Smith Tower

ETA: 2/22/07: By coincidence, Smith Tower on the front page the day after I made this post: Seattle Times writes that it may be turned into condominiums.
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I was speaking about the Smith Tower in my last post. This is the view out of my studio window.







Once, I covered an event on the very top floor, in the tall pyramid-shaped part. That was fun.

When the building was opened in 1914, it was the forth tallest in the world. One hundred and fifty-nine meters. It's only been washed once I read as, for some reason, it stays exceptionally clean by itself. There is a room on the 35th floor called The Chinese Room. The furniture and many of the fittings and carvings were gifts from the Empress of China. You can take a Virtual Reality tour here.

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I did this photo some month's ago. The light was very special. Warm afternoon light with a certain glow, at the same time dark clouds and some blue sky. There was some magic in the air, a kind of a stronger presence of things, as if the objects reach out to you, not just being there in the gray, passively waiting for us to see them.

The blue little globe or ball on top of the tower was lighting up. I never registered that before. Probably catching the light from the sun.

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Studio Upgrade and Shawna Locey

Spend several hours yesterday together with my husband Frank doing some improvements on my studio. My husband is the technical talent, and it is very satisfying to work together with him on that. We got a lot done. Now the couch can move, with wheels. It feel as if it can fly.

The studio is in the 619 Western building downtown, full of artists. It's a great space, but is what you could call 'shabby chic.' Great windows with the view on the Smith tower. The big studio room actually reminds me of my Berlin apartment where I lived for some years.

The building is very old, has it's own charm. The Studio is developing. I enjoyed working on it so much, I wanted to look at it again and again.





Here are some more photos I just did recently with the singer Shawna Locey, a beautiful young woman with a powerful voice. You can listen to her songs here.
Looks like some of my photos are on her MySpace now.

We spent several hours together, working with different outfits and settings. (By the way, her make up was done by Erin Skipley, a make up artist I work with.). In the end I asked Shawna to sing. (Why did I not think of that before??)





It was great to hear this strong voice. In her dress she reminded me of a mixture out of Julie Delpy and Rita Hayworth. I don't know if these comparisons do any good, but it's inspiring to see these pictures pop up in your head. In any case, it's beautiful if somebody can sing this way, raise the voice for herself. Breathing deep and being proud, standing there.

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Darcy Burner

I did this photo of Darcy Burner for last October's issue of Seattle Woman Magazine. She ran for congress as a Democrat in the state of Washington last year against Dave Reichert, a Republican, in the 8th district. As they were all hard at work on the campaign that day, I only had a few minutes, so this one comes out fairly casual.

The 8th had voted Republican for this office the last six times, so it was surprising to some that Burner came so close to winning. Will hear more from her in the future, I feel. You can still read the article. It is in archive with other past stories here.

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BeadsforLife Cover for Seattle Woman Magazine

Devin Hibbard of BeadsForLife

My first entry...

A cover I shot recently for Seattle Woman Magazine. This is Devin Hibbard of BeadsForLife, a nonprofit organization that helps women in the Third World help themselves. You can download the entire copy of this print magazine from here. It changes every month, of course, but I often do the covers and some inside work.

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ETA on Sept 2, 2007: The issue with the story on Devin Hibbard and BeadsForLife is still available directly from this unposted link, but I don't know for how long.

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Another photo from inside the same issue: this one I made of Angela Blackburn for an article on daughters who take care of their parents.

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