Fremont Fair 2006

Seattle is a city of festivals. The incomparable Bumbershoot Festival (Labor Day Weekend) and the Earshot Jazz Festival (October-November) are my favorites. But for zany fun, it's hard to top the Fremont Fair.

Fremont is a Seattle neighborhood a few miles north of downtown. The self-proclaimed "Center of the Universe" retains its charm despite an influx of tech businesses, including a substantial Adobe Systems facility and a new Google office. No doubt Fremont stands alone among American communities in possessing a Lenin statue, missile and troll.

A highlight of the fair is the parade. Following tradition, the official 2006 parade was preceded by a big group of people cavorting without clothes. Nudity at a family-oriented event? No problem. There are no dirty minds in Fremont.



Although, some of the celebrants may be harder to understand than others:



The big crowds result in exhortations of all kinds (the past few years, even Republicans have shown up).

Hard at work raising money to support the fair's charity:



Loudly urging all in attendance to REPENT:

Bruce C Moore

I met Bruce in 1972, when he enrolled in a psychology class I taught at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California. I was working part-time while in grad school at Stanford University and Bruce had recently returned from the U.S. Navy submarine service. Of similar age and complimentary temperament, we started hanging out right away. Bruce is a terrific photographer working primarily in two areas: what I would call nature photography and live music performance photography. His performance photography is among the best I've seen.

It's not a complete coincidence that more than three decades later we ended up with homes in the same Seattle condo development, but it would have been hard to predict that outcome when we met.

In addition to his photo web site, Bruce produces the Belltown Bent blog. Both Bruce's blog and this one contribute to Seattle.BloggersPub.

Bruce is an intense and persuasive conversationalist:



Bruce with the light of his life, Vicki Brown:



Vicki in Vancouver, BC, Gastown neighborhood:

Outdoor sculpture collection tour

On May 20, 2006, the Seattle Art Museum's Contemporary Art Council organized a motor coach tour to Western Washington University, in Bellingham, in order to visit its outstanding Outdoor Sculpture Collection. Thirty-one people made the trip. The collection walking tour was led by Sarah Clark-Langager, Outdoor Sculpture Collection curator and director of the university's Western Gallery since 1988.

Sarah Clark-Langager and group in front of Nancy Holt's "Stone Enclosure: Rock Rings":



Sarah's knowledge, enthusiasm and insider stories more than made up for a day that started cooler and damper than expected. For more on the collection, check out her book, Sculpture in Place.

Detail of Richard Serra's "Wright's Triangle":



Alice Aycock work in lower left of image:



Detail from Tom Otterness's "Feats of Strength":



After the walking tour, the group shared a meal at the highly-recommended Giuseppe's Italian Restaurant in downtown Bellingham.



With a little extra time on the clock, we closed out the day with a quick, unplanned stop by Bellingham's Whatcom Museum of History and Art for the "Contrasting Objectives: Fifteen Pacific Northwest Photographers" exhibition, before returning to Seattle.

From black-and-white to color

In the mid-1960s, I purchased my first SLR camera, a Pentax, replacing it a few years later with a couple of Nikons. I shot a lot of film for about 15 years, but never made a color print, instead concentrating on black-and-white photography and doing my own film (mostly Tri-X) processing and printing.









I didn't shoot as much for the next 15 years, but then discovered Photoshop, using it first primarily as a tool for producing web graphics, and later as a tool for enhancing photographs. The biggest benefit Photoshop provided me was a path to color photography. Photoshop gave me a sense that I could control the outcome of the image during processing and make it my own.

Photoshop is broad and deep. It took quite a while to gain a reasonable level of competency and it would have taken longer without the video training on the lynda.com and National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) web sites, two resources that I highly recommend.

I still love the black-and-white image, but it's good to have color as an option, too. Nearly all of my images over the past three or four years are color.

Ronald McDonald House

Joyce Halldorson asked me if I would volunteer to do a pro bono photo shoot for the Seattle Ronald McDonald House. Joyce and I are on the committee for the Contemporary Art Council of the Seattle Art Museum.

A few months back, she'd asked if I was available to do an architectural shoot at the House. With little experience in that type of shooting, I suggested that she contact Seattle-area architectural photographer Lara Swimmer, who graciously took on that task.

My shoot involved children at the House engaged in an Easter egg painting event. I accepted the opportunity and undertook the shoot. I found the kids unexpectedly complex (with perhaps a little sadness, a little confusion, a lot of enthusiasm and a suprising amount of joy) and very engaging.

Art Critic Edward Goldman in Seattle

In April, 2006, the Los Angeles-based art critic Edward Goldman spoke at the Seattle Art Museum, at the invitation of the museum's Contemporary Art Council. Goldman was hosted throughout his several days in the area by Seattle artist Patrick Holderfield and his wife Melissa Mullineaux. Patrick and Melissa organized a dinner for Goldman, who appeared well within his comfort zone during the evening:



Melissa handled the pasta with skill:




A couple of nights after the dinner at Patrick and Melissa's, Edward charmed and attentive Seattle audience with stories both erudite and hilarious:

Photo of museum banner support

The following image was captured at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park in February 2006, after attending a reception celebrating the publication of Fired By Beauty, Barbara Johns' account of the world of Seattle cultural luminary Anne Gould Hauberg. Normally this objects holds a banner:



To correct for the low angle from which the image was captured, the perspective was changed in Photoshop. Other Photoshop corrections include: (1) a levels adjustment, (2) a curves adjustment for contrast, (3) a dodge/burn layer used primarily to darken the image left edges and (4) a modest sharpening:



The final image began with a raw capture from a Nikon D70, which looked as follows, before any adjustments:



The architect of the Seattle Asian Art Museum, built in 1933, was Carl F. Gould, the father of Anne Gould Hauberg.

--Robert Wade