other things that I do, I work for a small Seattle-based start-up company called Shutter Tours.  The premise is very simple: you visit Seattle and we walk with you for 3 hours (Pike Place Market, Downtown and the Waterfront), while we talk about our city and photography.  From toy cameras to brand new Nikon D3s, we have had a broad array of photography lovers (professionals and amateurs) coming from different countries, as well as Americans and Seattleites. 

No matter the level of expertise or where our participants come from, it's always a great opportunity to meet people, to teach and to learn from others.

And maybe one of the things I find most useful--in this case for me--is that because of Shutter Tours, I get to go out, keep my street photography fresh, keep current with our wonderful city's changes, and make and cultivate friendships along the way.  I lost the count of how many photos I have taken since I'm working here, but I can assure you it might be around 2,000 photos JUST during the tours.  Sometimes it's to explain a concept or because the photo winks at me while passing by. Other times, it's just an exercise that might come out as a portfolio shot.  Perhaps, it's just a quiet moment I don't want to forget.  

More reasons?  Oh, yes.

I get to have second-timers (like Joan), who bring their friends. Also, I get to do portraits with "grafitti aura"!

I get to photograph great light fixtures, and quirky art

I get to photograph the seasons of Washington's beautiful produce, and the fun guys who sell them.  I also get to become friends with them, print their photos to give them away so they can send them to their moms (I'm serious!)

Yes, of the 2,000 photos I have, perhaps 500 are of the Gum Wall and the Post Alley sign.  Lots of space but it helps with practicing perspective!

I enjoy the quiet moments.  They are sheer beauty.

And often, I am amazed by how Seattle's landscape can look different just based on the "daily serving of clouds" or...when some bizarre moments can create a "platform" for the Market's sign (intense message et al).

(download)

Click here to download:

30-reasons-why-i-love-doing-photo-tours-in-seattle-nHJuFfdypmpbgnByIoAD.zip (23.15 MB)

The rest of the photos that make the 30 reasons are here: portraits, smiles, adventures, still life, on so on.  Please enjoy these images as much as I do when capturing them.

Long Shot: In love with Seattle

I first fell in love with photography when I found our family albums at my grandfather's Vilis' bookshelves.  He had them in the lower shelves for us to reach.  Each album had a dot-shaped sticker outside with a number.  I clearly remember his intricate, cursive writing.  Whenever I feel in pain, I travel back to the memory of those albums.  I sat for hours in a plush, leather chair that felt like a throne, and went back and forth looking at my family's history.

Images from Latvia, Germany, El Trompillo and Los Teques in Venezuela, and then, the final destination, Caracas.  I stared at the same pages for hours, wondering what these subjects so close to my heart (and not so much) were thinking when photographed.  Trips around the world (I got my passion for traveling from my Latvian side), birthdays, stunningly young grandparents and extended family members, clothes, styles, hairdos.  My favorite thing was to feel more connected to my father by looking at his childhood photos.  His early years couldn't be more different:  he is a war child; I am a lucky princess. 

The word "document" to photography is for me (and I can't find a better analogy) like the word "climax" is to sex. Photography wouldn't have the same meaning to me if I wasn't so deeply aware of the storytelling quality of it. And by telling a story, I am talking about real life, quotidian story, not a spread in a fashion magazine or a work of visual fiction. I could spend hours looking at photo essays without feeling at all tired.  The life of others, seen with a respectful and compassionate eye, is one of my favorite things to look at.

This is the reason why I enrolled in "LONG SHOT: the 24-hour photographic endurance event" that took place on April 30th-May 1st, 2010.  We had a dear guest from out of town, so we were in whirlwind mode.  This time I didn't think or intended a theme.  I let it be.  The final edit was tough as I took more than 250 photos in 24 hours.  

This body of work is a glimpse of the small things that make Seattle a town I love passionately: the fruit vendor at Pike Place Market who's a lover of hot moms; the sleeping commuter on the ferry to Bainbridge Island; the kid on his way to Downtown, moving around on the #73 bus; a woman, a taxi and people roaming in Post Alley, next to the Gum Wall; a quiet moment at the table in Nettletown, blue walls, small flowers; quirky theater posters and street art on the wall; a couple being photographed at Kerry Park; a bunch of neighbors having fun on a multi-bicycle at a street-food fair in Ballard; a man having a coffee break in Downtown Seattle; reflections and salmon species at the Salmon Ladder in the Ballard Locks.

I am sharing the photos. As I selected and edited them, I only could think how much I love the city we live in.

(download)

Click here to download:

Long_Shot_In_love_with_Seattle.zip (694 KB)

Photo giveaway and what Cinco de Mayo actually celebrates

Twitter, oh, good 'ol Twitter!  I love how it can get people connected, communicated, and how can it get you (and others) great information, deals and good, meaningful friendships.  Now and then, I like to have an occassional contest and put out some giveaways.  Today I posted a question, and less than a minute later, the lovely Jen Joyce (@knitpurl) sent me her answer.  She had the correcta answer!  That won her a framed 4x6 print on Kodak Professional Metallic paper from my studio.  The photo on this post is the one that soon will be hanging on Jen's home sweet home.

Accidentally St. Patrick's Day

These photos were taken last fall, during a stroll in the streets of Vilnius, Lithuania. Ryan and I were wandering around, enjoying the abundant stencil and graffiti work that adorns the walls in this beautiful and quiet city. 

(download)

Click here to download:

Accidentally_St._Patricks_Day.zip (410 KB)