Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Space Needle

Whenever someone visits Seattle there are thoughts and plans to visit the Space Needle, arguably one of the most iconic structures in North America.  Staying a mere four blocks from the structure, it was an easy drive (because it was raining) to get close.

These two shots are from the inside of the Chihuly Glass Museum, but in a few posts we will venture outside and, after some pics of the Chihuly garden, capture its raw beauty.

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Platter Flowers

Adjacent to the indoor exhibits there was a huge room with walls and ceiling made of glass, allowing lots of natural light in to bounce around among the exhibits.  These were hanging from above...

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, White Vase

Saw a most unusual thing today right here in the city.  We were driving slowly on West Road, east from Jones (in Houston), and right in front of us flew a hawk with a rabbit in its talons!  Lots of rabbits around in these neighborhoods, and hawks too, so shouldn't be surprised I suppose...

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Cactus Green

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Cones

Originally red-orange, thought this looked better in black and white.  Original below:

 

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Indoor Garden (Glowing Edges)

...and with such intricate patterns, who can resist Glowing Edges?

Original below:

 

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Indoor Garden

Truly astounding.  One can't help but wonder how much was broken when placing such delicate structures.  This is one of the rooms where I could have spent quite some time inching along, capturing various perspectives and exposures.

Similar shot below:

 

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Blue Stalactite

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, White Tower Closeup #2

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, White Tower Closeup #1

Seattle 2014 - Chihuly Glass, Yellow Tower

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Blue Tower

This man's work is amazing - just incredible.  Works big and small, indoors and out.  These photographs cannot do it justice, but come close as one artist tries - with but little success - to showcase another...

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Purple Sea Shell / A Father's Time

This guy was captured in the souvenir shop.  Care to guess on the price?  Try a cool $8,000...
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This is Father's Day, and even though I'm currently published through the beginning of July decided to come back to this one and share a father's story.  Something that happened to me back in 1995, when my son Andrew was four years old.

My wife, Chenjean, was at her sister's house in Houston with Andrew one night, and I was on the half-hour drive down to meet them and was fiddling with the car radio.  It was a clear night, and some stations were coming in from far away as I scanned for something to listen to.

The dial stopped at a station that was broadcasting in Spanish, and something about it caused me to pause there and listen.  There was a small boy singing his heart out.  It was his tone that stopped me in my tracks.

I say tone because even though it was a song it sounded like a plea.  The boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, was begging his father to spend more time with him.  As the song progressed it became terse, and finally the boy, via the lyrics, offered to pay his father whatever he was making at work to spend those hours with him.  He implored, "Please, just tell me how much you make and I'll pay you that much to be with me!"

My God, tore me right at the heart.  Though the station was far away, crackling with interference because of the distance, that part of the song came in clearly enough for me to catch every word, and soon faded afterwards.  I never found out where the broadcast was from, but will never forget the moment or where I was when the song came through (on Chimney Rock).  And I daresay that the DJ who put that song on never knew the impact of his selection in a faraway land.  I have often since thought of it and the power of its lyrics.

I think I might have done OK as a dad to both of my children - after all, the reason for my return to teaching in 1991 was so that I'd have that time to spend with them summers and holidays.  But is it ever enough?  I'd made arrangements for the quantity, but was the quality there?  Any dad that cares will ask himself such questions.  I wasn't sure, so tried to make up for any deficit by writing Andrew a letter almost every day for a period of three years.  I think it was a worthwhile endeavor (one I repeated for Allison five years later, but for a shorter time period), but ironically at times I'd tell him to go play by himself while I cranked one out!

I'd recommend those letters to anyone who has children.  Andrew didn't even know they were written to him until he was twenty years old, when they were given to him on his birthday.  They were a total surprise, and it took a while to read through the body of several hundred single-spaced pages.  Allison found out about hers before she was twenty, but said she wanted to wait to receive them, and they were just as impactful when she did get them.

I have a friend who latched on to the idea after I presented it to him but, sadly, did not begin until after his little son passed away.

So this is my Father's Day message, and I should be glad if it finds meaning to anyone out there in blogland.  Becoming a father is nothing more than biology, but this business of being a DAD is the most important job in the world, and a title that should be cherished above all others.

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Vase Pair

These pics will be posted in no particular order, other than featuring indoor pics first, then venturing to the gardens outside.

Seattle 2016 - Chihuly Glass, Light Strands

The Museum of Pop Culture was interesting enough (sort of), but nothing prepared me for the treat that lay within the walls and surrounding the Chihuly Glass and Garden Museum complex.  Had to stay with the pack, but my gosh, I could have been there for several days, spending hours in one room alone (which you'll see later), snapping away at all the ingredients I love in photography...vivid colors against black backgrounds, superb artistic taste, and the taking of pictures of things through things.  It was remarkable.  And to think that one man is behind all of this (actually not only this, but many sites throughout the world) boggles the imagination.

Because of that, this series will seem more like a display of pictures taken for brochures, but it just had to be captured that way.  Enjoy.  Better yet, go and see for yourself!

Seattle 2016 - Museum of Pop Culture, Outside

This is what greeted us as we exited the museum.  Next stop?  The Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum...

Seattle 2016 - Pop Culture Museum, Hallway to Horror / The Exorcist

This was leading down to the exhibit on horror movies.  Never was much of a fan of horror movies.

Did watch a couple of them though.  As a teenager I watched The Exorcist.  Later on, during college, I watched The Shining, and was struck by the clear fact that only a mind familiar with insanity could have written such a story.  These two experiences taught me that watching horror movies is not my cup of tea at all, and probably not such a good idea for anyone.
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After watching The Exorcist on the big screen I had trouble sleeping for a few nights.  On the second or third night I was laying awake in bed and heard a thumping that seemed to come from the closet.  Thinking (hoping) that it was my imagination I tried to tune it out but the noise persisted.  Finally I had to get up to investigate...it must have been about 12:30 or 1:00.

In the darkness I approached the sliding door of my closet.  The closer I got the more vivid became the memory of how the kid approached the door in the movie.  Still I had to investigate to see what was making the thumping sound, which became louder and more distinct as I got closer and closer to the door.

I finally got the nerve to slide the door open.  As soon as there was room our cat leapt out, slamming against my leg on its way to freedom.  Don't think I've ever jumped so high before or since.
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Another time my friend Brent and I went to Acapulco for spring break, back in 1983, during my one and only graduate year in college.  We were looking for some night life and happened upon a club called Baby'O.  I'd never heard of it, but there was a long line so we waited and found out at the door that you can't get in without a date.  So we went back out on the street and, thanks to my friend Brent's charm, managed to grab a couple of girls to be our "dates" so that we could get in.  The one with me claimed she appeared on the Spanish version of Vogue magazine, and I quite believed her - she was a stunner.  Soon as we got in, however, they went their way and Brent and I sat at one of the loser tables overlooking the dance floor.

Baby'O was a bit like some of the discos we'd seen in the US, only much more sophisticated.  Lots more energy.  We sat there watching everything going on and occasionally Brent would get a girl to dance with him, but I stayed put so we wouldn't lose the table.  As the night wore on - we were there about an hour and a half - it cranked up and strange things started happening.  The music got louder, the lights got dimmer, the crowd got more boisterous, and then a screen came down behind the stage.  Interesting, I thought, don't see this in the US.

It was what was shown on the screen that blew me away.  They showed various scenes from here and there, then up popped a scene from The Exorcist!  The scene where the girl vomits the green pea soup.  They showed it over and over, and then the priest was there with the cross trying to exorcise the poor girl's demons.  I looked around, and what shocked me most was that the crowd seemed to be getting into this.  It stoked them...they were actually enjoying watching this sickness on the screen, whooping and hollering and asking for more!

I was thoroughly disgusted and, though not a practicing Christian at the time, felt strongly that Satan was having his way in that place.  Very soon thereafter Brent and I left, not even knowing whether our "dates" were still there or not.

After leaving we spotted the Princess cruise ship on which the Love Boat TV show was filmed.  What happened there is another story for another day...

Seattle - Museum of Pop Culture, Star Trek

Steadied the camera on a nearby railing to capture this one.

Seattle - Museum of Pop Culture, Window with Lamp

Seattle - Museum of Pop Culture, Guitar Background (found edges)

Same photo as yesterday's, with the find edges effect desaturated of all color, then sharpened a bit.

Seattle - Museum of Pop Culture, Guitar Background (glowing edges)

The first thing that strikes you upon entering the museum is this huge inverted cone made up of guitars, accordions, banjos and sundry other instruments, some of which I'd never seen before.  I was like a cat, prowling around the thing looking for the perfect angle for a background such as this, and settled on the above.

It's rare to do a vertical panorama, but had to in order to capture the entire sculpture, seen below:

Seattle - Museum of Pop Culture, Outdoor Lattice

Our first stop to see the downtown Seattle sights was the Museum of Pop Culture, right next to the Space Needle.  It was only four blocks from the hotel, but we chose to drive because of the rain.

This caught my eye right away because of the earth tones and the ability to see through to the other side...

Seattle - Street Light

Seattle - Matching Leaves

This fairly-cropped-in shot stood out, not only because of the angles but because the leaves matched so closely with the building on the right.

Seattle - Multicolored Leaves

Will be posting a few more general pics from about town before narrowing the focus to places such as the Space Needle, glass museum, etc.

Forget where this one was captured, but found it striking in post-capture.  Might make a good print one day.

Seattle - Fall Leaves #2

Remembering this post as a favorite from Freeport down in the Bahamas, I desaturated everything except the reds in the above shot (also captured from the hotel parking lot).  The vivid reds here are amazing, but even more fun when you play with the colors:

Seattle - Fall Leaves #1

We were very fortunate to have been in Seattle during the fall when the colors were everywhere.  It rained virtually the whole time we were there, but we didn't mind much.  Besides, it kept the light even for shots like the photo above, which was captured just off the hotel parking lot.

Don't remember why, but came very close to throwing this one away.  Then I started playing with the colors.  In the first shot below the reds were saturated by about 25%, and in the one at bottom I decided to change the yellows to orange.  Pretty neat effect, and I'm glad I kept the photo:

Seattle - Strange Tea

Drank this tea at one of those places stuck away in a neighborhood somewhere that had good reviews online.  Don't even know what's in there, but it was a unique experience, and the food was good, too.  Son Andrew is pouring below...

Seattle - Boeing Museum

A few months ago we were invited to a wedding in Seattle.  Being fascinated with aviation, one of my bucket list items has always been to tour the Boeing factory, so off we went.  This was in the museum, which we visited after the tour was complete, and the only picture that will be posted from this adventure.  Would love to have one of these models sitting somewhere in the house...

Aside from the tour and the awesomeness of it all, I will remember a milestone photograph that was captured from the museum balcony, which has a view of the flight line.  From that vantage point I was able to successfully capture a 20-shot panorama!  A print at dimension would be one foot tall by more than nineteen feet wide, and in its raw form occupies more than a gigabyte of computer space.

Mourning Dove - Baby Breaks Out

We don't know how long the two chicks had hatched before we saw them, but they were already of pretty good size when mama stepped aside to let them poke their heads above the twigs.  And just a couple of days later they were fledglings, breaking out into the cold, cruel world.  Sadly, only one made it through to this stage...